This Week in Legacy: Stock It Up
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 Stock Up in Legacy and how it's... stocking up? It's a good card and that was a bad joke. We've also got some Challenges to look at, in addition to some unique spoilers this past week from an upcoming Universes Beyond set. I took last week off to recuperate from the weekend that was Magic Con Chicago (you can find a wrap up of how that weekend went for me on Blue Sky) but now we're back to talking about some Legacy!
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Stock Up is Good?
While I try to hit a wide range of cards in my set reviews, I don't always hit everything, and sometimes a card squeaks through and sees play where it is unexpected. Such is the case with new Aetherdrift uncommon Stock Up.
At first glance this card does do quite a bit at its rate for 2U. Getting to look at the top five and then get two of those definitely make this one of the best Divination effects we've ever gotten, and therein lies the awkwardness of why one might have missed this during spoiler season to begin with. It is this set's Divination effect, but it's a really strong one. There are a number of comparisons to Dig Through Time, but I do believe that it's not quite that close to a card that is currently banned in Legacy. DTT is exceedingly stronger than this card because of a few factors, primarily the first being Instant vs Sorcery and the second being the cost reduction of Delve. Granted, Stock Up isn't much more than DTT cost reduced and it does only have one blue pip versus two, but Stock Up isn't incredibly comparable to DTT until well, until you're casting it for free.
During the era of Dig Through Time's prominence, Omni-Tell / Sneak and Show were both very popular decks because leveraging the effect of DTT under an Omniscience was quite good. Stock Up in this case is close, since you're seeing two less cards, but it does do a really good impression of a mini DTT in a deck that wants to slam Show and Tell. The defining thing here realistically however is Ancient Tomb.
Tomb makes Stock Up very reasonable to cast in general, allowing it to exist in shells that can actually really enjoy the card selection the card gives because casting it off Tomb + blue source is relatively easy and very free to them. This includes things like Blue Painter and Coveted Jewel Combo.
I have even seen versions of 8-Cast with this simply because this card does not "draw" cards and can't get got by Orcish Bowmasters. Tomb decks are a solid place to consider this card.
We're also seeing non-Tomb decks trying this card out, such as Tempo shells. In those decks, the fair comparison to draw here comes from a card way back in the day of Delver shells and that's Painful Truths.
Stock Up fills a similar role in these shells to Painful Truths in providing a way to give these shells a late game way to accrue some card advantage. One of the ways the deck did this was utilizing effects like Mystic Sanctuary to rebuy the spell and get to cast it again. The best thing about Stock Up is that it doesn't cost you life like Truths does, and it also doesn't draw cards so it bypasses Orcish Bowmasters. It's also blue so that it can be pitched to Force of Will.
That being said, I don't think this card is a four-of in a Tempo shell. It's most assuredly going to fall into the same boat that Painful Truths did as a two-of, maybe a three-of, where it's late game go-long card advantage. Still, it seems like a solid card in those lists in that capacity.
It's always nice to see a new card break into the format and also be a card that seems solid and reasonable, and Stock Up is that.
Spider-Man Scene Box Spoilers
This past week Wizards dropped a small spoiler for an upcoming Standard Universes Beyond set. Normally I'd wait to do my reviews until the set was released, but part of these spoilers was for a portion of the set that is not Standard legal.
Marvel's Spider-Man is a set primed to release in September of this year, and while it was confirmed that the set itself has no Commander sealed product (meaning there's no Commander decks for it), there are two different set codes (SPE and MAR) that make up the Marvel's Spider-Man Eternal part of the set. This subset of the main set is going to be in a number of different products, but they are not Standard legal. The MAR cards will show up in Play Boosters and are legal in Draft/Sealed when opened in those gameplay experiences. SPE seems to refer to cards specifically being put out in a "Scene Box" (a box that all the cards put together makes up a big scene, as we saw in Lord of the Rings). Wizards did spoil the contents of the Scene Box, which I will put below.
While it's worth noting these cards are indeed legal in Legacy/Vintage/Commander, the only one of these cards that caught my eye was Pumpkin Bombs. What really got me thinking about this card is the aspect of "what if you didn't need to actually give it to your opponent?" and there are indeed a lot of cards in Legacy that sacrifice things like artifacts for great effect to prevent that. Things such as Broadside Bombardiers, Goblin Welder, and Goblin Engineer all give you ways to get rid of this card while the ability is on the stack so that you can use it to discard two, draw three (which is pretty reasonable rate especially in decks that have Welder/Engineer putting things into the graveyard for later) and not be forced to leverage that same ability to your opponent since it won't be in play when the ability resolves.
I'm not sure this is insane, but the value is very good and I like it a lot because of that. I'll definitely be keeping my eye on this set when we get close to September.
Buffalo Chicken Dip Legacy Announcements
Our good friends over at Buffalo Chicken Dip Legacy wanted to remind everyone that there is an event occurring in Houston, Texas over at Dragon's Lair Comics and Fantasy on Saturday, March 22nd! This event is BCDL 20, and you can find the information on registering here.
BCDL is also going to be announcing another Ohio event in Columbus coming this week, so keep an eye out on the social media platforms for BCDL to see when that's announced!
Legacy Challenge 32 2/26/2025
The first Challenge event of the week was the Wednesday event. This event had 40 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Esper Tempo | 1st | WingedHussar |
| Dimir Reanimator | 2nd | Ozymandias17 |
| Esper Tempo | 3rd | Hammafist |
| Dimir Tempo | 4th | cicciogire |
| Dimir Reanimator | 5th | 567konner |
| Mono Black Reanimator | 6th | Roodslay |
| Dimir Reanimator | 7th | CMack_ |
| Oops! All Spells | 8th | Cachorrowo |
Functionally a Tempo vs Combo Top 8 here. At the end of the event it was Esper Tempo that won.
