This Week in Legacy: The Bomberman
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 diving into a new build of Bomberman! In addition to that we've got two Challenge events to talk about.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Bomberman - Wilds of Eldraine Style
This is one I saw pop up on my Twitter feed thanks to our good friend Callum Smith of the Everyday Eternal Podcast. It's a take on Bomberman utilizing a new card from Wilds of Eldraine that has had a real splash in other formats but kind of has flown under the radar a bit here in Legacy.
What makes this card super interesting in the context of a deck like Bomberman is the fact that it allows many of the deck's existing creatures (such as Walking Ballista and Patchwork Automaton) to functionally become copies of Auriok Salvagers to enable the combo of recurring Lion's Eye Diamond until the deck wins the game via infinite mana. Furthermore, it can grant these abilities to the creatures who don't already have +1/+1 counters and it makes every creature with a +1/+1 counter gain those abilities which in turn creates a ton of redundancy in the deck's primary game plan. That kind of redundancy also means that future copies of creatures or multiple creatures on the battlefield at the same time can have the ability which makes it even harder to disrupt.
In addition to being able to have a boost to the primary Salvagers combo, the deck can also have things like Phyrexian Devourer as another alternative win condition, and the Automatons make for a very powerful aggressive game plan as well. Saga neatly ties this together in a lot of ways, giving the deck a reasonable backup plan in case something goes wrong with the Salvagers plan as it does for a lot of non-blue strategies in the format.
I think this list is super cool and looks like a ton of fun. It has a lot of powerful things it is doing and redundancy is always key in these kinds of A+B style combo decks with a beatdown backup strategy.
The Origins of Buffalo Chicken Dip Legacy
Normally I would call something like this out in our Around the Web section, but this is definitely a must-watch interview on the origins of BCDL and Rob Wilson with Eternal Durdles.
Legacy Challenge 9/16
The first Challenge event of the weekend was the early morning Saturday event. This event had 65 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 datasheet here.
Jeskai Control was the most popular deck here and it's win rate was really good overall. Black Stompy did very poorly while Dimir Scam did very well. D&T and Shadow both also did poorly here.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Dimir Scam | 1st | M0001 |
| Jeskai Control | 2nd | Killah_SUV |
| Boros Stompy | 3rd | burrarun |
| Boros Stompy | 4th | LazZoO |
| 4C Uro Control | 5th | wara |
| Jeskai Control | 6th | ziofrancone |
| Bant Control | 7th | _INF_ |
| Dimir Scam | 8th | connormc02 |
Very interesting Top 8 here. Lot of Control here for sure. At the end of the event though it was Dimir Scam that won.
This looks like a strong list for sure. It's no surprise this deck is doing well. It has a lot of power behind it with the Scam turns and converting that into a win via Murktide/Troll.
In Second Place we had Jeskai Control.
Love seeing Comet in these decks as another solid win condition type card outside of Forth Eorlingas!. This deck continues to look better and better all the time.
Also in this Top 8 we had Boros Stompy.
Speaking of Comet, it showing up here is no surprise. It seems quite good in the Stompy builds as well as Jeskai, so it's fun to see. This deck is otherwise very stock-looking across the board, but it's a powerful stock list so there's not a ton of need to change too much here.
Further down the Top 8 we had 4C Uro Control.
The Delighted Halfling control decks are certainly very powerful. Surprised to see no Beanstalks here, but it feels like players are on and off that card. Slogurk, the Overslime is super cool though.
Legacy Challenge 9/17
The second Challenge event of the weekend was the mid-afternoon Sunday event. This event had 101 players based on the data the Legacy Data Collection project was able to collect.
You can find the Top 32 deck lists for this event here and the incomplete datasheet here. Due to technical difficulties there was not full data for this event.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Dimir Scam | 1st | MadMaxErnst |
| Dimir Scam | 2nd | Didackith |
| Oops! All Spells | 3rd | Trailovsky |
| Sneak and Show | 4th | Graciasportanto |
| Doomsday | 5th | wonderPreaux |
| RUG Delver | 6th | silviawataru |
| Mono Green Cloudpost | 7th | TrueFuturism |
| Red Stompy | 8th | SuperCow12653 |
Very interesting spread of decks here. At the end of the video, we had a pair of Dimir Scam decks as the two finalists.
Both of these decks are fairly similar in construction overall outside of the sideboard options being slightly different. This is definitely a strong deck and it is doing very well.
Further down the Top 8 we have Sneak and Show.
Vesuvan Drifter has certainly continued to show up in these types of decks and it is a relatively interesting card overall here. Nice creature spread across the board for it as well.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we had RUG Delver.
Very interesting to see Questing Druid making a splash in the current format. I was not too high on this card, but it feels like maybe it might be pretty reasonable. I think the coolest aspect of it is that casting the Adventure half of it does trigger any Druids on board to get that +1/+1 counter.
Around the Web
- Tony Scapone and Marcus Ewaldh on High Tide. Check it out here.
- Card Market has an article on Legacy Beanstalk Control. Check it out here.
- The Legacy Gambit takes a look at the Mono Black Helm deck from ELM 2023. Check it out here.
- The legendary Reid Duke joins Eternal Durdles for an interview. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
You can find this past week's 5-0 deck lists over here.
I always love seeing Mono White Painter.
Grixis is cool, but Nimble Obstructionist?! Sweet deal.
RUG Tempo with Beans and Questing Druid!
Rakdos Stompy is kind of sweet.
Simic Murktide with Beans!
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!
