This article is about the pieces of Magic content, that over the years, have inspired us. It could be for any reason. Nostalgia, great writing, important theory or perhaps it taught us something integral about the game or ourselves. Most of these are about how to approach Magic itself, not just discussions of specific decks or cards. Everyone, not just Legacy players should find something of use in every one of the articles we have chosen.

I hope you enjoy them as much as we have.

Tom

When I thought of collating this article, this was the piece of writing that stuck out in my mind. Caleb used to be a prolific writer about Legacy before deciding to turn to streaming full time. (Watch him here). He built the Survival of the Fittest, Vengevine deck that got its namesake card banned and UR Painter among others. Very few articles compare to Calebs treatise on Cabal Therapy in the depth and detail they go into. This article was one of the first that really brought home how to actually play matches and gain subtle advantages from the wealth of information on display while playing. It is quite simply brilliant.

Caleb Durward, Legacy Weapon – Therapy Session

Nic

It has to be an article of Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa for me. I love how clear his articles are, and that he often touches on general game theory concepts which is a field that I find fascinating. The applications go way beyond Magic, which makes these articles even more interesting to read. It’s hard to pick one, so instead I’ll provide two (an old one and a recent one) and will let the reader search the many good articles he’s written in between:

Paulo Vito Damo da Rosa, PV’s Playhouse – Game Theory

Paulo Vito Damo da Rosa, 8 Biases That Are Making You Worse at Magic

Peter

If I had to pick one article it might be Drew Levin’s Stifle/Wasteland article. Drew is a somewhat contentious figure in the Magic community because of his online crusade against Zach Jesse, but his early articles from the 2011-2012 period are absolutely fantastic and are what introduced me to the Legacy format. In particular, I love the historical context. Stifle/Wasteland are still a pillar of the format. Despite being six years old now, the article touches on some factors that are relevant today like threat density and greed/power vs consistency.

Stifle and Wasteland – Drew Levin

Richard

I have been a fan of eternal formats since returning to playing Magic in 2011. I’ve been a fan for nearly the same amount of time of the content of the writer and Eternal Magic personality Steve Menendian. A great Magic player who finds a way to share both his passion for Magic and his insights into playing competitively through a probing, thorough exploration of a given archetypes or deck in almost any article he writes. Nowhere is there a better synthesis of the above than in my favourite Magic article, Steve Menendian’s history of “The Deck”. The Deck started life as the infamous Type 1 control deck, and for the nostalgia fan in me, it was a thrilling history lesson to see how The Deck has evolved over time, from the genesis of Magic into the mid-00s.

Steve has produced an entertaining, thorough examination of the card choices in The Deck and its philosophy by theming the article around The Deck’s creator, Brian Weissman and his Magic career. A must for Old School enthusiasts looking to gain an insight into how to play The Deck, and a great Magic history lesson for anyone interested in the origins of the game.

Steve Menendian, The History of The Deck

Francis

Joining the game a little later than my co-writers, I found Paulo’s series on deck archetypes an excellent introduction to the variety of strategy available in non-Standard formats. I can remember reading about bygone decks like Faeries and Stoneblade in awe over the power available in times past, whilst looking forward to trying these cards out for myself. Aggro-Control was the article that resonated most with me at the time.

Paulo Vito Damo da Rosa, PV’s Playhouse – Aggro-Control

Anders

This isn’t exactly a Legacy article, hell it isn’t even a player oriented article, this is a tournament report from the Head Judge of the 1999 French Nationals. I read it from time to time to remind me never to take it as serious as the aptly named “Kamikaze” squad in the report. It’s just a game we’re playing. For fun. Don’t angle shoot, respect the judges and your opponents. We’re playing a game. For fun.

Cyril Grillon, 1999 French Nationals – HJ Report

Addendum

I forced the guys to try and keep it to one choice… but if you are interested here are a few more amazing articles that came up as we discussed our choices.

Sam Black, GP Atlanta Top 8 With Zombies

AJ Sacher, Developing An Intuition For Intuition

Drew Levin, The Ultimate RUG Delver Primer

Stephen Menendian’s History of Vintage

Caleb Durward, A Spy with and Absence of Shards

Mike Flores, Who’s the Beatdown?

So what’s your favorite article of all time?

Thanks for reading

Tom Kellock

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