This Week in Legacy: Living in Neon Color
Howdy folks! It's time yet again for another edition of This Week in Legacy! I'm your host, Joe Dyer, and this week it is time to start digging into Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty and what this set means for Legacy. There's a lot to cover here in this set! As always we have some Challenge data as well as Super Qualifier to talk about!
Let's dive right in.
Living That Neon Dynasty Life
Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty is on our doorstep and with it brings a bunch of cards that have potential in the Legacy format. A lot of mechanics from this set are returning mechanics such as Ninjutsu and Channel, but we also have a new mechanic in Reconfigure (which is sort of a bridge between Creatures and Equipment). We're going to go down the list in order of Collecter Number for the cards that both look interesting for Legacy or cards that have seen some discussion in regards to Legacy.
Let's look at some cards!
Lion Sash
We're starting off already with a really incredible banger of a card here. Lion Sash here has Reconfigure, which means that while this card is in play it is a 1/1 Artifact Creature - Equipment Cat, but you can pay two generic mana at Sorcery speed to attach it to a creature, at which point the Sash stops being a creature. Also at Sorcery speed, you can pay two to detatch it from a creature and it will turn back into a creature.
Now that we've got that out of the way, what makes this card so interesting? The fact of this card is that it is a tutorable piece of graveyard disruption that Death & Taxes can nab from its library using two different methods (Recruiter of the Guard and Stoneforge Mystic), while being able to put the card into play off either Aether Vial or Stoneforge Mystic. This means that this card can readily be found in a lot of scenarios where it is useful, and once it's in play it is functionally a Scavenging Ooze effect that doesn't gain life but gets bigger when exiling any permanent from the graveyard. The list of applications for a silver bullet like this is pretty endless. Being able to deal with Uro, keeping graveyards small for Murktide Regent, and just generally being able to positively interact with the graveyard in general is just the tip of the iceberg for this card. You can also Reconfigure this to a creature and make it really big while still having the same ability on this (for example, turning Kaldra Compleat into an even bigger threat). Everything about this card neatly lines up for D&T.
March of Otherworldly Light
There's been a lot of discussion about this card, but the only potential place I could ever maybe see this is in Mono White Painter builds since they generally have the mana velocity for it (Ancient Tomb) and a general inability to cast cards like Prismatic Ending in a leveraged fashion. This deck may pitch cards to it but it's more than likely to be hard cast.
There's also been a lot of talk about this in D&T, and I think it's best to rely on the opinion of folks like xJCloud when they say "card bad." I don't think this meets the mark in D&T as pitching cards to it is not where you want to be when Solitude is so powerful in general and already infringing on that space (and Solitude being functionally free). The only major upside to this card is that it hits Urza's Saga for W, but I don't know that this pushes it anywhere over the top to where this sees play over existing cards that already deal with Saga (like... Wasteland).
Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful (Neon Dynasty Commander)
This card is not in the main set but in the Commander decks. However, that does make it Legacy legal and first glance this card doesn't seem like much, but there is definitely a card out there that makes something like this kind of hum and that is Mox Amber. During the Lurrus era we did see some decks utilize a Mono White Aggro shell with Mox Amber, and this cute puppers triggers off of ANY Legendary permanent (meaning it triggers off of cards like Karakas and notably Flagstones of Trokair).
I did some noodling and came up with a rough draft, because I think this deck could be pretty sweet.
Mirrorshell Crab
One of the first Channel cards on our list to talk about, there is a fairly interesting thing about this card being an Artifact creature that can be discarded and then welded back in via something like Goblin Welder. Welder shenanigans already has a lot of targets though so this might not be good enough, but a 5/7 with Ward 3 might be fine to have.
The Reality Chip
This is certainly a unique card but I don't know if it sees any play anywhere. In order to get the Future Sight effect here you have to basically pay five mana to cast this and Reconfigure it onto a creature (or SFM it into play and do the same). That's a pretty hefty investment for this effect in general, but I would expect that it is pretty good if you can do it. Maybe some sort of grindy Stoneblade plan, but I kind of doubt it.
