This Week in Legacy: Heresy Detected!
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 new cards coming out of Warhammer 40,000 Commander sets. There's definitely some interesting cards coming out of these sets! In addition to that we've got one paper event from Italy to cover from two weekends ago (4Seasons Bologna) as well as another Buffalo Chicken Dip Legacy event from this past weekend! We've also got both Challenges from this past weekend to review!
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Warhammer 40,000 Commander - Legacy Set Review
Spoiler season was upon us yet again last week as we got to see all of the new cards from the Warhammer 40,000 Universes Beyond Commander decks. These decks are our first real look at Universes Beyond and how cards from those sets may affect Legacy. There are some unique cards in this set, so we're going to break down what looks playable in this set based on each deck that is coming out.
One thing we do not know yet is whether these cards will be on Magic Online. An announcement should be coming soon on that front I hope.
There are four decks, and many of these cards are probably not hyper playable, but there are some very interesting things.
Tyranid Swarm
The Tyranids are an apex predator species in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, so the deck is very aggressive and has a lot to do with +1/+1 counters. One of the key mechanics in this deck is Ravenous, which allows players to reap the benefit of drawing a card for X cost creature by spending five or more mana on X.
Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph
This is definitely a unique card and it makes Grapeshot kind of funky and amusing, so there is that. Having built in protection via Ward is nice too. I don't know if this goes anywhere, but if it does, it's because it will make something broken.
Malanthrope
I'm not super sold on this card. It's definitely interesting for what it does, but we also have Endurance in the format that fills a pretty similar role. I suspect this is way worse than Endurance despite having the bonus of pitching to Force of Will simply because Endurance has flash and also costs no mana.
Mawloc
This card is something I'm very keen on seeing what it does. In the early game, this can be tutored with Green Sun's Zenith and can kill small creatures like flipped Delvers or Elvish Reclaimers that don't yet have three lands in the graveyard. In the late game it can be hard cast into a big threat that can kill a good number of things.
I like modal flexibility like this and that's what has me ultimately intrigued.
Old One Eye
One of the big draws of this card is the fact that it lets you discard two cards from your hand if this card is in your graveyard, thus returning it to hand. This draws a lot of parallels to cards like Phantasmagorian in Manaless Dredge and how that card operates. While you're not doing this at any time (only in precombat main phase) like Phantasmagorian, it's still a unique option for that deck.
There is also the fact that this card is another green card in hand for Force of Vigor, and if you Dread Return this it is creating 11 power right off the bat between itself and the token. This is no Hogaak, but the creature and the token also help cast Hogaak, so there is that.
Toxicrene
This might be the first effect like this that makes all lands lose all abilities on a mono green card, and that in of itself makes this relevant to talk about. The fact that this is a tutorable Blood Moon effect in green with Green Sun's Zenith is well worth a glance. The further nature that it's also a 2/4 with reach and deathtouch is also pretty interesting.
I don't know if this card is good, but I do know that there are some decks that would definitely have issues dealing with one of these in play, so I definitely expect people to be testing with this.
Zoanthrope
Food Chain kind of got a new toy here. While the most common X cost creature in that deck is either Walking Ballista or Hydroid Krasis, having yet another one of these creatures that functionally ends the game upon resolution is pretty good. The only major downside is that it eats both red and blue blasts on the stack, but it is great to see decks that aren't tier decks get cool new cards.
The Ruinous Powers
The forces of Chaos rule this particular deck, much of which leans on the casting of instants/sorceries and utilizes the Cascade mechanic pretty heavily.
Chaos Defiler
This card has some very interesting ramifications in Painter decks, given that it is an artifact and functionally reads "Destroy a permanent an opponent controls" in 1v1 Constructed Magic. One of the bigger and more important aspects of this card is that it does not target and instead "chooses" which means that it can get around things like Ward, Hexproof, etc. This can very easily kill Kappa Cannoneer or Progenitus.
In addition to having ramifications for Painter, this could also be playable in Reanimator as an alternative to Ashen Rider. While Rider can hit lands and this only hits non-lands, most of the time you're wanting to hit non-land cards anyways.
Drach'Nyen
I don't know if there's a good Stoneforge deck out that could play this card, but if there is one, it's possibly some form of Deadguy Ale with the splash into red. The main effect is pretty interesting to say the least. It is worth noting that exiling tokens with this is pretty awkward since the Equip bonus references the "exiled card" and tokens aren't cards and they cease to exist when they hit exile.
