This Week in Legacy: Into the Pit
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 my night last weekend with the folks of the Legacy Pit! I had an excellent time with these fine folks and some great games of Legacy, and I'm looking forward to talking about it! We also have events to cover this week, namely a Super Qualifier and two Challenge events as the first big post Lurrus/Zirda ban events! As always we also have our Spice Corner, and it's a great one this week.
Without further ado, let's dive right into the thick of things!
Going Deep into the (Legacy) Pit
This past Sunday, I was given the opportunity to join the folks of The Legacy Pit. I've mentioned these guys before on here, but the Legacy Pit is a Twitch stream devoted to showcasing paper Legacy. Typically they are doing this gathered together within their head honcho Travis Parsley's house, but with the current state of events with the ongoing pandemic, the Pit has shifed to include a Remote Player schedule, bringing various MTG Legacy personalities into the Pit to battle it out.
Because of the nature of this type of event, the Pit are allowing the use of proxies in order to showcase remote games, which is great for me given that I mainly play on Magic Online. To that end I proxied four decks to have, and I'll be talking about each of those decks and the games I played with them.
The first deck that I had available was a Delver/Kavu Predator deck and despite not ever seeing any Kavu the entire night, the games with this list were absolutely on fire.
Some of the great highlights of this deck were getting to use Sprite Dragon and Dreadhorde Arcanist in conjunction with Become Immense and Berserk to one shot Cole Frigm on his Song of Creation deck (which I will be sharing below) in Game 1. In addition, I was able to cast Invigorate on Arcanist and then flashback Invigorate with Arcanist. I played a fair amount with this deck and I really enjoyed the heck out of it. Out of the matches I played with this deck, I won every match with it, and the games were really powerful.
Matches Played w/ this Deck:
- vs Cole Frigm on Song of Creation (2-1 WIN)
- vs Ryan Freeburger on Lutri Control (2-0 WIN)
- vs Cole Frigm on Song of Creation (2-0 WIN)
The second deck I brought with me was Turbo Gyruda.
This variant was loosely based on some of the list technology that Bob Huang had been playing but with Leyline of Anticipation. While my luck with Gyruda is often wildly out there, I managed to scrape by quite a bit of wins with this deck and showcased just how strong the deck is. One of the great highlights of this deck was getting to use Leyline of Anticipation to set up a Turn 1 OTD as well as having a turn where I was able to cast Gyruda from hand and then additionally cast the one from Companion zone in a follow up turn.
Matches Played w/ this Deck:
- vs Ryan Freeburger on Jeskai Twin (2-1 WIN)
- vs Bryan Chasanoff on Hogaak Pox (2-1 WIN)
The third deck I brought was the most underpeforming deck of the night sadly, as I lost every match with it, which was Kaheera Elementals.
I had not had a ton of playtesting with this deck prior to playing in the Pit with it, and I feel as if the Kaheera variant is a little worse than a regular variant with say Jegantha, as Kaheera really limits you on creatures and you aren't able to play cards like Phantasmal Image which are infinitely better against cards like Plague Engineer. This deck needs a lot more work and needs to revert back to one of those versions, but it was a real test to see whether or not I could build with Kaheera in mind and have it be interesting. Regardless of how the deck performed, I still had a lot of fun attempting to navigate a bunch of really bad matchups with it.
Matches Played w/ this Deck:
- vs Travis Parsley on Depths (0-2 LOSS)
- vs Cole Frigm on Loam (0-2 LOSS)
- vs Travis Parsley on Deadguy Ale (1-2 LOSS)
The final deck I brought I only played one time on stream and that is because it was a bear to shuffle. The Solnox Special, it's 100 Card Yorion Nic Fit.
Despite playing only once with this deck, this felt like the most raw powerful thing with all of the card draw and insanity the deck provided. The big highlight of this deck was getting to make double Primeval Titan with all three Field of the Dead in the list, as well as getting to cast Dead of Winter twice in a row against Elves. I was also able to get into play and activate Fiend Artisan. This was one of the most fun matchups of the night for sure.
Matches Played w/ this Deck:
- vs David Sittinger on Elves (2-1 WIN)
All in all my total match record for the Pit was 6-3 (with the only losses being on the Elementals deck). At the end of the night having played 9 rounds of Legacy within close to 5 hours, we ended the stream, mainly because my phone battery was close to dying (which is my current webcam situation for paper MTG over webcam). I had a ton of great fun with everyone involved in the Pit and I want to thank Travis for having me on. It was super fun and I am looking forward to them being able to put back on their regular show again, but these Remote Player sessions definitely deserve a lot of love and attention. Be sure to check out their Twitch Channel and subscribe to their YouTube Channel!
