This Week in Legacy: Eternal Extravaganza 7

This Week in Legacy Turbo Depths Miracles Death & Taxes Dredge The Rock BUG Zenith Death's Shadow Esper Angler Aluren RUG Delver

Welcome to another This Week in Legacy! This week we look towards all the action at Eternal Extravaganza 7! One of the largest Legacy events of the year, two-hundred and twenty competed for the glory of EE7 champion. The Top 16 brought some pretty interesting lists that we’ll have a look at in the moment. Furthermore, this week’s Challenge also brought out some innovation!

Eternal Extravanganza 7

The Top 16 broke down as follows:

Deck Player Placing Turbo Depths Eli Kassis 1 Burn Patrick Owen 2 4c Control Sean Griffith 3 Miracles Daniel Miller 4 ANT Michael Woiten 5 ANT Jack Wang 6 Imperial Taxes Eetai Ben-Sasson 7 TES James Baxter 8 Grixis Delver Bob Huang 9 Dragon Stompy Warren Liem 10 Dragon Stompy Anthony Loman 11 Grixis Delver Andy Alt 12 Esper Delver Michael Mapson 13 Dredge Michael Keller 14 GBu The Rock Ben Katz 15 BUG Zenith Joe Brennan 16

The tournament itself was taken down by the one-and-only Eli Kassis, well-known for his Legacy speciality, his most recent previous finish being an SCG Open win with Miracles. In this event, however, he brought Turbo Depths, but looked to some old technology reborn:

There are a few bits and pieces of technology that are uncommon. The more subtle ones include the incorporation of Hymn to Tourach as hand disruption and the inclusion of Gitaxian Probe. Hymn I’m a little speculative on – with Turbo Depths you’re really only looking to remove certain cards (Plow etc.) from the opponent’s hand rather than grind them out, so I’m not sure why more Duress or Thoughtseize aren’t included instead. Gitaxian Probe I can appreciate, however, in the same way that Infect utilises it – for a big information advantage over the opponent and a knowledge of when to “go for it.” Eli has a singleton Cabal Therapy here that synergises with it, but as we’ve once seen before, the core of Cabal Therapy / Probe can be a reasonable inclusion in Turbo Depths especially with Sylvan Safekeepers and unused Hexmages lying around as fodder.

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The biggest revolution Eli incorporated, however, is Living Wish.

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Living Wish always saw some niche play in people looking for additional tutors in the Dark Depths combo deck – though recent lists looked more towards Sylvan Scrying, Crop Rotation, Into the North, and Expedition Map instead. Living Wish does, however, open up a creature-based toolbox in the sideboard in addition to being more copies of Dark Depths. Solid bullets include Reclamation Sage to bust apart that Needle on Thespian’s Stage, an extra Sylvan Safekeeper and Faerie Macabre for tutorable graveyard hate.

But probably the most notable new bullet available is this guy:

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With access to Excavator at any time, Turbo Depths can alter its game plan to be much more grindy and value-oriented at the drop of a hat. Recursive Dark Depths or Stages are a possibility with the Excavator, or a Swords to Plowshares intended for Marit Lage will get soaked up while still likely achieving value. Excavator makes the re-incorporation of Living Wish very worthwhile, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see this style of Dark Depths list further investigated in future.

At fourth came Miracles, further showing the shells continuing strength. This list is interestingly pure Blue-White, with an incredibly basic-heavy mana base to support a main deck Back to Basics. Other sledgehammer permanents incorporated into this list is a one-of Mentor, a one-of Gideon, Ally of Zendikar and a two-of Counterbalance to synergise with the ten cantrips and three Predicts. Interestingly, not a Soothsaying in sight.

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Stony Silence is an enchantment that Miracles also gets to play in the sideboard now being Top-less. In most non-Stoneblade, non-Aether Vial White decks (of which there are few) it’s likely better than Null Rod!

Eetai “iatee” Ben-Sasson places once again incredibly well with Imperial Taxes, still finding the Red splash for Magus of the Moon (despite the recent rules changes) more than worthwhile. Another big boon is Pia and Kiran Nalaar. This version of Death & Taxes I actually feel very positive about in the current metagame dominated by Czech Pile and other midrange decks. Kolaghan’s Command can be a beating, but Mooning the opponent or slamming Karakas-protectable four-drops into the opponent is certainly a powerful bit of counterplay inaccessible to normal mono-White versions.

The sideboard has the typical Cunning Sparkmage along with a spicy inclusion of Fiendslayer Paladin, a card I once tested for the Grixis matchup but soon became a little less enamoured with. Interesting to see the Paladin was worthwhile to iatee.

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Once well-known as the man pushing a variety of exciting decks on The Source – such as Manaless Dredge and Imperial Painter – Michael Keller hadn’t seen some high-profile finishes for some time. Here he returns with a bang with his primary weapon of choice – Dredge. Keller’s list adopts a lot of modern technology such as two Prized Amalgam slowly becoming standard in LED variants, but notably drops a card once a hallmark four-of – Careful Study – for more Putrid Imps and a duo of Dread Returns to revive a main deck Ashen Rider.

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I’m actually a big fan of Putrid Imp, since he oils the gears of Dredge very subtly. He acts as:

Black creature in the graveyard to feed Ichorid.

A recursive discard outlet to prevent the deck from running out of steam when a Dredger isn’t flipped into the graveyard.