What this really means is that you can't exile Marit Lage and then crack back on the opponent with +20/+0. Sads.
Noise Marine
There is definitely a very amusing thing here in regards to a funky Storm based deck casting this at the end like a Grapeshot effect, Five mana is pretty steep though and I suspect that it won't be that good.
Poxwalkers
This is probably one of the more playable cards out of these decks, given how well this card interacts with everything from flashback Cabal Therapy (such as casting every Therapy in your graveyard off a single copy of this) to flashback Faithless Looting and of course the Madness mechanic.
I suspect that this could see play in stuff like LED Dredge, Hogaak, and Madness. What I don't think this will do is improve the status of those decks in current Legacy, due to the fact that cards like Endurance are still a huge beating on those decks. Still, it's always nice to see options given to decks that aren't just blue soup.
The Lost and the Damned
This card is wildly unique, because it's an effect that we haven't really seen before in blue and red. What I don't like about this card is that you aren't going to reap much benefit from it the turn it comes down unless you have a fetch land or something to do with it right off the bat, and the fact that it gets hit by both red and blue blasts (which are both seeing a lot of sideboard play) isn't helpful either.
I do think there could be a fun RUG Lands buildaround with this card, but it's probably not better than existing builds. I also think that it could see play as an alternate win condition in Riddlesmith Combo, where you are pretty constantly casting spells from exile with Containment Construct.
Necron Dynasties
The Necrons are a race of humanoid robot skeleton warriors, thus their deck is heavily based on artifact interactions and graveyards.
Canoptek Scarab Swarm
This one is kind of weird and probably wildly unplayable, but the effect is very unique. Costing four is huge though.
Night Scythe
This card is kind of cool as a possible Goblin Welder target in Painter decks. It comes with its own creature that can crew it, blocks and trades with Delver + DRC, and then can just be recurred again with the token with Welder to come back into play and generate another token. Definitely a lot of fun abusable potential here.
Skorpekh Lord
Three mana to give your artifact army +1/+0 and menace is pretty on rate. The biggest limiter here is probably the reliance on black mana, but the card is intriguing in an aggressive artifact shell.
Trazyn the Infinite
This card combos with stuff like Necrotic Ooze, but what doesn't these days?
Triarch Praetorian
This is kind of a unique possibly Welder/Engineer target, as it's drawing cards regardless. Two mana for draw two lose two is pretty common, but being stapled to a 2/1 flier is reasonable enough. In the decks you want this, you're probably never playing the Unearth cost.
Forces of the Imperium
The Imperium of Man is the Human forces of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, utilizing their great numbers and token generation capabilities to swarm over their opponents. Several cards in this deck also utilize the Miracle mechanic from Avacyn Restored but with the twist of appearing on permanents for the very first time ever.
In addition is a new mechanic called Squad, which is like a version of multikicker. Permanents with Squad have a Squad cost that is paid any number of times when casting the spell and then the permanent makes that many token copies on ETB.
The Golden Throne
This is a unique way to ensure you don't lose the game to Ad Nauseam, but it's no Angel's Grace. This is probably wildly unplayable like many other cards in this set, but it is interesting. Worth noting that this will not save you from Thassa's Oracle, due to a similarly worded card in Lich's Mirror carrying a ruling that states that effects that say the opponent wins the game aren't prevented by it.
Triumph of Saint Katherine
This card is super sweet honestly. A miracle two mana 5/5 lifelinker is just absolutely on rate and very easy to cast in an early game where it will take over the game. Furthermore, just even swinging it into something like a Murktide Regent isn't going to get rid of it for long, because of its death trigger. Despite the odd name, this is not Legendary and you can definitely put four of these into play at once, which makes it more interesting. It's also a Human, so that could be utterly relevant as well despite the fact that those decks are often not playing Brainstorm.
I don't know if this will see play, but I can hear Phil Blechman salivating over this all the way from here.
Zephyrim
Entreat the Angels doesn't quite see that much play anymore, but I do think this card could. One of the big strengths of this card is not getting hit by countermagic like Force of Negation or Flusterstorm, and while you are slightly more mana intensive in terms of amount of mana spent versus the number of creatures you are less mana intensive in terms of colors required.
