This Week in Legacy: Some Interesting Results

by Ewlandon // Jul 31, 2019

This week in legacy we had a number of relatively high-end legacy tournaments with some results worth looking at. We will take a look at the Top 8 of the following tournaments that took place over the weekend of July 20th: Star City Games Team Open, Magic Online Legacy Challenge, Leaving a Legacy Open, Hareruya Emperor of Legacy and MTA Eternal Fest 2019 Guangzhou.

Although it was a team event, the Star City Games Team Open showcases what the Legacy metagame looks like when driven by some of the game's best minds and pilots. This Top 8 looks less diverse than most Top 8s looked when Deathrite Shaman was legal. All but two decks were Wrenn and Six decks. This week those decks are starting to heavily lean toward control with three of those decks running the full playset of Arcum's Astrolabe. Arcum's Astrolabe is a one-mana artifact that can only be cast using snow-mana. It draws a card when you play it but it is primarily used to filter mana. This allows the control player to cast their multicolored spells using basics, wastelands, or off-color dual lands. I'm not totally convinced this is a necessary addition to the 4-color control decks but it is a surefire way to not get wastelanded off a crucial color. Other than the addition of the Astrolabes I am not at all surprised that the majority of successful Wrenn and Six decks in this Top 8 were using a control strategy. That being said, the winner of the open was Pete Ingram with his take on the 4-Color Delver deck that we saw break out in the last few weeks. This being a team event means we should take the data with a grain of salt but, it is definitely notable that not only are there 6 Wrenn and Six decks, but only one deck not running Brainstorm and Froce of Will. The outlier was Bomberman coming in at 2nd place.

This week's Magic Online Legacy Challenge had what might be the first legacy 75-card mirror match in the finals. The two Blood Moon Stompy players split the finals after accurately identifying that this strategy is a potent way to tackle the current Wrenn and Six takeover that we are seeing in Legacy. This deck is constructed to put a difficult lock piece into play on the first turns of the game then follow up with a fast win condition. The lock pieces are Trinisphere, Chalice of the Void, Blood Moon, and Magus of the Moon. These lock pieces will keep even a basic touting, astrolabe wielding control deck from casting cards, if played early enough. Goblin Rabblemaster, Legion Warboss, and Chandra, Torch of Defiance will quickly close out the game. By giving access to some sideboard artifacts in game one, and having a static Null Rod effect, Karn, the Great Creator plays a new and unique role in this age-old prison strategy that rears its ugly head every time 4-color greed decks start to overpower Legacy.

The next big tournament of the weekend was the inaugural Leaving a Legacy $2-$5k. This one had one of the biggest surprise results I have ever seen. The result came with an almost equally unexpected circumstance that made the finals a one game decider. Punishing Zoo took down this tournament after a mistake in deck registration that was discovered after the opponent was down a game in the finals. An unfortunate circumstance places an asterisk for the unexpected tournament-winning deck sporting Legacy all-stars Wild Necatl and Noble Hierarch. At the risk of being a naysayer who sounds unexcited about an underdog, I have to say my feeling is this was a fluke. The deck lacks the tools to deal with fast combo decks, doesn't really go far over the top of most fair decks and likely doesn't have too decisive of a matchup versus prison decks. That being said, congratulations to Meritt Elmarsri for shocking the world and taking down this tournament with such a fair and fun looking deck. The rest of this tournament's Top 8 consisted of Storm, 4-color Delver, Manaless Dredge, Reanimator, RUG Delver, UR Delver and Miracles.

To round out the weekend of results we have two international tournaments; Emperor of Legacy at Hareruya in Japan and MTA Eternal Fest 2019 in Guangzhou China. These two tournaments, along with the rest of the results of this weekend, show us that despite a heavy Wrenn in Six presence in Legacy we still have a very diverse metagame. In China, Cheung Sam's Eldrazi Stompy took down the tournament in a Top 8 that also consisted of Hogaak Depths, Burn, Lands and two copies each of BR reanimator and UR Delver. In Japan, Ookawa Hiroshi, piloting Grixis Control, won the tournament through a difficult Top 8 of Lands, Storm, 4-Color Delver, Miracles, Reanimator and two copies of RUG Delver.

In conclusion, there were some very exciting Legacy tournaments over the weekend and the Top 8's are starting to look a lot like when people were tired of Deathrite Shaman. However, other than the team event we see a very diverse set of strategies and decks in these Top 8s, and I do not think that it is problematic for blue strategies to have strong staple cards such as Wrenn and Six show up in numbers like these.

Eric Landon, or “ewlandon,” is a long time Magic and Legacy enthusiast. He is a full-time Magic streamer and Mythic Championship hopeful (hopeful to qualify someday).

You can find his schedule on https://twitter.com/Ewlandon1 or catch him live on Twitch at twitch.tv/ewlandon.