Reality Heist
I had to do plenty of double takes on this card, especially when you realize that this is an Uncommon (and something like Dig Through Time is a Rare) and is sort of like DTT except for Artifacts only. To make this work you really need a critical mass of artifacts, and the only deck right now that really does this is 8Cast. Unfortunately a lot of the hits in that deck are just 0 drop cards like Baubles and stuff, so it makes the effect less exciting. If there was a solid 8Cast/Painter variant I could maybe see this as a 1-2 of though. The effect is certainly strong if it's nabbing two artifacts that work well together (like Painter + Grindstone).
Tameshi, Reality Architect
This card is super duper sweet and seems like it's really interesting to build around. Being able to get back Baubles or use up Urza's Saga out of the graveyard seems exceptionally strong, while also drawing cards at the same time. This makes this card much more attractive in general, and I'd be really surprised to not see it pop up somewhere.
Experimental Synthesizer
This card does quite a bit for a Common, and works super well with a ton of different things like Goblin Welder and cards like Breya's Apprentice. Being a functional draw a card when it both enters and leaves the battlefield (notable because it can be bounced or blinked as well to get the effect) is really strong. There is likely a place for something like this somewhere. It seems too good to build around, and if you really want to, it can make a 2/2 creature.
Twinshot Sniper
Channel in general enables a lot of interesting effects. This card in particular is great with Channel since it's a Shock effect but it can also be Welded in with Goblin Welder for another Shock effect, and it has Reach to block things like Murktide Regent. This is ALSO a Goblin so you can find it off Goblin Matron or any of the Goblin effects like Muxus or Goblin Ringleader and having an uncounterable source of damage that can actually go to an opponent's life total is a great thing for that deck.
Colossal Skyturtle
Seven mana is a big sell for a card like this, but once it's in play it's a 6/5 with Flying and Ward 2. The biggest thing here though is both of its Channel abilities being really powerful effects. I don't know if this is good enough, but it is an Enchantment Creature so it can be recurred to play with cards like Replenish which seems pretty silly. There is also that potential of being a card that is useful in some form of fringe Living End shell since it can be pitched to the graveyard to recur a Cascade spell or something similar.
Kaito Shizuki
Kaito has a pseudo protection ability on the first turn he enters play, which is cool to protect him from harm. The power of this creature in a shell like Ninjas will ultimately depend on the +1 and -2 effects and how good those are. Ninjas can always attack generally (Changeling Outcast being unable to be blocked) so the +1 will almost always just straight draw a card. It can even create a Ninja for Ninjutsu if you need it to. This might be good and it is a three mana walker, so it's always something to look out for.
Satoru Umezawa
This one I'm less sure about, because it lends itself to some really fringe stuff like giving Emrakul or Blightsteel Colossus Ninjutsu abilities, so it might definitely build up some sort of fringe deck on that basis. That's about all this really does though in Legacy and that might not be good enough on its own.
Containment Construct
Someone has already pointed out how busted this card is with Lion's Eye Diamond and also Artificer's Intuition was mentioned so be on the lookout for that card possibly spiking. This card is incredibly strong with LED since it lets you play Lands off of it, but also you can selectively choose which cards to exile and play this turn which makes it really powerful. Being able to use LED as an actual mana investing spell is very powerful as always.
I do expect we'll see this card pop up, and thankfully it is a creature because that makes it much easier to deal with, while the effect itself is handled easily by graveyard exile like Leyline or Soul-Guide Lantern/Tormod's Crypt (since you have to be able to exile the card to play it). At the end of the day though I suspect that this will ultimately be too fragile outside of the Artificer's Intuition combo and even then it seems pretty fragile.