One of the better ways of cutting players off Entreat was to cut them off white mana where the double white cost of the Miracle cost was very prohibitive. Being able to cast Zephyrim off a single white source is very relevant. While the bodies are slightly worse than Entreat (3/3 vs 4/4) they do all have vigilance as well and they are Humans.
4Seasons Bologna 9/11
I mentioned last week we would have some data for this event, and now we do! 4Seasons Bologna took place in Bologna, Italy on 9/11 and had a truly stellar attendance of 313 players in it! Superb stuff for sure. I want to thank Nicola Guidi for his continued efforts and work in the Italian Magic scene to keep getting us the data for these events.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
UR Delver was all over this event, and it had a strong win rate plus a very solid conversion rate to the Top 8. Jeskai and 4C Control were also very popular as was Reanimator.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | Player Name |
|---|---|---|
| Doomsday | 1st | Szegho Dalibor |
| 4C Control | 2nd | Marc Eric Vogt |
| UR Delver | 3rd | Francesco Gregori |
| RUG Delver | 4th | Giovanni Maria Scullin |
| UR Delver | 5th | Alessio Fedi |
| UR Delver | 6th | Claudio Bonanni |
| 4C Control | 7th | Andrea Fortunati |
| UR Delver | 8th | Guillem Salvador |
So much Delver in this Top 8, but the event was won by none other than Doomsday with a sweet Esper splash.
Pretty cool list overall. I love the copy of Sevinne's Reclamation in the sideboard here and the semi transformational sideboard into just Esper Miracles.
The Second Place finalist was on 4C Control.
Minsc & Boo continues to really push these 4C pile decks for sure. Solid looking deck!
Buffalo Chicken Dip Legacy 10 9/17
This past weekend was another paper event in Westerville, OH in Buffalo Chicken Dip Legacy 10! There was some trepidation going up to this event as to whether the event was going to happen or not, due to the fact that signups were rather low, which is unusual for the BCDL events. In the end we had 37 players in the event, with one actually dropping at the beginning for a total of 36. You can check out all of BCDL's events on their Twitter and the VOD for this event over here. Note that there wasn't much commentary with the coverage until Round 3 as both Rob Wilson and I had dropped from the event and opted to do commentary through the next three rounds. Thanks to Rob for giving me that opportunity because it was super fun.
As indicated, my own event did not go that well as I ended up in the old 0-3 drop bracket, but at the same time I had very little preparation for the event overall and because of that, I opted to play a pure nightmare-fueled meme of a deck.
That's right, it was Turbo Gyruda.
Having had a bit of time to playtest this on MTGO a little bit it became clear that the deck did still function, but was definitely slower. I have further ideas as to how I'd adjust this list that I do plan to actually implement. However, while I didn't do well, I did get to do the "thing" at least twice in the event, one of which was on camera in the very first match.
I think there's possible merit for this deck to be reasonable, I just need to find the right configuration for it.
Let's go down to the event itself. You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
The biggest thing of note here is the fact that this event had absolutely the lowest population of UR Delver than we've ever seen at one of these events. There was one UR Delver player overall in this event, and the top deck slot was taken up by GW Depths with six players on the deck. D&T and Red Stompy were also highly represented in this event, so plenty of UR Delver predators all around.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | Player Name |
|---|---|---|
| Reanimator | 1st | Garrett Miller |
| GW Depths | 2nd | Gabriel Ebady |
| Painter | 3rd-4th | John Hata |
| GW Depths | 3rd-4th | Adam Fronsee |
| Reanimator | 5th-8th | Amin Ebady |
| Red Stompy | 5th-8th | Avichal Joshi |
| Death and Taxes | 5th-8th | David Lance |
| 4C Control | 5th-8th | Ryan Hayes |
Quite an interesting Top 8 here. Reanimator really did quite well here, pushing both lists into the Top 8. At the end of the event though it was one of the Reanimator lists that took it all down. Given the makeup of the top tables here I'm actually not super surprised at this finish.
Very solid and straightforward list for sure here. I am starting to see four Grief and four Unmask a lot more these days. Dauthi Voidwalker in the sideboard is also pretty cool.
The Second Place finalist was the last winner of BCDL, Gabriel Ebady on GW Depths.
Definite MVPs of the day I saw out of several GW Depths matchups was Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes and Outland Liberator. This list is very strong for sure!