As promised earlier, here is Cole Frigm's sweet Song of Creation deck first draft. It was super cool to see it do its thing at least once.
Community Legacy Update
Again, still not too much going on in the world of paper Legacy other than what we've talked about in the past few weeks already with Double Dash and paper webcam groups. If you have anything you would like me to cover here, please feel free to reach out!
Legacy Super Qualifier 5/2
We had a Super Qualifier this week, and it was a doozy! Let's kick it off by talking about the Top 32 Metagame breakdown.
There was a fair amount of Snow decks and a lot of Yorion Snowko in this event, however, Yorion only managed to convert one copy of the deck to the Top 8, as well as one copy of regular 60-card Snowko as well. There was also a ton of Omni-Tell in this event, which makes a lot of sense given Yorion Snowko's softness to super fast combo. Let's look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Turbo Gyruda | 1st | Griselpuff |
| Snowko | 2nd | RobGladiator90 |
| RUG Delver | 3rd | SilviaWataru |
| Omni-Tell | 4th | Gottelicious |
| Yorion Snowko | 5th | CoolUser |
| RUG Delver | 6th | Fishduggery |
| Snowko | 7th | JStealths17 |
| Omni-Tell | 8th | BananaThrower |
This is certainly an interesting Top 8 with a fair amount of both combo and fair decks represented. At the top of this event however and one of the players nabbing one of two PT qualifications is our good friend Bob Huang on Turbo Gyruda.
I really like Bob's list here, as I really dig the inclusion of Thought-Knot Seer in the main deck. It's very powerful as a backup plan if things go wrong Game 1.
In Second Place, taking the other PT qualification is RobGladiator90 on Snowko.
As was to be expected post Lurrus/Zirda ban that Snowko decks in general would return to the metagame and that is of course what we've seen here. The regular 60 card version seems like a great way to attack this specific kind of event where people are expected to bring fast decks and perceived beat the metagame decks that beat things like Yorion Snowko. The 80 card nature of the Yorion decks makes it hard for those decks to play against fast combo with narrow sideboard cards due to often being unable to find them.
In Third Place we have RUG Delver.
It is interesting here to see Jegantha as a card these decks are playing, and this essentially means that post-board the deck is going down to 0 copies of Force of Will and Force of Negation to enable it as a Companion which is super intriguing to me. Having a free 5/5 threat seems pretty powerful in the fair matchups where you get to board in cards like Red Elemental Blast/Pyroblast and the like.
In Fourth Place we have Omni-Tell.
As with the return of Snowko comes the return of decks like Omni-Tell, which thrive in a format where there's a lot less Delver than was around during the Lurrus Metagame. The singleton Uro here is pretty sweet, for sure.
In Fifth Place we have our first Yorion Snowko deck.
There is a lot going on in these Yorion decklists, but they share a lot of similar notions in having access to a lot of countermagic and a lot of cantrips to try and find their payoffs. Wilt out of the sideboard is pretty cool though.
In Sixth Place we have another RUG Delver build.
This version doesn't have Jegantha but it does have Klothys, God of Destiny in the sideboard which is pretty cool. Klothys can be really powerful versus the Snowko decks in being able to remove cards like Uro from the graveyard which is highly relevant in those games.
In Seventh Place we have another regular Snowko deck.
The biggest thing to unpack here is the presence of both Back to Basics and Blood Moon in the sideboard. This really ultimately leads to the conversation about Astrolabe and the subtle effect it has on the overall metagame, which we will be discussing in a future article.
Rounding out the Top 8 we have Omni-Tell.
More Uro! This seems like an interesting card for Omni as it gives the deck a really solid backup plan outside of the Show and Tell plan which is really interesting. The deck can grind with Uro/Ice-Fang easily and then drop Omniscience when it's convenient which is quite strong.
Now let's take a look at the 2019-2020 cards and the Companions in this event. Again we are only looking at 2019 cards if there are 10 copies or more in the event.
| Card Name | Number of Copies |
|---|---|
| Veil of Summer | 59 |
| Ice-Fang Coatl | 53 |
| Oko, Thief of Crowns | 52 |
| Arcum's Astrolabe | 48 |
| Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath | 44 |
| Force of Negation | 41 |
| Prismatic Vista | 40 |
| Dead of Winter | 22 |
| Karn, the Great Creator | 11 |
| Mystic Sanctuary | 10 |
| Plague Engineer | 10 |
| Gyruda, Doom of Depths | 9 |
| Yorion, Sky Nomad | 8 |
| Sprite Dragon | 3 |
| Cling to Dust | 2 |
| Jegantha, the Wellspring | 2 |
| Klothys, God of Destiny | 1 |
| Ox of Agonas | 1 |
This is a ton of Veil of Summer and Veil of Summer related accessories. With as much Snowko as was in this event, this makes a lot of sense that these cards would jump up in play popularity.