Patchwork Automaton
This card could be pretty neat in a very aggressive Affinity-esque shell. Dropping it Turn 1 and following up with Baubles and the like is a great way to grow it quickly, and it's hard to deal with for a few turns because of the Ward. Problematically this card is a stupendously awful late game top deck (as opposed to something like Stonecoil Serpent which can always just be cast as a big threat, but this could be pretty fun for some aggressive artifact shenanigans.
Boseiju, Who Endures
Now we come to probably what is one of the best cards in the entire set for Eternal formats. This card has implications across multiple formats and is sheer upside in literally every deck running cards like Life from the Loam or Witherbloom Command. Being able to destroy artifacts, enchantments, or even a NON BASIC LAND for 1G is simply ridiculously strong. While the opponent does get a land out of the deal and they can grab dual lands, a lot of the decks this can be used against can't leverage that downside well. This can destroy so many permanents from Back to Basics, Blood Moon to Chalice of the Void or Trinisphere. Everything about this card is so incredibly strong, and if it's dead in a matchup it can be an untapped green source as well.
This is by far the best Eternal format staple in the entire set and it isn't even close. This card will be everywhere.
Otawara, Soaring City
The blue Channel land isn't quite on the level of Boseiju, but it is worth referencing because it can bounce a bunch of different types of permanents at instant speed and is generally going to be uncounterable. One of the biggest things this can deal with is cards like Teferi, Time Raveler since Teferi won't prevent the Channel ability from being played at instant speed. There's a lot of applications here for sure and it seems really powerful. This card could be really good in decks like 8Cast that already run a fair amount of Legendary creatures (Emry, Sai, sometimes Urza) that it might be possible to reduce this to 1U or less which is really solid for this kind of effect.
You Are Already Dead
This is the best card to name with Cabal Therapy when you know your opponent can't do anything to stop you. The new Abandon Hope as it were.
Paper Event Update
Just wanted to remind everyone that there is indeed a paper Legacy 10K event at SCGCon this coming weekend in Philadelphia! You can find out more information over here.
In addition the Team Event in March at SCGCon now has registration live! The format for this is Modern / Pioneer / Legacy! Check out all the information on that here.
Also, there is going to be a sweet paper Legacy event in PA on February 19th at Taitan Games called "Legacy for Real Estate 7". Here's all the details below on the event, thanks to our good friend Robert Wilson:
Legacy for Real Estate 7
Cost: $65 pre-register / $80 day of
Date/Time: February 19th, 10am
Location: 510 Jamison Ave, Ellwood City, PA 16117
Format: Swiss Cut to Top 8
Prizes: 1-8 Pick by final standing if grouped together
1st: Tropical Island + Collab oversized card
2nd: Tundra
3rd/4th:Bayou/Badlands
5th/8th: Taiga/Savannah/Scrubland/Plateau
Website for preorder registration
Axion's Mega Weekend "Legacy for Goodies"
Also this past weekend was a Legacy event in the UK at Axion Now, with info here provided by Doishy:
Axion's Mega Weekend "Legacy for Goodies"
32 Players cap (sold out in hours of being announced).
Underground Sea for first.
Taiga for second.
Other goodies for 3rd/4th and also the winners of the two "lower top 4's"
5 round swiss.
Cut to top 4.
5th-8th played a lower top 4 for another goody.
9th - 12th played a final top 4 for a goody too (Because Francois who runs these events is amazing and loves the Legacy community).
The amalgamated top 8 (taking final results for the main and secondary top 4's)
1. Doomsday (James Johns) aka Doishy
2. UW Sentinel Delverblade (Chris Stanley)
3. UR Delver (David Siddall)
4. Imperial Painter (Callum Smith) aka Whitefaces
5. 4c Aluren (Francis John Guillem Gene-Rowe)
6. Bant Blade (Giuseppe Sorrenti)
7. Yorion DnT (James Mills)
8. 8-Cast (Andrew Parsonage)
Doishy even provided us the two finalist lists, since he won the event! Congrats and check out these sweet lists below:
Legacy Super Qualifier 2/5
We had a Super Qualifier event over this past weekend! These events are playing for a Set Championship qualification given out to First and Second Place, and are top end Premier Play events. This event had 250 PLAYERS in it, thanks to the data collected by the Legacy Data Collection Project (shoutout to Max Gilmore who helped finish replays for this event)!
