This Week in Legacy: The Riddler Cometh
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 digging into a sweet deck that has been making the rounds in Challenges and such, utilizing Containment Construct and Riddlesmith! In addition to that, we've got some paper event stuff going on, as well as data from this past weekend's MTGO Challenges.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Riddles For Fun and Profit
Occasionally it takes some time for certain cards to find the right shell in this format, and it's even more difficult to figure out the right way to approach a deck without a lot of time put into it. This is what we've seen time and time again with many different decks that have broken into the format before this, and I suspect that there's just much more open space to consider than we really can see in the format.
A deck that has been making the rounds lately in the format Challenges and leagues is one such as this, known commonly as "The Riddler" due its use of the card Riddlesmith.
Containment Construct on the surface looked like a very powerful card in general, providing a lot of really high power level plays, but it never really took off in terms of play amongst the community at large. Despite rumblings of an Artificer's Intuition deck floating about, the card didn't really do much and ultimately fell out of people's radar. Until now, that is.
This deck utilizes the functionality of the Construct well by using Riddlesmith, Breakthrough, and Gamble as engines to cast many zero mana value Artifacts and churn through the deck as quickly as possible, using cards like Echo of Eons to reset itself and continue drawing. This makes for a very powerful combination by giving the deck many ways to draw through to its payoffs, which include cards like Brain Freeze, Grapeshot, and even Karn, the Great Creator.
First and foremost, this deck is very much like an Artifact based Storm deck in its construction, using cards like Defense Grid to protect its combo from interaction, while also having Urza's Saga as a backup plan to win the game with.
There are a lot of really meaningful choices in the construction of this deck. You don't arrive at numbers like three copies of Breakthrough or one Karn, the Great Creator without having sat down and done the math and iterating on it. There's a lot of very Vintage level sensibilities about this decklist and it looks extremely powerful.
Definitely keep some eyes on this deck because it looks like it is very good.
Paper Event News - Dragon Master Games Legacy 2K and BCDL Open Venue Stuff
We've got some paper event stuff going on here as of late, with our first bit being on a Legacy 2K held at Dragon Master Games in NY on 6/4/2022. This event had 44 players in it and sounded like a solid time. You can find all of the Top 8 decklists for this event over here and more information on Dragon Master Games over here on their Facebook.
I would be remiss of course without posting the sick First Place list for this event though. Hive Mind Pacts is one heck of a thing.
In addition to that event, our good friend Rob Wilson of the Buffalo Chicken Dip Legacy Series posted a tweet showcasing some of the venue shots for the upcoming BCDL Open in November. Be sure to check this place out, as it's easily the best venue anyone has ever been to ever. You can find all of the information on registering for this event over here. Seeing all this really makes me wish I could go to this!
Legacy Challenge 6/18
The first Challenge event of the weekend was the early morning Saturday event, which had 63 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.
Big spread of decks all at the top here with Jeskai, Stompy, and UR Delver. UR Delver had a very positive win rate in this event, with a non-mirror win rate of 61.90%. Jeskai performed positively as well with a 57.14% non-mirror win rate, and Red Stompy did a medium-ish 48.65% non-mirror win rate, despite putting one of its pilots into the Top 8.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| UR Delver | 1st | tomoro3333 |
| Bant Control | 2nd | DominusDeus |
| Jeskai Control | 3rd | trunks132 |
| Red Stompy | 4th | M0001 |
| Elves | 5th | fluffy21 |
| Reanimator | 6th | nazart |
| GW Depths | 7th | wara |
| UR Delver | 8th | ARAPAKO |
Interesting Top 8 for sure, with some Control as well as Delver and Depths, plus some one-offs. At the end of the event it was UR Delver that took it all down.
Main deck Dead // Gone is kind of sweet honestly. Very clean answer to a lot of different cards, especially Marit Lage and opposing Murktide Regent (for the Gone half) while being direct damage to other cards.
The Second Place finalist was on Bant Control.
Pretty clean-looking list here with some Field of the Dead and Loam action going on as well as the usual Bant stuff. Ashiok, Dream Render in the sideboard is super sweet.
Also in this Top 8 we've got Red Stompy.
Hazoret is a cool inclusion here. Also, Arc-Slogger in the sideboard is super amusing for sure. Definitely an interesting list.
Near the bottom of the Top 8 we've got Reanimator.
Powerful list here, splashing into blue specifically for Show and Tell in the sideboard for getting around the graveyard hate. Very sneaky and fun!
Legacy Challenge 6/19
The other Challenge event of the weekend was the Sunday event, which had 93 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.
UR Delver was a massive portion of the event and had a solid 53.33% non-mirror win rate. However, it was 8Cast that did exceptionally well, in addition to a deck just below the cutoff in Yorion Zenith (putting all three of its pilots into the Top 8 of the event).
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| 8Cast | 1st | Danny_Bambino |
| Yorion Zenith | 2nd | JPA93 |
| Black Phoenix | 3rd | Pietrone10 |
| UR Delver | 4th | Mikhathara1994 |
| Yorion Zenith | 5th | kauffj |
| Doomsday | 6th | wonderPreaux |
| UR Delver | 7th | kentaro_hokori |
| Yorion Zenith | 8th | alithinar |
As noted, all three of the Yorion Zenith players in the event snuck into the Top 8 here, alongside a good amount of Delver and even some Black Phoenix, but at the end of the event it was 8Cast that won it all.
The 8Cast shell is very powerful and has some very strong play to it. Definitely a deck to continue to keep an eye on when approaching the metagame.
The Second Place list was on Yorion Zenith.
This deck is very mana intensive and has a lot of color requirements, but thankfully seems to make them work well enough with cards like Abundant Growth. Definitely, just a huge toolbox deck that tries to play to the board and to the matchup.
Also in this Top 8 we have some Phoenix action.
Ledger Shredder seems absolutely insane with Arclight Phoenix, able to dump Phoenixes or an Ox to the graveyard for recursion while also sculpting your hand and growing at the same time. Having just an absolutely free pitch to Shredder seems absurdly good.
Further down the Top 8 we have Doomsday.
Main deck Grief is pretty cool. Definitely a fun way of ensuring the opponent doesn't have a response to a Doomsday. Worth noting that they're also playing one copy each of Thoughtseize, Duress, and Unmask as well for discard effects.
Around the Web
- I forgot to mention that I was on a recent episode of Eternal Durdles, talking about data and data collection. Check it out here!
- Phil Gallagher going to a Mob Scene with Ob Nixilis, the Adversary in Nic Fit. Check it out here.
- Bryant Cook plays Karn. The End is Nigh.
- The Eternal Glory Podcast has some discussion on Displacer Kitten. Check it out here.
- 90sMTG is keeping the paper dream alive by showcasing stuff we can't yet see on MTGO with new card Sailors' Bane. Check out the video here.
- Our good friend Roland Chang was on Leaving a Legacy recently. Check that out here.
The Spice Corner
You can find this past week's 5-0 deck lists over here.
Mono White Dreadnought is HOT.
Rhinos in Legacy!
A sweet take on Dredge, by not having any LEDs in it!
This Gruul Painter list is absolutely sick! Shoutout to Roger Sikes for this super sweet list.
xJCloud is just throwing cats at people until they die.
Another Painter list, this time Izzet with Murktide Regent?!?!
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!
