This Week in Legacy: The Heart of Tarkir
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 taking a look at how much Tarkir: Dragonstorm is impacting Legacy! In addition to that we've got some announcements from BCDL, and some Challenge data from last week.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Tarkir's Early Impact on Legacy
Tarkir: Dragonstorm has been out a week, so let's take a look at some decks that have been playing some of these new cards! It's no surprise that there were some cards from this set that would see play, but the extent is much higher than even I thought for some of these cards.
I think the most playable of the cards that I expected to see was Rakshasa's Bargain as Beans players moved to try the card out. It triggers Up the Beanstalk and is easily castable with its mana requirements in that deck, so we've definitely seen this one show up a bunch in Beans decks.
And very much so we've seen a bunch of these decks playing this card. Some have even had some pretty good results. I think the numbers on this are pretty solid too, max of two-three of this card tops is a good place to be.
This is one that sort of surprised me, because it wasn't something I had really looked at in regards to our set review for Tarkir. This card does seem quite interesting though. You get to at least make one 1/1 with Prowess a turn when you cast two spells, but it does it each turn which is nice. We've seen this card show up in some of the Tempo shells as well as Jeskai Control sofar.
This particular deck gets to use the card as a win condition, which is kind of wild. Multiples of these can be quite strong, so it's really cool to see something new come out of this that was unexpected.
I hadn't really expected much out of Ugin thus far, but Legacy players can certainly find ways to enable some of these cards. Where else? Mystic Forge!
It definitely seems like you can pretty easily power this out with the Urza's Tower + Planar Nexus and all the Monoliths + Keys you play in this deck. Seems kind of fun for sure. I like seeing that there's a place for a Planeswalker like this.
This is one that I thought maybe I would see more of, and I've definitely played against builds of Omni-Tell / Show and Tell decks playing it. I didn't expect to see it in an Echo of Eons shell, but that's kind of sweet.
Using this card to enable an uncounterable Echo is kind of gross, not going to lie. I do expect to see more of this card going forward because it is a very powerful card and seems quite good. Awkwardly this shell doesn't have any ways for it to be untapped on ETB, but I don't think it ever really matters.
Tarkir: Dragonstorm definitely has had a small impact on Legacy, and mostly sofar seems like a positive one. I'm excited to see how this set continues to impact Legacy going forward.
Buffalo Chicken Dip Legacy Open 4 - August 2025!
Our good friends over at Buffalo Chicken Dip Legacy have officially announced their BCDL Legacy Open 4 weekend, including both the BCDL Open itself and a BCDL Win-A-Mox event! On the weekend of August 2nd-3rd are two BCDL events in Columbus, OH at The Warp Gate. All details for both events including the sign-ups are listed here.
The first event of the weekend is a larger scale event with first place winning an Unlimited Mox Jet for the prize! This event does have some increased entry at $110. The following Sunday is a regular BCDL style event with the first place winning a Mox Diamond!
Thanks so much to Robert Wilson of BCDL for providing us all the great info on these events. I unfortunately can't make it to either of these because I will be out of town, but I hope everyone who goes has a great time!
Legacy Challenge 32 4/9/2025
The first Challenge event of the week was the Wednesday event. This event had 41 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Oops ended up being the most played deck of the event (by a fairly small margin really considering the average number of decks above the cutoff), and it's win rate did look pretty good. Beans saw a nice resurgence with a nice win rate as well. Both Izzet Tempo and Red Stompy looked good, as did Mono Black Reanimator.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Oops! All Spells | 1st | faultedform |
| Beanstalk Control (Non-Yorion) | 2nd | DethFrmAbove |
| Black Stompy | 3rd | Funnyman31399 |
| Beanstalk Control (Non-Yorion) | 4th | musasabi |
| Izzet Tempo | 5th | Joyfulwaffle |
| Mono Black Reanimator | 6th | Roodslay |
| Oops! All Spells | 7th | kaikas |
| Red Stompy | 8th | death_grips |
Fair split between Combo, Stompy, Control, and even some Tempo. At the end of the event it was Oops that won.
Abyssal Harvester is kind of a neat sideboard juke that works pretty well with Thassa's Oracle. You get to be able to respond to Surgical Extraction with it, which is kind of sick. Definitely a very wild way to still enable your combo.
In Second Place we had BEANS.
Oh my lanta, this deck is sweet. This Town Ain't Big Enough?! Stormchaser's Talent?!?!? I've played a few games with this already and it seems incredibly sweet. You get a lot of action out of This Town Ain't Big Enough that it just does a great job of being temporary removal while also triggering Beanstalk. In addition, new card Rakshasa's Bargain has looked great every time I've gotten to cast it.