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
UR Delver had a massive and I mean massive amount of copies in this event while also boasting a pretty solid non-mirror winrate of 54.29%. The next most popular deck was one of Delver's predators in Death and Taxes, while Reanimator and Jeskai Control remained popular. Despite putting one in the Top 8, Reanimator had an overall poor win rate of below even 40%.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| UR Delver | 1st | silviawataru |
| Death and Taxes | 2nd | xJCloud |
| 4C Control | 3rd | kogamo |
| Reanimator | 4th | Ark4n |
| Madness | 5th | Wizard_2002 |
| Jeskai Control | 6th | Wurst_ |
| 8Cast | 7th | OSCA66 |
| UR Delver | 8th | Graciasportanto |
There's a reasonable spread here of decks really with a good range of control to combo and of course Delver. At the end of the event it was Delver that won the event and secured one of the qualifications.
Definitely some interesting changes to flex spots in the Delver deck at this point. Gone are the Steam Vents and we are seeing more 19 land iterations (which makes sense because Ragavan being gone makes it hard to justify 18 lands in a lot of cases). Seeing Chain Lightning back is interesting, and main deck Pyroblast is likely to be a thing because of the mirrors for Murktide Regent.
The other Finalist of this event and the other qualification was our good friend John Ryan Hamilton on DEATH AND TAXES.
It is absolutely no surprise to me to see one of either xJCloud or Jason Murray (luinil) doing well in one of these kinds of events. D&T is really strong, but you gotta really put in the hard work on the deck to get it to this point, and this really separates the level these two play this deck on. They know it inside and out, and it really shows how much deck specialization works in this format and how much that knowledge can be leveraged.
Further down the Top 8 we have a showing by Madness.
I've been seeing and playing builds with Street Wraith myself as of late, and it seems like it's a really strong evolution of this deck to incorporate because it makes casting Hollow One so much easier in so many games. This deck is so much fun though and I look forward to playing it more.
Also down in the bottom half of the Top 8 we had a sweet Jeskai Control list.
This is more control than the other Jeskai deck running around (the "Daybreacher" deck) and has a lot more elements of cards like Monastery Mentor and Snapcaster Mage. Murktide Regent makes for a great finisher here, and the deck has so much removal and card advantage. It definitely looks like a super fun deck.
Legacy Challenge 2/5
The Saturday Legacy Challenge also fired this weekend with 66 players thanks to the data collected by the Legacy Data Collection Project. This was the event that had its minimum changed to 32 players!
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Delver was populous in this event as well, but it didn't have a very reasonable performance (less than 50% non-mirror win rate). Death and Taxes and Reanimator were right behind it, with D&T having a more solid win rate due to putting 3/5 of the players on the deck into the Top 8 of this event. Doomsday also performed exceptionally well overall.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Doomsday | 1st | yamayama |
| Death and Taxes | 2nd | yoshiwata |
| Death and Taxes | 3rd | Scabs |
| UR Delver | 4th | Diem4x |
| Yorion Zenith | 5th | Aegisaziz |
| UR Delver | 6th | ecobaronen |
| GW Depths | 7th | wara |
| Death and Taxes | 8th | toondoslav |
As noted, 3/8 of the Top 8 was taken up by D&T and we had at least two Delvers in this Top 8 as well. At the end of the event though it was a rather unique take on Doomsday that won the event!
TEMPO DOOMSDAY?! This deck is super cool. Malevolent Hermit is secretly a card that is really strong in my opinion, and having the backup plan of just going full Murktide is nuts. This list also has the Shelldock Isle sideboard plan!
In Second Place we've got Death and Taxes.
