This Week in Legacy: Finalest Fantasy, Part 2
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 finishing up our set review of Final Fantasy. In addition to that we've got some Challenges from last week to take a look at.
It's worth noting that I will be on vacation for the next two weeks (the first two weeks of June). During that time there will be no articles as I am taking a short break. I'll probably be posting pictures of my adventures in these two weeks from my BlueSky so feel free to check that out if you'd like.
Finaling the Fantasy, Part 2
I'm wrapping up on the Final Fantasy set review this week since I will be on vacation soon. I haven't seen a bunch more to look at but there's some cards that are intriguing.
Eject
Four mana is a lot for this effect, but uncounterable bounce is interesting, especially when stapled to card draw.
Jumbo Cactuar
Hahah yeah this is a card. Very expensive for what it is, but that attack trigger.
Tifa Lockhart
Not gonna lie I wanna definitely do some things with this and Scythecat Cub. Seems like that could be pretty devastating.
Ninja's Blades
I'm not sure this is actually all that good but it seems like a pretty unique Stoneforge target. The combat damage trigger is neat, and the equip is inexpensive enough to put it on something with evasion.
Summon: Bahamut
I think it may take something even more absurd to ever dethrone Atraxa, Grand Unifier as a Reanimator target and Archon of Cruelty as a backup, but two turns of getting to blow up a permanent is neat and then getting to draw two cards is cool. The last chapter is probably not the best in that type of shell.
Summon: Primal Odin
Okay okay, this one is actually sort of amusing. Any time there's text like "that player loses the game" on a card I do think it might be interesting. There are just games where you Reanimate this and your opponent basically dies to it the next turn because you rip apart their hand of ways to interact with it. The bigger issue is that you only get that one swing out of it.
Overkill
-0/-9999 is SUPER HILARIOUS. I love it. This is a joke (the card, not me loving the text).
MTGO Spellgrounds Legacy Coming June 2nd!
Magic Online Spellgrounds is debuting soon, and lots of great things are happening there. This event is basically a Super Jump style draft where you are presented 3 of 6 decks randomly and you choose one to play the event with. These events are FREE, meaning you can pick a deck and play up to three matches without the pressure of prizes. If you want, you can also enter their Gauntlet event which is the same event but you pay either 2 Event Tickets/20 Play Points/1 Gauntlet Token and can win 30 Play Points for 3 wins. You can find all of the recent information on this over on the MTGO blog post here.
While the first week of this is Modern, on June 2nd the entire week will be LEGACY. That's right, if you've ever been on the fence about trying out Legacy, you can now just queue a bunch of times with SIX different Legacy decks for free and try out the format. This is amazing for people wanting to learn the format. Furthermore, both myself and D&T master Akaleth were a part of helping to select the decks for this event (big thanks to Akaleth for all their help in this) via our participation in the Magic Online Creator Program.
But hey, we took it a step further too. I personally recorded a short primer video for each of the six decks that will be posted to the MTGO University YouTube channel (a great channel to subscribe too if you are looking for instructional videos on how to best utilize MTGO). These videos are high level introductions meant for players newer to the format to get a basic understanding of what to expect playing the deck and some common play patterns to look out for.
This was a wonderful opportunity to do something in this vein, and I love the Magic Online Creator Program for giving me that opportunity to do so. Be sure to check out the Spellgrounds events for FREE starting June 2nd and running through to the following Monday.
Legacy Challenge 32 5/21/2025
The first Challenge event 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 and the data sheet here.
Dimir Tempo was the most played deck of the event by one copy and it's win rate was slightly over 50%. Izzet Tempo and Blue Painter looked great, as did Lands. Oops only had two pilots and a below 40% win rate.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Izzet Tempo | 1st | achillies27 |
| Izzet Tempo | 2nd | i_b_TRUE |
| Dimir Tempo | 3rd | EdwardKenway |
| Blue Painter | 4th | YES_i_accept_SPLIT_ |
| Mystic Forge Combo | 5th | musasabi |
| Paradoxical Outcome | 6th | boytriton |
| Grixis Tempo | 7th | _Shatun_ |
| Mono Black Reanimator | 8th | Unagi79 |
Fair amount of Combo here between Forge, Painter, PO, and Reanimator. At the end of the event it was a pair of Izzet Tempo decks that were in the finals. Let's look at the winner.
Cori-Steel Cutter is just one of those cards that really does quite a lot in these kinds of decks. Having a persistent threat that is hard to deal with via 1v1 removal is pretty good. A lot of times you can spend some removal to get rid of a few of Tempo's threats and then you can have some breathing room to find a path to win, but Cori-Steel Cutter means they have the potential to generate another threat without having to really do anything special other than playing cards they already were playing.
Let's look at the Second Place list.
So also what I think is cool and interesting is the fact that there are still Delver shells that are still utilizing effects like Questing Druid and not playing Cori-Steel Cutter. I think it shows that there's a reasonable space for both types of Tempo shells to exist and it seems like neither is better than the other just different, and I like that space in the Tempo side of Legacy where there's not one super clear option that is 1000% correct.