Legacy Challenge 32 4/11/2025
The second Challenge event of the week was the Friday event. This event had 36 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Beanstalk decks were the most popular deck here, but their win rate tanked pretty hard from the previous event. Dimir Tempo and Izzet Tempo looked great, as did Grixis Control. Red Stompy and Mystic Forge did not look too hot here either.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Grixis Control | 1st | jankyb |
| Dimir Tempo | 2nd | Frejat |
| Izzet Tempo | 3rd | Joyfulwaffle |
| Dimir Tempo | 4th | _INF_ |
| Oops! All Spells | 5th | MdvWin |
| Oops! All Spells | 6th | SilversRayleigh |
| Nadu Midrange Combo | 7th | jibeta |
| Stiflenought | 8th | Hammafist |
Fair amount of Tempo here, alongside some Combo and Control. At the end of the event it was Grixis Control that won.
There's not a lot going on here that we haven't already seen out of these decks. It's pretty cool, though. Molten Collapse is a solid card in this kind of deck because it can pretty easily descend to enable both modes, but the flexibility is really strong.
In Second Place we had Dimir Tempo.
Pretty neat list here. Stifle showing up is pretty cool.
Legacy Challenge 32 4/12/2025
The third Challenge event of the week was the Saturday event. This event had 42 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Dimir Tempo was super popular but its win rate was less than 50%. Red Stompy, D&T, and Sneak and Show all looked great. Jeskai Control, Oops, and Blue Painter all seemed to suffer hard.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Grixis Tempo | 1st | Ark4n |
| Death and Taxes - RW (Yorion) | 2nd | jamiwvh |
| Death and Taxes - BW (Yorion) | 3rd | olbeda |
| Red Stompy | 4th | Mogged |
| Sneak and Show | 5th | JPA93 |
| GW Ocelot Pride | 6th | rikimaru6 |
| Dimir Tempo | 7th | Oceansoul92 |
| Death and Taxes - BW (Yorion) | 8th | yoshiwata |
Kind of a neat Top 8 here. At the end of the event it was Grixis Tempo that won.
The red splash for Grixis is pretty light here. There's some good sideboard cards in red in the sideboard though. Meltdown seems quite good right now usually.
In Second Place we had D&T with the Red Splash.
It has been a hot minute since we have seen the red splash of D&T, with just how popular the black splash is. Broadside Bombardiers however is an absolutely gas card with every threat in the deck, which is pretty cool.
Legacy Challenge 32 4/13/2025
The final Challenge event of the week was the Sunday event. This event had 37 players in it thanks to the MTGO website. There were some stability issues with MTGO on Sunday that prevented the second Sunday event from firing.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
There was no singular deck that was the most popular deck here. Beans looked good, as did Painter and Red Stompy. Oops also looked good.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Oops! All Spells | 1st | _Chamytinho_ |
| Red Painter | 2nd | uburdub |
| Grixis Tempo | 3rd | _Batutinha_ |
| Red Stompy | 4th | Hutch60 |
| Beanstalk Control (Non-Yorion) | 5th | Jumba |
| Red Stompy | 6th | KoolooLimpah |
| Beanstalk Control (Non-Yorion) | 7th | ScreenwriterNY |
| Red Painter | 8th | boyxiaoliu |
Quite a bit of Beans, Stompy, and Painter. At the end of the event it was Oops that won though.
Once Upon a Time is kind of a neat card here. You've got 30 creatures to hit off of it, and realistically it can hit one of your important cards like Spy or Informer. This version of the deck is juking into the Belcher kill post board, alongside some Force of Vigor to try to get around hate.
In Second Place we had Red Painter.
This is a pretty standardized Red Painter list. The Agatha's Soul Cauldron is on its own here, no Phyrexian Devourer to pair with it, but honestly you don't need it. Soul Cauldron does a great job of being a strong card on its own. I love seeing stuff like Untimely Malfunction in the sideboard though. That card is sweet.
Around the Web
- StrassDaddy is beating down with Mardu. Check it out here.
- FL Legacy Club has some Legacy FNMs. Check it out here.
- Bryant Cook has a video on an undefeated trophy with The EPIC Storm. Check it out here.
- TonyScapone is doing some Coveted Jewel Combo. Check it out here.
- Eternal Durdles is jamming some Stiflenought. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
Now that Leagues are posted throughout the week, let's find some Spice!
Obosh is incredibly spicy.
Jeskai Energy is sweet.
Haven't seen a Humans list in a long while. This is kind of sweet.
Selesnya Aggro with Ocelot Pride is kind of cool. Multiple new cards here abound.
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!