Timeless Dragon is such a cool and powerful card here in D&T. It has so much grind capability that it just ends up being such a solid threat.
Further down the Top 8 we had a showing by Yorion Zenith.
We've seen this deck fall off a bit as of late, but it still seems to be able to put up some reasonable results. I tried it myself and found I wasn't too into it personally, but it definitely can be strong in the right contexts and matchups.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we had a showing by GW Depths.
I think this deck is possibly one of the more interesting and subtly one of the better decks in the current format. It has such an incredible amount of versatility and strength that I feel like it really is a strong option to play in the current format.
Legacy Challenge 2/6
Our final Challenge of the weekend was the Sunday event. This event had 70 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 definitely kept up the top popular spot over the next top deck and had a solid win rate to boot. 4C Control decks did very well as well, having some solid performance, but it was GW Depths that was the real standout of the event, putting both of its two players in the Top 8 of this event.
Let's look at that Top 8 now.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| GW Depths | 1st | Didackith |
| Worldgorger Dragon | 2nd | Roodslay |
| UR Delver | 3rd | Gucci_gabe |
| GW Depths | 4th | DNEELEY |
| Standstill | 5th | twinlesstwin |
| UR Delver | 6th | Baku_91 |
| UR Delver | 7th | Gul_Dukat |
| 4C Control | 8th | trunks132 |
Quite a bit of Delver here, but at the end of the event it was one of the two GW Depths players that took down this Challenge!
The red splash in this deck is becoming much more popular given that it allows access to cards like Pyroblast and Red Elemental Blast as very clean answers to things like Murktide Regent. Seems definitely strong.
The Second Place finalist of this event was on Mono Black WORLDGORGER.
This deck is super cool. I love how the sideboard plan is just board into Sedgemoor Witch + Chain of Smog combo. Really amazing stuff.
Further down the Top 8 we had a showing by Standstill.
No Urza's Saga is pretty wild, since I would consider a lot of Standstill decks would love that, but Shark Typhoon does get the job done much of the time, as does Timeless Dragon. It's worth noting that Eternalizing the Dragon is not casting a spell so it gets through Standstill.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we had 4C Control.
I haven't seen an Entreat the Angels in some time, so that's kind of cool. These red splash lists are very strong because Expressive Iteration is so good at smoothing so much out of these decks. Life from the Loam is powerful with Mystic Sanctuary and Wasteland, and will be even stronger once Boseiju, Who Endures comes down the pipe.
Around the Web
- Bryant Cook plays some Reanimator, but with Tendrils and Children of Korlis! Check it out here.
- Our good friend Phil Gallagher is on some MUD Candle Stax this week. Check that out here.
- Our good pal Roger Sikes posted on reddit with some analysis on Once Upon a Time in Painter shells. Check it out here.
- The AZ Masters Series was won by Lands! Have a tournament report over on Pendrell Vale.
- Ryan from the Legacy Pit talks about why he's still bringing UR Delver to SCGCon in Philly. Check it out here.
- Our good friends over at IN RESPONSE have a new episode featuring guest star Kai Sawatari! Check it out here.
- MILL
- 1MrLee posted a sick video on an Undefeated run with ELDRAZI. Check that out here.
The Spice Corner
You can find this past week's 5-0 deck lists over here.
Alexwest is going deep with Yorion Artifacts and Taxes!
Normally I wouldn't look at most Reanimator lists as Spice, but this one is playing stuff like Persist and even has a board option of Chain of Smog combo with Professor Onyx!
I haven't legitimately seen Power Artifact in a Legacy decklist in forever!
Dryad Scapeshift combo with Teferi and stuff. Pretty cool.
TrueHero continues to push the envelope of 4C with Territorial Kavu!
WINOTA.
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 Twitter, Twitch, YouTube, and Patreon! In addition I'm always around the MTGGoldfish Discord Server and the MTGLegacy Discord Server.
Until next time!
