This Week in Legacy: Legacy Data?!?
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 a lot about the Legacy Data Collection Project. In addition to that we're taking a look at last week's Challenge events.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
An Update on the Legacy Data Collection Project
If you've spent any amount of time reading my articles, you would be aware of the fact that the amount of data I have had available for the weekly Challenge events has greatly diminished to the point where it's typical that I only have one Challenge that has a data sheet attached to it per week.
For some background, I started the Legacy Data Collection Project at a period of time where Snowko was one of the big decks of the format. A big part of the reasons it was started was primarily because we were curious just how strong things like Oko/Astrolabe were and also to replicate the success that the Vintage team had with collecting data. This is at a time where there was only two major Challenge events every week. We had many players collecting data and doing replays for this project. At some point, we added the ability to gather more accurate winrate data by inputting all of the rounds for events.
Eventually, the Project continued on even as Oko and friends were banned, and people rotated in and out of helping the project. The biggest shift in change for the project happened when the decision was made by Daybreak to publish all the full data for Challenges. This represented a period of time where the only person working on the data collection was myself because I was able to process and do everything utilizing the Daybreak API. We even had Prelim data for this time period.
However, the decision was obviously made to pull back on the data being published from Daybreak back to Top 32s of Challenges. At this point, things started really suffering data-wise. Many of the players who had previously assisted us in collecting data had moved on from either MTGO in general or stopped playing in Challenges.
I have attempted a number of different things to try to get players to assist in helping collect data, including trying to post more in our Discord for getting people interested to offering small ticket incentives to help spend some time collecting (there's a few weird complications that occurred with the initial rollout of this to be honest).
I will note that MTGO user Trohck has been great in helping get the one Challenge a week that they play in and have been very helpful in assisting in updating some of the documentation we have for collecting data.
The realistic part of me has determined that at this point, it feels like the Legacy Community as a whole cares less and less about this kind of data. Or rather, it does care in a sense enough to want to see the data, but doesn't care enough to want to help collect it. I have almost 800 members on the Discord for this project, and virtually very few people are actually chiming in to even begin to help with collecting data these days. We have five-to-six Challenges a week now, and at bare minimum for any of them one person could do the collection for that event in a very minimal amount of time as the majority of these events don't have a lot more than the 32 player minimum and Top 32 that we already have access to. It takes very much no time at all to do if you're already playing in the event, which leads me to my next point.
I often feel I am not doing enough for this project, despite all the hours of work I put into making sure all the sheets work, all the data lines up, organizing it all. I feel very inadequate over it because I am often the person who can't join these events for a lot of reasons. I am generally incapable of playing in Challenge events, mainly due to time. I'm somewhat stretched thin in a lot of ways and a fair number of factors. Weekends are hard for me to ever have the time to sit down for a multi-round Swiss tournament. I'm not a grinder. I'm not trying to get to the Pro Tour. When I do play, I am generally playing a League because I can start and stop when I need to. It works best for me and my time.
But if I could do every Challenge event, I would. I would spend all the time in the world if I had it to ensure I got this data. I love Legacy, and I want to see this format succeed. And I want to see good data on the state of the format to help make more informed decisions and help players understand the metagame. But I can't do it all by myself. It needs to be a team effort in general for this to work, and right now I don't have much of a team outside of a few people. Conversely, the Vintage teams have only one less Challenge a week and every week they are getting every piece of event data. They have people willing to help.
I am sort of at a loss at what to do. It definitively seems to me that while the Legacy Community likes having this data, they don't want to commit any action to ensure that it gets collected. I hate that it is that way, but actions speak louder than words to me and that seems to be the action the Community has chosen in general. It's a bit frustrating trying to give incentive to collect data. I still would like to keep this project going. It's important to me, but at some point I have to face what is the ultimate reality of it all: that this project seemingly has no value to anyone and will eventually be shuttered to be able to focus on other things.
If you do think you can help, visit the Discord and chime in, letting us know where and when you can help. We have documentation that can help people understand what we're looking for and best practices on helping. And thank you for reading this update on the state of the Project.
Legacy Challenge 32 2/5/2025
The first Challenge event of the week was the Wednesday event. This event had 39 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here. The Top 8 is below.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Cephalid Breakfast | 1st | haveaboavida |
| Lands | 2nd | DeathWrongShaman420 |
| Mono Green Cloudpost | 3rd | MafiaDoSplit |
| Oops! All Spells | 4th | choutin |
| Izzet Tempo | 5th | Joyfulwaffle |
| Black Midrange | 6th | _Batutinha_ |
| Red Stompy | 7th | Jumba |
| Eldrazi | 8th | TheTunnelingCat |
This is a very diverse Top 8 here. At the end of the event, it was Cephalid Breakfast that won.
This is a strong list. The numbers on this continue to be tweaked, but Breakfast seems to be in a good position in current Legacy. It's utilizing the graveyard and has a lot of power behind it.
In Second Place we had Lands.
It is surprising to see Lands popping back up, but Lands is a deck that generally can weather the test of time and find metagames it can be good in. It's always a deck that's fairly underplayed even in metagames where it's good due in part to the fact that the deck is difficult to pick up and learn, and has some deckbuilding considerations for the metagame that need to be understood as well. I really like this particular list. Punishing Fire being in a solid place feels good to me.
