This Week in Legacy: The Return of Affinity
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 taking a look at a brand new set of decks taking the format by storm utilizing Simulacrum Synthesizer. We've also got a bunch of Challenges to discuss from this past week.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
How to Make Constructs Go-Go
One of the cards we talked about in our set review for Outlaws of Thunder Junction was one of the new cards from the BIG Score sheet within the set. That card was Simulacrum Synthesizer and within the past two weeks that card has exploded in playability.
This card has proven that once it gets rolling it's really powerful and generates a lot of creatures. While it doesn't quite go in very traditional 8Cast shells because those decks play a million mana value 0 cards, building around it is where we get a good looking deck. Utilizing actual Affinity creatures like Frogmite and Sojourner's Companion as well as stuff like Thought Monitor, this card can create a bunch of Constructs to kill the opponent very quickly. Add in a dash of new Outlaws card Lavaspur Boots and you've got a real recipe for a beating.
The first time we saw this was utilizing cards like Skorpekh Lord and Sicarian Infiltrator as PunishingWaterfalls took down a Challenge with the deck. In fact, PunishingWaterfalls took the opportunity to cover all of the matches with this deck and it was pretty sweet. Check that out below.
The evolution of this deck was such that players tried it without things like Gaea's Cradle and then eventually to a build eschewing cards like Skorpekh Lord entirely, giving the deck the ability to play cards like Chalice of the Void and more copies of Metallic Rebuke.
For right now this seems to be one of the default methods for this type of deck, but we have also seen this card show up in the Coveted Jewel combo deck.
This, alongside cards like Sicarian Infiltrator are things to keep an eye out for. The decks are incredibly aggressive and have lots of strong power to them. Simulacrum Synthesizer is proving that it has the power level needed to compete in Legacy, and it looks quite good. I've played a bit of this myself and it's an incredibly sweet card to play around with.
Legacy Challenge 32 4/24
The first Challenge of the week to speak of is the Wednesday evening Challenge. This event had 55 players in it thanks to the data collected by the Legacy Data Collection Project.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet here. There was no Round data for this event, so we only have metagame share to go off of.
UB Reanimator was the most popular deck here, as was Beans and Goblins.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| UB Reanimator | 1st | Capitano_CL |
| Creative Technique | 2nd | rasvd |
| Beanstalk Control (Yorion) | 3rd | McWinSauce |
| Creative Technique | 4th | F2104 |
| Grixis Delver | 5th | jankyb |
| RUG Delver | 6th | Misplacedginger |
| Beanstalk Control (Yorion) | 7th | sapph2c |
| Oops! All Spells | 8th | karatedom |
Pretty interesting Top 8. At the end of the event it was UB Reanimator that won.
It's interesting how the format is taking this deck now, it seems like things are starting to settle a bit and people are figuring out how to beat this deck. It's still quite powerful though.
In Second Place we had Creative Technique.
Solidly powerful looking list here. Both Call Forth the Tempest and Trumpeting Carnosaur have been huge inclusions for this deck overall.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we had Oops.
The sideboard juke into Charbelcher is pretty neat, while also having one main deck as just a "gotcha" juke. Pretty cool deck building.
Legacy Challenge 32 4/26
The next Challenges was the Friday Challenge, which had 49 players in it thanks to the data collected by the Legacy Data Collection Project.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
RUG Delver was very popular here and had a reasonable win rate overall. The spread at the rest of the cutoff is all over the place and very interesting.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Beseech Storm | 1st | Eureka22422 |
| Omni-Tell | 2nd | auzzie51 |
| RUG Delver | 3rd | _INF_ |
| Blue Artifacts | 4th | TonyScapone |
| Doomsday | 5th | wonderPreaux |
| Beanstalk Control (Non-Yorion) | 6th | kalcin66rocks |
| Simulacrum Affinity | 7th | sakuragi21722749 |
| Mono Black Reanimator | 8th | TheGrimLavamancer |
Very interesting Top 8 here. At the end of the event, it was Beseech Storm that won.
It's an interesting take on the Saga Beseech deck for sure. Bowmasters makes a bunch of sense here.
In Second Place we had Omni-Tell.
Very straightforward Omni list here. Can't go wrong with putting Omni into play and casting Emrakul!
Also in this Top 8 we had the new Tony Scapone pile.
The whole Saga game plan of just being able to put in just about any Stompy shell over the top of it is pretty cool. It allows a lot of decks to exist that otherwise wouldn't be any good for sure.
