This Week in Legacy: Spice On The Fringes

by Ewlandon // Jul 24, 2019

I have spent the last couple of articles focusing on how the most resent sets have changed the makeup of the top tier decks in Legacy. There have been so many drastic and interesting changes to the legacy metagame that some very interesting and viable, yet fringe, decks have gone under the radar.

One of those decks made it all the way to the weekly Magic Online Legacy Challenge Top 4 on July 14th. Others have been popping up in leagues and smaller tournaments. This week we will look at some of the Spice people have been playing.

The first card we are going to look at is Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis. Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis is a card that warped Modern so drastically that Bridge from Below was banned. In Legacy, it's not going to warrant any bans but, there are a couple of competitive decks that have popped up including a Top 4 finish from DNSolver in the July 14th challenge.

This deck is a typical Dark Depths strategy with Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis thrown in. I watched DNSolver stream the challenge and, unsurprisingly, he won almost every game by making Marit Lage rather than with the Hogaak synergies. However, I have seen others doing well with this deck and Hogaak does add something in some situations. The Hogaak synergies are with Stitcher's Supplier and Satyr Wayfinder possibly milling Hogaak and helping you cast it with convoke and delve. Khalni Garden also puts a creature into play that you can use to cast Hogaak or flashback Cabal Therapy. This is an interesting take on a Dark Depths strategy but I'm pretty sure you could get away with only three copies of Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis to bring the main deck down to 60 cards.

This is a more dedicated Hogaak strategy like the one that was responsible for the banning of Bridge from Below in Modern. On its face, it is a Zombardment strategy that uses the graveyard to recur Bloodghast and Gravecrawler to make a big Carrion Feeder and many 2/2 zombies with Bridge from Below. With the inclusion of Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis and Altar of Dementia, there is now a combo win. These two cards along with Bridge from Below allow you to mill yourself in order to recast Hogaak enough times to make enough zombies to mill out our opponent.

Echo of Eons is the next card at the heart of a new fringe playable legacy deck. This time a dedicated combo deck that is trying to assemble Narset, Parter of Veils, Echo of Eons, along with lots of mana and spells for a lethal Tendrils of Agony. With Narset in play the draw 7 from Echo of Eons is virtually one sided and a combo on its own. These two cards together make the opponent discard their hand and draw 1 card while you draw 7. Without Narset in play the storm player is hoping that their 7 new cards are strong enough to win on the same turn. This deck can win very quickly with the right combination of cards as it can continue to draw 7 and generate lots of mana. The fastest way for the deck to draw a new 7 cards is by casting Echo of Eons off of Lion's Eye Diamond. Entomb is included to help increase the chances of casting Echo of Eons when you draw Lion's Eye Diamond. I'm not sure if this strategy can compete at the same level as traditional storm strategies but it does look fun.

Crashing Footfalls is a powerful effect at the heart of yet another fringe deck that has come out of the woodwork with the release of Modern Horizons. This deck uses Brainstorm to set up a backbreaking Shardless Agent cascade that hits either Crashing Footfalls or Ancestral Visions. Unfortunately, with only 4 Brainstorm and 4 Shardless Agent this combination is not always going to work out very well. You will often have to play the suspend cards the way they were designed and you will often cascade into cards that are very situational in their power such as Hymn to Tourach. That being said, the deck is filled with powerful cards and has some pretty broken draws. I have seen other shells trying to abuse Crashing Footfalls including one that uses Faithless Looting and Dreadhorde Arcanist.

The last card we are going to look at is responsible for some different fringe prison style decks in Legacy, Urza, Lord High Artificer. There are multiple ways to build an Urza, Lord High Artificer prison deck but I think the most powerful way to do so is in a shell like the one Sussurruss_mtg played in the July 7th challenge. This deck has some interesting card choices but, at its core it is a prison deck that uses Urza, Lord High Artificer, Karn, Scion of Urza and Karn, the Great Creator as its win conditions. Urza is very similar to Karn, Scion of Urza because it makes a huge token that can win the game, and it provides card advantage with its ability. However, unlike Karn, Scion of Urza, Urza, Lord High Artificer also lets you generate a ton of mana which can be useful for casting cards that you wish for with Karn, the Great Creator. Now, Microsynth Lattice not only locks your opponent out of the game it also turns all of your permanents into islands.

These decks on the fringes still have a lot of room for brewing and I look forward to see what direction brewers take them. I think there are other cards from the most recent sets that are either underexplored or have not been brewed with yet. Personally, I'd love to see someone brew up an Aria of Flame deck.

Eric Landon, or “ewlandon,” is a long time Magic and Legacy enthusiast who has spent nearly two years as the Legacy Trophy Leader by a substantial margin. He is also 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.