Quick Overview of August
Legacy forum
Posted on Sept. 1, 2015, 7:08 p.m. by fluffybunnypants
Quick Legacy Breakdown for August
Legacy had a pretty big month in August with two major events. SCG DC and the Legacy Champs at Eternal Weekend brought out a pretty good amount of players. Lets take a look at the breakdown of the meta within the top 32 of all Legacy events in August. (These numbers are snagged from MTGGoldfish as they were the easiest to find in terms of raw numbers, though there is no breakdown between paper events and online events).
Im not going to go super deep into the meta, once youre past four decks in the top 32 the numbers get a little squiffy. However, lets also take a look at the combined numbers from SCG Washington and Eternal Weekend.
This Big Picture:
It appears that we have entered the age of Grixis Delver. Whats interesting is that the micro chasm of Eternal Weekend and SCGDC really hammer home the Grixis Delver superiority, but, in the overall picture, Miracles is even in terms of appearances. Part of this probably has to do with Miracles being a rough choice to play on paper as theres almost no way for you matches to not take forever while its much quicker to play online as all the shuffling, etc. is automated.
Jace, Vryn's Prodigy Flip is freaking everywhere. This little bastard popped up in several Grixis Control lists, Reanimator, 4 Color Control and BUG Control. Gerry Thompson ran this deck at the SCG Premier IQ in Charlotte to land himself 6th place and damn, is it spicy. Note that for of Dig Through Time in the main.
Dack Fayden is appearing mainboard, oh baby. Grixis Control lists have had a copy of this guy mainboard for a while now. Unfortunately for Esper and Jeskai Stoneblade, it turns out that stealing a Batterskull or a Umezawa's Jitte away from them is really good. On the other hand, Dack is also a useful way to fuel your Digs.
Death and Taxes is out for blood. As of now, be on notice. Death and Taxes is in a really good place, your manabase is not safe. At Eternal Weekend D&T was all over the top tables for the majority of the day and Im pretty sure that I ran into it at least 4 times. If you want to get anywhere in a large Legacy event, you have to be able to beat this deck, because its highly unlikely that you wont run into it. I blame Vryn Wingmare.
Chalice of the Void is everywhere. So, there was an Affinity player at the top tables most of the day at Eternal Weekend (youll note Affinity listed on the combined DC/EW graph). Howd she do it? Well, it couldve been her amazing Nahiri/Stoneforge Mystic cosplay or it could be that she was landing Chalice on 1 a lot. Hint: Its the second one. Check it out:
With MUD lists also making it to the top of the pack, its safe to assume that players are going to have to look out for decks that are looking to land a quick chalice or three ball if they want to be successful.
Preparation Is the Key to Victory:
The major trend really appears to be attacking the manabase. Between Grixis Delver, Death and Taxes, MUD varients and Lands, youre going to have to be prepared for some slogs. Having a way to either accelerate past their disruption or a way to shut them down is currently key to success.
Decks to be prepared for:
Miracles: Despite underperforming, this deck is still out there en-masse, both with and without Mentor.
Death and Taxes: White Weenie is on the upswing and with 4 color Delver decks being all the rage right now, its in prime position.
OmniTell: The blue beast is still out there and it will pubstomp you if you dont have a plan for it, especially if the pilot knows what theyre doing.
Grixis Delver: Pretty obvious. We can thank Noah Walker for the emergence of our new Zombie Fish overlord. But seriously, dealing with Gurmag Angler is tricky. Ive seen a lot of Dismembers in the main and/or side of a lot of decks recently. Having a plan to deal with Young Peezy tokens and Angler will be essential to placing well. Izzet Staticaster called to remind you shes baller.
The Oddball:
Okay, so Splinter Twin made the top 8 of Legacy Champs in Philly. I couldnt not talk about this, believe me, I tried. My honest opinion is that in Legacy you can basically play whatever you want as long as you build it correctly and take the meta into consideration. Its not like this dude decided he was going to play Twin with Steam Vents and Remand, no no, he was running Volcs and Force of Will. Ive seen everything from Mono green stompy running three Choke in the main to Legacy Bomberman/Counter Top do well. Will it work all the time? Probably not, but if you manage to catch enough people off guard you may just spike an event.
aeonstoremyliver says... #3
Well written! I didn't see you speak of any RDW/Burn lists, although I've seen a few in recent weeks make top 8, 16, and 32 ala SCG and TCG events. Although, I would imagine it makes up a small percentage of the meta.
September 1, 2015 10:28 p.m.
Looks like I'll be building Grixis Delver then. Awesome.
September 2, 2015 10:48 a.m.
aeonstoremyliver says... #5
@bigguy99 Miracles is one of the best decks, if it has a good pilot. Same can be said of any deck (almost), but I digress. 12 Post, MUD, and G/B/x seem like bad matchups for it, G/B/x cuz Abrupt Decay.
Omni Tell def seems seems stronger than S&T, and is harder to deal with. It's came on top for awhile now. One of the hardest decks to beat. I mean, 12 Post has similar critters, D&T runs Karakas (as does Post), but a resolved Omniscience is hard to deal with. Ashen Rider maybe? Thoughts?
September 2, 2015 12:55 p.m.
As fluffy put it, attack the manabase; Wasteland, hell even Ghost Quarter since there are so few basics. Besides, you can't assume that they'll have their one- or two-of Karakas every time you drop a fatty. Or you could just get out a non-legendary creature.
September 2, 2015 1:02 p.m.
fluffybunnypants says... #7
D&T is all about disruption. Lands are going to get ported, wasted and bounced, it's just how that deck works. Know what else is hilarious? Show and Telling in an Oblivion Ring to exile their Omniscience post board.
September 2, 2015 5:32 p.m.
Thanks for the summary! With so much less data available this year on the legacy meta i've been reading all i can find on it! I'm playing BUG control with Jace, Vryn's Prodigy Flip at a GPT this weekend! He has been really good so far. Flashing back strong sorceries like Hymn to Tourach is amazing. And he fuels my digs.
bigguy99 says... #2
Are people still crying over Miracles being the best deck in the format? Seems like enough decks are finding the right answers to it but a lot of the game revolves around you finding those answers before the Miracles player can actually get the counter/top setup online - which can be said for basically any game, but I think it's more important in particular against Miracles. Omni-tell is my favorite deck at the moment because it has a lot of digging to get to the win-cons and offers protection, most notably in the form of Force of Will.
September 1, 2015 9:51 p.m.