Now let's take a look at the Companions.
Yorion, Gyruda, and Jegantha had a fair presence in this event, but nothing quite like how dominant Lurrus was during that metagame. I expect we will see Yorion fluctuate but will never see it climb up to Lurrus levels as people figure out how to attack the 80 card decks with faster combo. This could potentially represent a shift to 60 card Snowko to deal with faster combo simply because of the consistency increase in doing so.
Legacy Challenge 5/23
Our first Challenge of the weekend was the early morning Saturday challenge, which tends to bring in more European and Japanese players. Let's take a look at the Top 32 Metagame Breakdown.
There was quite a bit of RUG Delver in this event, along with Yorion Snowko, but there were quite a few various other decks showing up in the Top 32. Even the Top 8 was relatively interesting, so let's dive into that.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Yorion Snowko | 1st | CoolUser |
| RUG Delver | 2nd | Aytor_92 |
| U/B Ninjas | 3rd | Skuttlespike |
| LED Dredge | 4th | RomarioVidal |
| ANT | 5th | _INF_ |
| RUG Delver | 6th | Twin_MTG |
| Eldrazi Aggro | 7th | Shirotsuki |
| Yorion Snowko | 8th | Svaca |
This certainly was super interesting of a Top 8, with some real spice in there. Winning the event however was CoolUser on Yorion Snowko.
This is essentially the same list that CoolUser Top 8'ed the Super Qualifier with, so that's super cool. The Wilt is still pretty neat.
In Second Place we have RUG Delver.
Again we see Jegantha here in a similar list to the one that placed well in the Super Qualifier. This does seem to be a thing, so we'll see how well it fares going forward.
In Third Place we have the extremely intriguing Skuttlespike with U/B Ninjas.
This list is pretty cool. I love the Faerie subtheme as well. This is a really interesting deck and it's great to see it do well.
In Fourth Place we have LED Dredge by our good friend Romario Neto.
LED Dredge is always an off the radar type deck and thus a lot fewer people play it than they really should be, because the deck is pretty powerful and does quite well. Both Ox of Agonas and Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis were solid additions to the deck.
In Fifth Place we have ANT.
Despite the uptick in Veil of Summer I think Storm is not in too hateful a position still. Wishclaw Talisman is a great addition to the deck and especially against Yorion this can be powerful versus those decks.
In Sixth Place we have another RUG Delver list.
This list also has Jegantha, but it also has multiple Klothys, God of Destiny AND a singleton Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath making it more of a Delver midrange type shell than anything.
In Seventh Place we have Eldrazi Aggro.
No Once Upon a Time in this list is pretty interesting given that most of the lists had readily adopted that technology. Endbringer is very cool though and hasn't been seen for a while.
Rounding out the Top 8 we have another take on Yorion Snowko with more of a BUG Control slant.
Hymn to Tourach! Drown in the Loch! STRIX! Yes, this definitely is a Svaca list.
Now let's take a look at the 2019-2020 cards in this event, as well as the Companions.
| Card Name | Number of Copies |
|---|---|
| Oko, Thief of Crowns | 46 |
| Force of Negation | 40 |
| Veil of Summer | 35 |
| Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath | 30 |
| Ice-Fang Coatl | 29 |
| Arcum's Astrolabe | 28 |
| Dreadhorde Arcanist | 24 |
| Prismatic Vista | 24 |
| Klothys, God of Destiny | 6 |
| Cling to Dust | 5 |
| Yorion, Sky Nomand | 5 |
| Gyruda, Doom of Depths | 4 |
| Jegantha, the Wellspring | 3 |
| Soul-Guide Lantern | 3 |
| Ox of Agonas | 2 |
| Wilt | 1 |
Again, there was plenty of Snowko related stuff, but also plenty of Oko which is not exclusive to Snowko decks (given that there was a fair amount of RUG Delver as well).
Now let's take a look at the Companions.
There were a lot more non-Companion decks in this event, and I feel like this is a fine place to be with these cards. While the mechanic itself is fairly egregious, Lurrus and Zirda were likely more correct to get rid of than the entire mechanic for sure.
Legacy Challenge 5/24
Our second Challenge of the weekend proved as well to be somewhat interesting. Let's take a look at the Top 32 Metagame.
Again, there was a lot of RUG Delver and a fair amount of Yorion Snowko, but the conversion to the Top 8 favored RUG Delver a bit better. Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Yorion DNT | 1st | MikeBrav |
| RUG Delver | 2nd | Ziofrancone |
| Yorion Snowko | 3rd | MisplacedGinger |
| U/B Ninjas | 4th | Skuttlespike |
| Infect | 5th | FenrusCloud |
| Esper Vial | 6th | BaronOfBacon |
| Turbo Gyruda | 7th | SandyDogMTG |
| RUG Delver | 8th | Aytor_92 |
What a wild Top 8 for sure in this event, with plenty of spice and interesting decks. At the top of the heap is MikeBrav with Yorion Death and Taxes.
