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This Week in Legacy: Paper Cards We Need on MTGO


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 talking about cards that exist in paper but not on Magic Online and why those cards should be made available on MTGO. In addition to that we've got some paper event news to share as well as Challenge data from the past weekend.

Without further ado, let's dive right in!

Paper Cards That Need to Exist on Magic Online

As we have come to know for a while now, there is a big disparity between the cards that are available in paper and what is available on Magic Online. This disparity used to be rather small, but now we are slowly getting to a point where more and more cards are not available on the client, and plenty of them are interesting cards that could potentially see play in Legacy. This is rather unfortunate, so I thought it would be a good idea to identify what cards need to be added and why, and what my expectation is that the card would ever get programmed.

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I would like to start and note that one of the cards from Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate, Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes was recently discovered as being programmed onto MTGO, however it is not currently available in anything (possibly a future Treasure Chest update) so it is not available for play just yet. Just seeing this however, gives me a lot of hope for the cards on this list.

Abel Adrian, Gorion's Ward

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This one is a bit more recent (as a good number of cards on this list are due to how the relase of Commander Legends was managed), but this is definitely a high one on the list, as it's usage in a Worldgorger Dragon-esque combo deck seems very powerful. The hard thing that makes this card difficult to have is that they would likely have to have Backgrounds programmed as a functioning item and that alone makes it difficult to consider if this would ever make it to the client.

Control of the Court

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This is an older card and probably a pretty easy effect to program on MTGO all things considering. Having another Burning Inquiry-like effect would be interesting to have around for the Madness decks. With the fact that this is not RL and Wizards seems pretty keen on reprinting Portal: Three Kingdoms cards (see the recent Double Masters 2022) we might see this before too long.

Creative Technique

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I've talked about this one before, as there is a sweet paper deck that exists that uses this card in conjunction with Cloudpost and Cascade creatures like Apex Devastator that looks incredibly sweet. This is one I would love to see get put out there, but the biggest downside is using a mechanic that doesn't exist yet on MTGO (Demonstrate). That alone might kill this from ever showing up, but you never know if they decide to add this to Cube somewhere.

Delayed Blast Fireball

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Also a newer card, we talked about this one a little bit in regards to being used in conjunction with Expressive Iteration for a three mana one-sided mega-Pyroclasm effect, but also getting a Pyroclasm at instant speed is quite strong. With this just being a Foretell card, I could see this one getting a potential programming if they put it in a Cube somewhere.

In Too Deep

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Cue the Sum 41 references, but this card did look quite interesting during spoiler season and we just never got to see how this would stack up as a weird form of Planeswalker removal. There's nothing problematic about this programming-wise (no new mechanics or anything), so I could see this showing up somewhere in the future. A big running theme of all of this is letting cards exist so that we can see if they're even good or not, which is helped by adding more cards to the client.

Keen Duelist

$ 0.00 $ 0.00

This card seems super amusing and is just a big play on the Bob style of mechanics (Dark Confidant) so it's not out of the realm of possibility that it could be programmed. It would be ultra hilarious to Brainstorm in response to this trigger and put something really big on top (like an Emrakul) and dome the opponent for 15.

Maddening Hex

$ 0.00 $ 0.00

This is a big one for sure. This card has a lot of solid applications in a good number of decks, and definitely is extremely playable. This is also one plenty of people have been clamoring to see on MTGO, so I hope eventually it gets the program treatment. The only awkward aspect of this that I can see is the attaching of the Aura Curse to another opponent at random, which doesn't matter so much for Legacy but does matter for the Client itself as Commander is a supported format there.

Rug of Smothering

$ 0.00 $ 0.00

This seems like a fun hatebear-esque card that especially rewards Ancient Tomb style decks that can jam this on Turn 1 and are only interested in casting one spell per turn if that. It definitely punishes decks that have to try to double spell or more to try to get rid of it since the chip life loss adds up over time. There's nothing really preventing this from ever being programmed, which is nice.

Sailors' Bane

$ 0.00 $ 0.00

While I think this card sits somewhere in the potential range of "unplayable" to "monstrous", I do think it would be worth getting to see on a larger scale how this card would do in a world with Murktide Regent. I have heard from some testing this in UR Delver have said it's pretty good, but we should get to see on the client as well!

Shadowgrange Archfiend

$ 0.00 $ 0.00

This is kind of a cool card with a unique effect, and it does fit right into the LED+this = opponent sacs a Marit Lage which is pretty awesome. While this might not be actually good enough, not being on MTGO doesn't help people really figure that out especially for a smaller deck community like Madness. This doesn't have any insane mechanics changes so I could see this show up hopefully in the future.

Paper Event News - Legacy 40K Cancellation + OK Land Run

Starting off a bit here with some somber news that the Legacy 40K event held by MissouriMTG in September later this year has been cancelled. There are a lot of factors to this, but definite shoutout to Jeremy Aaranson for going above and beyond the normal of just refunding people by still giving each registered player the goodie bags that they would have received (including the Black Lotus door prize) in addition. He also provided an avenue for players to put their entry towards donations for the Missouri Abortion fund matching all donations up to $20,000. Definitely a solid and upstanding move by this TO to do not just the thing required but going beyond that for a truly awesome force of community. You can check out Jeremy's announcement of this over here on Twitter.