Food for Cabal Therapy.

Food for Dread Return.

Anaemic beatdown with Narcomoeba, Golgari Thug and friends!

That being said, Careful Study provides pseudo-card advantage when pitching Dredgers while also not only being a discard outlet, but also an accelerant when Dredgers are in the bin. If anything, I’d be trimming the more high-variance Breakthrough before Careful Study if going for this more grindy approach with Imps, but I’d opt for Mr. Keller’s expertise over mine any day. His sideboard is quite well-rounded, with Leyline of Sanctity being a likely concession to Storm and other combo decks.

This is a complete oddball that took 15th place! Basically Black-Green “The Rock”, but splashing Blue very lightly for Leovold, Emissary of Trest and Brainstorm for added consistency. Not enough Blue cards for Force of Will here, though a Hydroblast did make its way into the sideboard. Chrome Mox is also an interesting conclusion but allows for some brutal turn one Dark Confidant or even Grim Flayer. It getting milled over by Flayer or discarded to Liliana or Collective Brutality also gets Delirium turned on effectively.

The exciting lists never slow down! Joe Brennan brought this BUG Zenith list to 16th place and looks very, very exciting. At its heart it is a mana dork and Leovold deck with eight mana dorks and three Leovolds available to the deck to cast on potentially turn two. Unlike Reid Duke’s True-Name BUG, however, this list is much less aggressively slanted, without True-Names, opting to grind out value with Strix and capitalise in the flexibility of Green Sun’s Zenith to find whatever creature needed in the late game. This deck actually has an absurd amount of consistency thanks to its suite of eight cantrips and four Zenith, not to mention Unearth or tutorable Eternal Witness allowing the deck to get value from the graveyard. This looks like a monster against fair decks like Delver, and I’d also imagine it can go toe-to-toe with Czech Pile in its ability to grind.

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I’m also slightly in love with the Far // Away in the sideboard. Diabolic Edict is seeing more play than ever before these days thanks to the presence of True-Name Nemesis and Marit Lage, and Away does much the same. Far, however, can assist with tempoey aggro draws perhaps involving Tarmogoyf or rebuy Baleful Strix or Eternal Witness for more value goodness.

Another deck I’d briefly like to mentioned was 4c Control feat. Kess, Dissident Mage that appeared on stream. I’d highly recommending looking at the write-up from its pilot on The Source – it seems like Kess was indeed an all-star, especially in the current very midrangey, grindy metagame where she dodges removal in the mirror while creating recursive value. Seems like Grixis Control is not the only possible home for the Dissident Mage!

09/17/17 Legacy Challenge

And now this week’s Challenge! The Top 8 broke down as:

Deck Player Placing Miracles Alakazimdk 1 Esper Angler Heibing 2 Bant Deathblade Hayseed 3 4c Control Zam_ 4 Eldrazi Stompy keyo98 5 BUG Death's Shadow Danker 6 Maverick Olivetti 7 4c Control Gretorp 8

Most interesting was Heibing’s Esper Angler list:

This list takes a lot of nods from Maxtortion’s Esper Delver, but gives it a more controlling bent, incorporating Gitaxian Probe / Cabal Therapy to synergise with Lingering Souls. If anything, in a similar way that Grixis Control is like the bigger brother of Grixis Delver, Heibing’s list is the bigger brother of Esper Delver. I also particularly appreciate how Thought Scour is further capitalised only getting value from milled-over Cabal Therapy in addition to Souls and fuelling Angler.

This is one of the cleaner looking BUG Shadow lists I’ve seen, and really aims to capitalise on the aggressive aspects of the card rather than aim to be a Stifle Wasteland shell that many Shadow lists have tried to be in the past – there’s not even any Delvers in this deck either. Fifteen lands makes this very, very lean, but makes sense considering a full set of Street Wraith are also being run. A card I might like to see in this deck is Stubborn Denial. Without Wasteland, hard counters are more of a necessity, an Stubb can be turned on by both Angler and Shadow.

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Sylvan Library is also further reason to dip into Green. Swords to Plowshares is a problem no more when you can use all that life gain for a mountain of cards and Shadow fuel. I’m not the fondest of Berserk in these shells, however – in a similar way to Modern Shadow where Battle Rage quickly found its way to the sideboard, I could see Berserk doing the same. I’m sure it is appreciated in matchups like Elves, however, where the ground gets very clogged.

Conclusion

That finishes up another This Week in Legacy! Next week look forward to a look at another big tournament – MKM Hamburg!

For now, some more content from across the ‘net!

Mengucci plays Mono-Black Reanimator!

Hipsters of the Coast have a new episode out!

‘Til next time!

Sean Brown

Email: sean_brown156@hotmail.com

Reddit: ChemicalBurns156

Twitter: @Sean_Brown156

What I’m Playing This Week

Here’s a bit of a sneak preview of next week! This came second at MKM Hamburg…

Long live Nimble Mongoose.

The Spice Corner

In a far away time where Splinter Twin was legal in Modern, so-called RUG “Tarmo-Twin” was once a deck. It took the faux tempo aspect of Twin to a new level by having a solid beater in Tarmogoyf while the opponent was kept on their toes due to the potential of dying to the Twin combo. Although old Goyf is at an all-time low now due to Fatal Push, otaba took this logic and put Goyf in the Aluren shell. I guess this is… Tarmo-Aluren?