This is a fairly interesting list. Tamiyo has continued to look quite good in a lot of these Tempo lists. This one gets to balance its ability to close the game out vs having good solid removal like Swords to Plowshares but also Teferi, Time Raveler is a really solid card here.
In Second Place we had Dimir Reanimator.
Being able to go up to four Barrowgoyf post-board seems quite strong for allowing this deck to swap more into the sideboard juke aspect of playing a fair-ish Tempo deck backed up by the unfair game plan of Reanimator.
Legacy Challenge 32 2/28/2025
The second Challenge event of the week was the Friday event. This event had 43 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Dimir Reanimator | 1st | OSCA66 |
| Mono Blue Show and Tell | 2nd | GuiBonella |
| Mono Black Reanimator | 3rd | Roodslay |
| Stiflenought | 4th | Bubblelift |
| Red Painter | 5th | yapperdoodle |
| Nadu Midrange Combo | 6th | BranzaDoppioMalto |
| Red Stompy | 7th | haveaboavida |
| Necrodominance Combo | 8th | kokoko098 |
Almost this entire Top 8 is a combo deck of some sort. The big standouts here are Stiflenought and Red Stompy. The event was won by Dimir Reanimator.
This list is desiring far more to just protect the main game plan post board more than anything. Being able to max out on Brazen Borrower is crazy good.
In Second Place we had Mono Blue Show and Tell?
Okay, so the big combo here is being able to utilize Mind Over Matter and The One Ring which is pretty cool. We also get to see new card Stock Up that we talked about earlier. This list is pretty slick for sure.
Legacy Challenge 32 3/1/2025
The third Challenge event of the week was the Saturday event. This event had 43 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Eldrazi | 1st | Selfeisek |
| Death and Taxes - BW (Yorion) | 2nd | yoshiwata |
| Dimir Reanimator | 3rd | Zippoux |
| Dimir Reanimator | 4th | death_grips |
| Omni-Tell | 5th | Taddy99 |
| Necrodominance Combo | 6th | Nics |
| Dimir Tempo | 7th | ecobaronen |
| Dimir Tempo | 8th | Galaxy_Impact |
Again, quite a bit of combo in this Top 8. At the end of the event though it was Eldrazi that won.
There's not much here that's new, this is just stock Eldrazi, but it seemed like it just had a really good event and didn't run into too much Blood Moon effects.
In Second Place we had Death and Taxes.
Solid looking what we would consider to be stock D&T at the moment. The black splash getting to have Bowmasters and Overlord of the Balemurk has strictly proven that it is a bit better than the red splash right now.
Legacy Challenge 32 3/2/2025 - 1
The fourth Challenge event of the week was the first Sunday event. This event had 37 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Dimir Tempo | 1st | Schiaveto |
| Selesnya Depths | 2nd | Sol-e22558 |
| Stiflenought | 3rd | Hammafist |
| Dimir Tempo | 4th | Yukke |
| Dimir Reanimator | 5th | Ozymandias17 |
| Blue Painter | 6th | Chris_McNasty |
| Dimir Reanimator | 7th | Ryuho090 |
| Dimir Reanimator | 8th | Yamaro |
Lot of Dimir Reanimator and roughly half of the Top 8 is a combo deck. At the end of the event though it was Dimir Tempo that won.
As I mentioned earlier in this article I think this will be where Stock Up lands in these Tempo shells, as a 2-of more befitting the old school Painful Truths slot. It's a solid place for a card like this.
In Second Place we had Selesnya Depths.
This is a solid looking Depths list. I love the inclusion of Legolas's Quick Reflexes here. It's quite good with everything from Knight of the Reliquary to giving your Marit Lage a way to clear out a blocker if it needs to. Super cool for sure.
Legacy Challenge 32 3/2/2025 - 2
The final Challenge event of the week was the second Sunday event. This event had 65 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Dimir Reanimator | 1st | pickled6 |
| Dimir Reanimator | 2nd | mortr3d |
| Red Stompy | 3rd | Antarctica |
| Red Stompy | 4th | SiL3nTGoaT |
| Jeskai Control | 5th | takuto8240 |
| Eldrazi | 6th | albertoSD |
| Cephalid Breakfast | 7th | HamAndCheese |
| Oops! All Spells | 8th | BLJ |
Some Control, some Combo, some Stompy. At the end of the event though it was a pair of Dimir Reanimator lists in the finals with the winner being Burn! (Wait, no, Dimir Reanimator)
Much of the differences in this list are in the sideboard and some additional pieces of removal like Fatal Push in the Second Place list. Both of these decks however really are close to the same though as they both want to execute their main game plan and don't have a huge juke outside of Barrowgoyf.
Around the Web
- Ecobaronen has a video on Mono Blue Dreadnought Stompy. Check it out here.
- 90sMTG is showing off Ketramose. Check it out here.
- StrassDaddy has Ketramose and Parallax Wave. Check it out here.
- Eternal Durdles has a new episode with guest hARAIN on Dreadnought. Check it out here.
- GreenSunsZenith has a video on Selesnya Depths Top 8. Check it out here.
- The Legacy Archive has a video on Painter vs Reanimator. Check it out here.
- TonyScapone is Stocking Up on Coveted Jewel. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
Now that Leagues are posted throughout the week, let's find some Spice!
Cradle Control with Scythecat Cub!
MERFOLK STOMPY.
THE LORD OF THE BEACH.
Bomba-Beans-Draco-Glarb?
Nadu Cascade?
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!