In other event news, the OK Land Run Legacy Open Championship is on July 23rd of this month at Game HQ in Oklahoma. The entry for this event is $100 with a $2K+ prize pool including dual lands and a Mox. You can find the MTGMelee page for this event here.

Legacy Challenge 7/2

Our first Challenge of the weekend was the early morning Saturday event, which had 50 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.

The top of the metagame was evenly shared across by Reanimator, Jeskai, and UR Delver. UR Delver did exceptionally poorly in this event, having a very below average win rate of 34.78% non-mirror and Jeskai also did very badly at a 33.33% non-mirror win rate. Reanimator did quite well, as did ANT.

Let's take a look at the Top 8.

Deck Name Placing MTGO Username
Doomsday 1st Fuz65
Reanimator 2nd mephidro
ANT 3rd Kuranari-Jackpa
Colorless Cloudpost 4th Antonio_MTG
Reanimator 5th RagingMachismo
ANT 6th _INF_
Reanimator 7th Eonwe7
Enchantress 8th SpatulaOfTheAges

Definitely a weird Top 8, but without much Delver in the Challenge at all we are bound to see decks that are targeting Delver well and decks that target those decks. At the end of the event, it was Doomsday that took it all down.

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Splashing into white for Teferi is pretty interesting, ensuring a longer game to be able to combo off without any possible interaction from the opponent is very strong. Dakkon, Shadow Slayer is a sweet inclusion in the sideboard here for sure.

In Second Place we've got one of three Reanimator players in this Top 8.

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Pretty solid Reanimator list here, splashing into the blue side specifically for Show and Tell in the sideboard. Definitely powerful for sure.

Also in this Top 8 we've got Colorless Cloudpost.

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Straightforward list here, with a bunch of Eldrazi payoffs and Planeswalkers like Ugin and Karn.

At the bottom of the Top 8 we've got Enchantress.

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Spatula is a well known Enchantress player and it's always cool to see their lists. This one has the Devoted Druid / Swift Reconfiguration combo in it too, which is really cool to see. Seems like a really powerful looking Enchantress build.

Legacy Challenge 7/3

The second Challenge event of the weekend had exactly 64 players in it (the minimum to fire), 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.

UR Delver was more in full force for this event at nearly 20% of the metagame with a 55.17% non-mirror win rate. Elves also did very well in this event and so did Reanimator. There was a lot of spread below the cutoff in this event with plenty of specialists that did well in this event as well.

Let's take a look at the Top 8.

Deck Name Placing MTGO Username
UR Delver 1st Bullwinkkle6705
Depths Combo 2nd Wiltron92
Cephalid Breakfast 3rd Thalai
UR Delver 4th Kazuga
Reanimator 5th Eonwe7
Elves 6th navi_stabber
Mono Green Cloudpost 7th into_play
Yorion Zenith 8th kauffj

Definitely an interesting Top 8 here, with some neat decks showing up including both Elves and Cephalid Breakfast. At the end of the event though it was Isaac Bullwinkle, king of the "Delverless" Delver builds who took it all down on his "UR Delver" variant.

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Isaac is well known for pioneering these kinds of deckbuilding strategies that go deeper on building to the metagame as opposed to just tweaking cards here or there, and his success with this archetype is well warranted. Court of Ire is such a cool card to see in the sideboard for sure. This is definitely the kind of deck I'd want to see Maddening Hex in somewhere in the 75.

In Second Place we've got a Depths Combo list.

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Golgari Depths having a firmer presence is super interesting, but it continues to show that decks playing cards like Thoughtseize in a combo aspect can be very powerful and the existence of Veil of Summer is not enough to make people shy away from decks they love.

Also in this Top 8 we've got Yorion Breakfast by none other than Javier Dominguez.

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This deck is so sweet and it's great to see this archetype having gotten some new life thanks to the deckbuilding improvements. Super cool stuff.

At the bottom of the Top 8 we've got Yorion Zenith.

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This deck is doing so much with its toolbox structure, it's just super amazing to see it come together. There's a lot always going on with these Zenith decks, and the fact that they exist makes me thrilled.

Around the Web

  • TonyScapone has a video up on a Top 16 run with The EPIC Gamble! Check it out here.
  • 8-Blast! Check it out here.
  • The Eternal Glory Podcast has a great episode this past week on the sins of Netdecking. Check it out here.
  • Everyday Eternal is going to the MOOOOON. Check it out here.
  • If you read our Player Spotlight from last week, Min from MinMax has a new article on Delver! Check it out here.
  • Our friends over at the Dark Depths Podcast have a new episode on the Legacy Showcase. Check it out here.
  • Leaving a Legacy had on the winner of the LaL Open, Michael Munchbach! Check it out here.
  • Jeskai Kitten vs Jeskai Miracles, via 90sMTG. Check it out here.

The Spice Corner

You can find this past week's 5-0 deck lists over here.

The future of Legacy is here, and the future is TRUCK STOMPY.

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Nic Fit MTGO master Koike has some Witherbloom Apprentice action for us.

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The Kitten Has Gotten Loose!

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Ledger Shredder and Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar is a SWEET combination.

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Maverick on its own is not much. Maverick with Devoted Druid combo featuring both Swift Reconfiguration and Luxior, Giada's Gift? SWEET.

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Planeswalker Loam!

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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!



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