Legacy Challenge 9/17
Our first Legacy Challenge of the weekend was the early morning Saturday event. This event had 67 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.
Delver had a strong representation here but not a super strong win rate (although it was reasonably close enough to 50% still). 4C Control did quite well as did GW Depths and Elves.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| UR Delver | 1st | Ozymandias17 |
| Cephalid Breakfast | 2nd | Enrichetta |
| Oops! All Spells | 3rd | faultedform |
| Doomsday | 4th | m_himukai |
| 4C Control | 5th | zhinonono |
| 4C Control | 6th | trunks132 |
| RUG Midrange | 7th | sakuragi21722749 |
| Elves | 8th | EronRelentless |
While Delver overall didn't do well, it did do very well in the hands of our good friend Matt Vook, who took down this whole event on the deck.
As Matt said himself on Twitter, this is very much a close to stock list as you can get at this point. No super huge frills here, just clean powerful Delver.
The Second Place finalist was on Cephalid Breakfast.
Some very interesting card choices here, such as Step Through for its Wizard-cycling ability (Cephalid Illusionist is a Wizard after all) and a more tempo-esque nature to the deck overall with three copies of Daze.
Also in the Top 8 we had some Oops! All Spells!
Faultedform is a well known Oops player and their lists are quite powerful. Memory's Journey has long been a piece of tech they've pushed for forever, and it seems like it really pays off for them.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we've got Elves.
More of a standard Reclaimer list here than much of the experimentation the Elves Cabal of Newton Hang have been doing over the past month or so. We even see that Leaf-Crowned Visionary is gone too, which makes a lot of sense. I am digging the Burrenton Forge-Tender in the sideboard here as a sweet hedge against stuff like Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes.
Legacy Challenge 9/18
The second Challenge event of the weekend was the mid-afternoon Sunday event. This event had 111 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.
UR Delver bounced back quite well in this event, with a 52.86% non-mirror win rate and at around 13-14% of the metagame overall. Yorion Zenith also did quite well, as did D&T and Red Stompy.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| 4C Control | 1st | AnziD |
| Elves | 2nd | runkor |
| UR Delver | 3rd | Ozymandias17 |
| Yorion Zenith | 4th | fishduggery |
| Doomsday | 5th | Enrichetta |
| UR Delver | 6th | JPA93 |
| Red Stompy | 7th | Hakumei1234 |
| Yorion Zenith | 8th | LeoFa |
A very interesting Top 8, with some familiar faces like UR Delver, but also some Elves and even Yorion Zenith. At the end of the event it was a repeat performance by Anuraag Das winning the event on 4C Control.
This is the same list that Anuraag won with last week, and it's definitely looking very good. Minsc & Boo is really putting some moves on Legacy for sure.
The Second Place finalist was our good friend runkor on Elves.
This is more the Newton Hang style of lists that has been gaining steam with four main deck copies of Fiend Artisan. Definitely makes for a very solid toolbox package with cards like Opposition Agent in the main deck as well.
Also in the Top 8 we've got Yorion Zenith.
Fable of the Mirror-Breaker is a sweet inclusion in this deck, giving both color fixing and makes for copying some of the creatures in this deck a very cool way to reap value.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we've got some Red Stompy action.
This is a build more focused on the value of cards like Laelia and Anje's Ravager. In addition we've got Caves of Chaos Adventurer in the mix! Pretty cool list overall.
Around the Web
- Bryant Cook is playing Marcus Ewaldh's Founding the Third Path deck. Check it out here.
- Y'all want some hamsters?
- There's a great new article on the Doomsday wiki! Check it out here.
- We've also got two great pieces of content from xJCloud this week.
- The first of which is a new article on pet cards in Moon Stompy over on MinMaxBlog.
- The second is a guest appearance on Everyday Eternal talking about Moon Stompy! Check it out here.
- RAKDOS KNIGHTS
The Spice Corner
You can find this past week's 5-0 deck lists over here.
This Jeskai list is playing no Brainstorms, and FOUR CHALICE MAIN.
Titan Combo courtesy of our good friend Brian Coval.
You wanted Rakdos Knights, right? Julian Knab's list is here for all to see (seriously go watch that video).
Our good friend Peter van der Ham is playing Shadow Prophecy in Delver with OBOSH.
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!