Legacy Challenge 32 4/27
The first-weekend event was the early morning Saturday event. This event had 51 players in it thanks to the data collected by the Legacy Data Collection Project.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the datasheet here.
Both Lands and RUG Delver were very popular with both having done quite well. BR Reanimator also did very well. UB Reanimator did poorly here overall.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Beseech Storm | 1st | Eureka22422 |
| Grixis Delver | 2nd | Diem4x |
| Selesnya Depths | 3rd | Sol-e22558 |
| Dimir Scam | 4th | Ryuho090 |
| RUG Delver | 5th | SHAKELION |
| Doomsday | 6th | Azerate218 |
| Death and Taxes (Yorion) | 7th | yoshiwata |
| BR Reanimator | 8th | dante1899 |
Fairly solid Top 8 here. At the end of the event it was a second win in a row for the same pilot that won on the previous event!
Definitely a solid list here. I like the sideboard jukes of bringing in Helm combo. Very cool.
In Second Place we had Grixis Delver.
Very straightforward list here. Molten Collapse has been a very good card it seems like.
We also had Selesnya Depths in the Top 8.
This is a slick list. It's interesting having seen the Depths decks having transitioned back to pure Selesnya and no splashes in some cases. I really like the sideboard options here, especially Doorkeeper Thrull.
Legacy Challenge 32 4/28
The next event on the weekend was the early morning Sunday 32 players Challenge. This event had 45 players in it thanks to the data collected by the Legacy Data Collection Project.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the datasheet here.
RUG Delver was quite popular, and its win rate looked good. UB Reanimator did poorly as did Goblins and Beans.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Death and Taxes (Yorion) | 1st | yoshiwata |
| Dimir Scam | 2nd | Maxtortion |
| Beanstalk Control (Non-Yorion) | 3rd | silviawataru |
| RUG Delver | 4th | Uranian |
| Red Painter | 5th | kanican |
| ANT | 6th | winterlong |
| RUG Delver | 7th | _INF_ |
| 4C Uro Control (Non-Yorion) | 8th | Kihara_Works |
Very cool Top 8 overall. At the end of the event it was D&T that won.
Very powerful list here. Canoptek Scarab Swarm is a sweet card in these decks overall. Serra Paragon also looks really cool.
In Second Place we had BUG/Dimir Scam.
Grist, the Hunger Tide is a sick inclusion here, and Witherbloom Command is such a powerful card right now. I really like this list.
Also in this Top 8 we had Red Painter.
Painter with the Soul Cauldron combo is quite cool. I think Soul Cauldron in general has presented such an interesting way for decks to win games. It's slick.
Legacy Challenge 64 4/28
The final Challenge of the weekend was the 64 player Sunday Challenge. This event had 65 players in it thanks to the data collected by the Legacy Data Collection Project.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Lands was very popular here and it looked quite good in terms of win rate. Dimir Scam also did well here. Most of the decks above the cutoff looked great.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Dimir Scam | 1st | Oceansoul92 |
| Selesnya Depths | 2nd | ZeusDesTodes |
| UB Reanimator | 3rd | Vegetaxx |
| Lands | 4th | empiricism |
| Selesnya Depths | 5th | Sprouts |
| ANT | 6th | Pietrone10 |
| Lands | 7th | DeathWrongShaman420 |
| UB Reanimator | 8th | DavidVanDerRaven |
Lands looked good here in the Top 8, but it was Dimir Scam that won overall.
The sideboard red splash here is pretty cool, given the current state of the format and all the artifact centric decks running about.
In Second Place we had Selesnya Depths.
Again, a very solid looking Depths list overall. Worth noting that seeing the surveil lands in other decks in Legacy truly shows how strong that effect has been on a land that is able to be fetched. Very cool.
Further down we had Lands in two different flavors, one of which was Punishing Fire Lands.
I really like this list. Punishing Fire can clean up quite a bit at the moment and seems quite good. Also Kozilek's Return in the sideboard is really sweet.
Around the Web
- MahfuzVanGogh has a video on Blue Dredge yet again. Check it out here.
- The Legacy Gambit is playing Lands! Check it out here.
- StrassDaddy continues to Furious Jund. Check it out here.
- Our good friends at Eternal Durdles have some gameplay content! Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
Now that Leagues are posted throughout the week, let's find some Spice!
Did we play Shoot the Sheriff?
JUND
What I'm Playing This Week
I'm working on setting up some very compartmentalized streams for various decks and formats over at http://twitch.tv/volrathxp! I'm hopeful to come up with a stream schedule at some point here for some regularity to have some content available. Lately I've been theorycrafting Battle of Wits of course!
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!