What a wildly interesting and cool deck this is. Definitely a really cool way to build DNT. Yorion seems pretty great with Flickerwisp and Palace Jailer for sure.
In Second Place we have RUG Delver again.
No Klothys, no Jegantha, just good old fashioned RUG with Arcanist and Mandrills/Goyf. Simple and effective.
In Third Place we have Yorion Snowko.
Not much to be said about these builds now as they are starting to coalesce already into a good shell. Wilt is catching on a lot more it seems.
In Fourth Place, making their second Top 4 in the same weekend with the same deck it's U/B Ninjas.
Again this list seems incredibly cool and powerful. Props to Skuttlespike for making two Top 4's with this over the weekend.
In Fifth Place we have Infect.
No Oko at all is interesting, but Infect can sometimes just muscle through everything, and with people wanting to be on slower Snow decks, Infect seems like a pretty reasonable choice of tempo deck.
In Sitxth Place we have the best username on MTGO (BaronOfBacon) with Esper Vial.
It's great to see this deck return. It's a very powerful deck and it is incredibly grindy and fun.
In Seventh Place we have Turbo Gyruda.
This is basically the same list that Bob Huang won the Super Qualifier this week. Very powerful stuff, indeed.
Rounding out the Top 8 we have RUG Delver.
Zero Jegantha, but we do have a Klothys in the sideboard. I really like Klothys for these decks. It gives them a ton of game against the Snow matchups for sure.
Now let's take a look at the 2019-2020 cards in this event as well as the Companions.
| Card Name | Number of Copies |
|---|---|
| Oko, Thief of Crowns | 41 |
| Force of Negation | 35 |
| Arcum's Astrolabe | 28 |
| Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath | 28 |
| Veil of Summer | 27 |
| Ice-Fang Coatl | 24 |
| Prismatic Vista | 23 |
| Dreadhorde Arcanist | 14 |
| Plague Engineer | 12 |
| Gyruda, Doom of Depths | 8 |
| Yorion, Sky Nomad | 6 |
| Klothys, God of Destiny | 4 |
| Wilt | 3 |
| Cling to Dust | 2 |
| Jegantha, the Wellspring | 2 |
| Sprite Dragon | 1 |
The expected trend of events over the weekend is expected. Snow is cold, water is wet. We will certainly be discussing what may need to take place longer term for the format in a future article.
Now let's look at the Companions.
The remaining playable Companions seem to be holding pretty steady where they are currently. Yorion seeing play isn't nearly as much as Lurrus was.
Companion Watch
Despite the bannings, I am still going to be keeping track in my graph on the remaining Companions. I am however, restarting the graph to the first events post ban, which were last weekend's three events. I will be updating this as we continue along to show the impact of this mechanic further on Legacy.
As we can see, the three playable Companions are hovering under 10 decks on average, with Yorion dipping up and down, but still the most playable one. Whether we will see a sharp uptick in Yorion is a really good question, one that I believe the answer to is no. As I've mentioned before, Yorion has a fair weakness versus fast combo due to being unable to leverage sideboard cards effectively within 80 cards. This I believe will influence the numbers of Yorion for sure.
Around the Web
- Thiago Duarte wrote a great article post on F.I.R.E. design philosophy and its impact on Legacy, which you can check out over here.
- Good friend Cliffy was part of a Mana Tutors video on teaching ANT, which is great and you can check that out here.
- The Canadian Threshold podcast posted a new episode talking about the BnR announcement over here.
- Everyday Eternal had on our good friend Max Gilmore in a great episode called "Don't Sleep On These Decks" which you can find here.
- ASTROLABIAN NIIIIIIIIIGHTS!
The Spice Corner
Our first list comes from Daize, who 5-0'ed with a Bomberman build utilizing Gyruda, Doom of Depths as the Companion.
There's a Shark Typhoon in this Yorion deck. Just thought you all should know that.
Our good friend xJCloud is a true madman of epic proportions.
Lutri?! Yeah, Lutri!
YORION. WORLDGORGER DRAGON.
What I'm Playing This Week
I'm actually not really certain what I'm playing this week, but I might give this deck some more spins since I had so much fun with it on the Legacy Pit.
Wrapping Up
That's all the time we have this week folks! Thank you all for your ongoing support of the column and as join me next week as we continue our journey into Legacy.
As always you can reach me on 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, keep casting cantrips!