Legacy Challenge 32 5/23/2025
The second Challenge event of the week was the Friday event. This event had 46 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Izzet Tempo was the most played deck here, but its win rate was less than 50% despite having two copies in the Top 8. Dimir Tempo and Oops both posed solid win rates, while Beans, Blue Painter, and Red Stompy all kind of tanked.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Death and Taxes - BW (Yorion) | 1st | yoshiwata |
| Dimir Tempo | 2nd | harmonywoods |
| Lands | 3rd | knotoast |
| Dimir Tempo | 4th | EmperorOppai |
| Oops! All Spells | 5th | _Shikamaru_ |
| Izzet Tempo | 6th | O_danielakos |
| Izzet Tempo | 7th | parkss |
| Sneak and Show | 8th | GrouchyTurtle |
Lot of Tempo in this Top 8, but at the end of the event it was D&T that won.
D&T traditionally always has had a fairly strong Tempo matchup, as the deck is usually often well geared to attacking those kinds of strategies. D&T is another deck that 1v1 removal tends to be rather poor against because many of its effects overlap in a lot of ways and allows the deck to have more redundancy in its game plan. The Phelia list especially, is just very strong at doing a ton of things, namely getting rid of opposing cards for a short period of time is great.
In Second Place we had Dimir Tempo.
Definitely a very straightforward Dimir list here. Barrowgoyf is really one of the big stars of the show here. It's difficult to block profitably and does a lot of really powerful things.
Legacy Challenge 32 5/24/2025
The third Challenge event of the week was the Saturday event. This event had 47 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Oops was the most played deck here, but despite one Top 8 its win rate was less than 50% (especially non-mirror at 46.88%). Dimir Reanimator though looked great as did Dimir Tempo. Lot of decks across the board here were definitely less than 50%.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Dimir Reanimator | 1st | _INF_ |
| Grixis Control | 2nd | Ark4n |
| Izzet Tempo | 3rd | Coldsnaps |
| Dimir Reanimator | 4th | mortr3d |
| Sneak and Show | 5th | JPA93 |
| Oops! All Spells | 6th | TheGrimLavamancer |
| Maverick | 7th | achillies27 |
| Lands | 8th | Sprouts |
Fairly interesting Top 8 here. At the end of the event it was Dimir Reanimator that won.
This is pretty much what we've come to expect out of this deck, although Kaito is a pretty cool inclusion to kind of add to the Tempo side of the deck construction. It's a good card, so I'm not really all that surprised to see it here.
In Second Place we had Grixis Control.
Thundertrap Trainer has been really good in Vintage as of late, and the card is really super interesting for what it does. It does play well into allowing Flame of Anor to be a really good card since Wizards-matters is important to that card, and Trainer, Snapcaster, and Tamiyo all fill that role of enabling it. This list is pretty sweet.
Legacy Challenge 32 5/25/2025 - 1
The fourth Challenge event of the week was the first Sunday event. This event had 47 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Dimir Reanimator was the most played deck, and its win rate was very good. Izzet Tempo also looked good, as did Mystic Forge. Oops showed up here but its win rate was very bad.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Necrodominance Combo | 1st | wonderPreaux |
| Mystic Forge Combo | 2nd | musasabi |
| Grixis Control | 3rd | harmonywoods |
| Dimir Reanimator | 4th | Capriccioso |
| Doomsday | 5th | m_himukai |
| Dimir Reanimator | 6th | Munchlax446 |
| Bant Control (Yorion) | 7th | Trohck |
| Dimir Reanimator | 8th | _INF_ |
Good number of Combo here. At the end of the event, it was Mono Black Necrodominance Combo that won.
I will admit Ancient Cellarspawn with Soul Spike is kind of a neat interaction. This is definitely a deck for sure.
In Second Place we had Mystic Forge.
New Ugin is pretty interesting here, given the number of colorless spells this deck tries to cast on average in most turns. Still feels very high in mana value for me, because most of the time this deck is winning fast or not at all, but I think it's a neat card for the deck overall.
Legacy Challenge 32 5/25/2025 - 2
The final Challenge event of the week was the second Sunday event. This event had 61 players in it thanks to the MTGO website. Due to a glitch 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Mystic Forge Combo | 1st | Jujkata |
| Dimir Reanimator | 2nd | ecobaronen |
| Dimir Reanimator | 3rd | kentaro_hokori |
| Lands | 4th | CCdsmash |
| Oops! All Spells | 5th | vodkaMian |
| Dimir Tempo | 6th | EmperorOppai |
| Lands | 7th | Sprouts |
| Beanstalk Control (Non-Yorion) | 8th | Rexplosion |
Very interesting Top 8. At the end of the event, it was Mystic Forge that won.
Candelabra of Tawnos is a super sick card in a deck that plays a bunch of things like Urza's Tower and Urza's Workshop. Especially if you can just untap Candle with a Key.
In Second Place we had Dimir Reanimator.
Fairly standard looking Dimir Reanimator list here. Not seeing any insane frills or anything. Where's the SPICE?! (I jest, this deck is just good).
Around the Web
- BeExcellent posted their first ever league video in Japanese (after years of study). This is a pretty cool accomplishment for sure. Check it out here.
- StrassDaddy has some Big Cat Jund action. Check it out here.
- Ecobaronen is hosting an online qualifier for the European Legacy Masters (ELM) event. Check out more info here.
The Spice Corner
Now that Leagues are posted throughout the week, let's find some Spice!
WORLDGORGER DRAGON.
Ok I played a little bit of this deck. This deck is SPICY AS HECK.
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!