Legacy Challenge 32 2/7/2025
The second Challenge event of the week was the Friday event. This event had 44 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here. The Top 8 is below.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Mono Black Reanimator | 1st | Roodslay |
| Grixis Control | 2nd | JamesKisau |
| Doomsday | 3rd | wonderPreaux |
| Izzet Tempo | 4th | Joyfulwaffle |
| Mono Green Cloudpost | 5th | Schiaveto |
| Dimir Reanimator | 6th | Matti |
| Cephalid Breakfast | 7th | yapperdoodle |
| Izzet Tempo | 8th | kentaro_hokori |
This is another reasonable looking Top 8. At the end of the event it was Mono Black Reanimator that won.
This deck wants to get its threat on board and get it done fast. I like the main deck Dauthi Voidwalkers. Those can pull a lot of weight in game one of certain matchups.
In Second Place we had Grixis Control.
This is a cool list. There's a lot of neat cards here that seem pretty sweet to play. Abhorrent Oculus looks quite powerful with all the other stuff in this shell and Kaito seems nuts with Bowmasters and Strix.
Legacy Challenge 32 2/8/2025
The third Challenge event of the week was the Saturday event. This event had 38 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here. The Top 8 is below.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Dimir Tempo | 1st | Oceansoul92 |
| Doomsday | 2nd | Munchlax446 |
| Izzet Tempo | 3rd | habsburger |
| Oops! All Spells | 4th | death_grips |
| Esper Tempo | 5th | Hammafist |
| Sneak and Show | 6th | JPA93 |
| Nadu Midrange Combo | 7th | SHAKELION |
| Black Stompy | 8th | NMT_Sco94 |
Another very varied Top 8 here with a lot of different decks. At the end of the event it was Dimir Tempo that won.
I think Kaito is definitely an exceptionally awesome card for these kinds of shells, as I noted before. Being able to surveil for free but also draw a card if an opponent lost life is very strong. Even being able to go down -2 to stun a creature is quite good.
In Second Place we had Doomsday.
I like how clean the sideboard juke of this deck is. If you truly think that Doomsday is a bad plan post board you get to just shift to Dimir Tempo, which is really cool.
Legacy Challenge 32 2/9/2025 - 1
The foruth Challenge event of the week was the first Sunday event. This event had 32 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Red Stompy was the most played deck of the event, and it was really good in terms of win rate. There was also a small spread of decks at two copies, with Mono Black Reanimator looking great too.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Red Stompy | 1st | haveaboavida |
| Beanstalk Control (Yorion) | 2nd | Doome |
| Mono Black Reanimator | 3rd | Roodslay |
| Mystic Forge Combo | 4th | lollerstank |
| Rakdos Reanimator | 5th | Magic_Dads71522 |
| Red Stompy | 6th | SiL3ntGoaT |
| Dimir Reanimator | 7th | Ryuho090 |
| Nadu Cradle Combo | 8th | leeties |
Some Reanimator, some Stompy, some other decks. At the end of the event it was Red Stompy that won.
I think if anything, this deck alone has proven to be among one of the best in Legacy at this point. It has strong chops against a large portion of the format, and directly attacks specific decks that people thought would be overpowering Legacy. Turns out, Eight Blood Moons is very good.
In Second Place we had Beanstalk Control.
A lot is going on here. The Stifle main deck is quite interesting, to be honest. I'm a big fan of everything going on in this list.
Legacy Challenge 32 2/9/2025 - 2
The final Challenge event of the week was the second Sunday event. This event had 77 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here. The Top 8 is below.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Izzet Tempo | 1st | silviawataru |
| Grixis Tempo | 2nd | Raydan |
| Doomsday | 3rd | wonderPreaux |
| Black Stompy | 4th | Peter__Pan |
| Izzet Tempo | 5th | ReformedPaolo |
| Cephalid Breakfast | 6th | RikRin |
| Dimir Tempo | 7th | Oceansoul92 |
| Death and Taxes - BW (Yorion) | 8th | IsolatedSystem |
Reasonable amount of Tempo here, with the winner being Izzet Tempo.
This seems pretty stock for how Izzet Tempo has been built lately. I think having the Surveil land in the mix here is good. More decks should be playing Surveil lands in general.
In Second Place we had Grixis Tempo.
The black splash for this deck is fairly light in of itself, but it's big enough to warrant being called Grixis. Molten Collapse really is a powerful card in these shells. Being able to tag any creature, but sometimes being able to tag both creatures and other nonland/noncreature permanents at the same time is superb.
Around the Web
- BeExcellent has a video on Dimir Tempo. Check it out here.
- Bryant Cook has a video on High Tide with Radstorm. Check it out here.
- The Eternal Glory Podcast has a new episode. Check it out here.
- Chrono Moon is jamming against Crucible of Words. Check it out here.
- 90sMTG just hit 10K YT subs! Go check out a recent video here.
- MahfuzVanGogh posted a video about their Showcase Qualifier run. Check it out here.
- StrassDaddy is going to the Moon. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
Now that Leagues are posted throughout the week, let's find some Spice!
Curiosity killed the cat!
Mardu Energy is sweet.
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!
