Last night I had the pleasure of chatting with Andrew Calderon, winner of the Legacy portion of GP Vegas, about his deck and tournament experience. I played Andrew previously during SCG’s Baltimore Team Constructed event in round nine of day one. At the time, he was piloting a UW Spirits deck that was a twist on the classic UW Stoneblade deck. Unfortunately, neither of our teams ended up making day two, but we both top 8’d the Legacy Classic on the next day as a consolation prize. Andrew is no stranger to the top tables of events, getting 33rd in Legacy at GP Chiba, a finals finish at a TCG Invitational, and having two Pro Tour appearances to his name. Without further ado, let’s look at his list.

Andrew Calderon, 1st at GP Vegas

While he had considered playing the UW Spirits deck at the GP, Andrew chose D&T largely for its superior consistency and his experience with the deck. He has been playing D&T off and on since Mangara of Corondor was a four-of in the deck. In his mind, the printing of Sanctum Prelate and Recruiter of the Guard elevated D&T from a good deck to one of the clear best decks in the format. Most of Andrew’s time recently has gone towards testing Modern instead of working on Legacy; while he’s typically a Scapeshift player, he’s been working with the lesser-known Death Cloud archetype. Andrew had time to play D&T at FNMs and such, but he didn’t have a real testing team prior to the event or anything of that nature.

While many prominent D&T players have been experimenting with splash cards, Chalice of the Void, and Ancient Tomb as ways to get ahead, Andrew really focused on the consistency of the deck in his deckbuilding decisions. Over the course of a long event, he valued being able to play Magic over anything else. While many of the lists I’ve been posting have been hedging against Storm and Elves, Andrew was more worried about RB Reanimator. It’s a deck that is explosive and relatively easy to pilot, a dangerous combination for success now that Miracles is no longer playing the role of fun police. He wanted Surgical Extraction in particular as a way to minimize the number of turn one wins his opponent could have. Most of his other decisions are pretty stock. He did cut a land, going from the normal 23 lands to 22, as he felt the deck could perform fine on 22 in most cases. That’s something that makes me a little uncomfortable, but it is by no means unprecedented. Then there’s the Sword of Light and Shadow…

SoLaS is a card that I’ve historically considered unplayable and largely inferior to Sword of War and Peace. In the Miracles-era of Magic, it was common that your graveyard would be empty since Swords to Plowshares and Terminus were sending your critters elsewhere. The card advantage portion of SoLaS just wasn’t happening. Now that Grixis and four color control decks are prominent, SoLaS does deserve another look. It gives protection from Fatal Push, which is quickly becoming a format staple, while also allowing you to refuel. As random upside, it also pushes through Gurmag Angler, Baleful Strix, and Leovold, Emissary of Trest. Andrew brought in SoLaS against any Fatal Push or Abrupt Decay deck as a source of long-term card advantage. It was the card that over-performed the most for him over the weekend, though he did also have great things to say about Recruiter of the Guard. Speaking of… you know what’s great to get back with SoLaS?

As far as matchups go, Andrew admits that he received some favorable pairings. He managed to dodge most of the extremely unfavorable matchups like Elves while frequently getting paired against good matchups. Let’s take a look at what he played:

Day 1

(Bye)

5x Sneak and Show

Infect

D&T

Bant Stoneblade

Day 2

Burn

4 Color Control

2x Grixis Delver

Jund Lands (yes, just combine the good stuff from Jund and Lands)

(intentional draw into top 8)

Top 8

RUG Delver

Grixis Delver

UR Delver

Andrew’s only loss was at the hands of Sneak and Show, and he admitted it was to a misplay on his end. His opponent was low on mana, and he opted to hold a Karakas in hand. He thought it would be a good way to “get” his opponent off a potential Show and Tell. His opponent played an Ancient Tomb, dropped a Sneak Attack, and gave Andrew the business. Oops. He didn’t make that mistake again, and he crushed his remaining 4(!!!) Sneak and Show opponents. Luckily, 13-1-1 was still a good enough enough record to make top 8!

I you haven’t had a chance to check out his matches from the top 8, I highly encourage you to do so. He plays brilliantly and demolishes the opposing Delver decks. When I asked Andrew if he wanted to make any changes to his deck moving forward, he stated that he might not play D&T at his next big event, at least not if it is soon. To clarify, he’s 100% interested in playing D&T again. It obviously worked out well here! That being said, he feels that Legacy is such an open format with so many viable decks that there’s a tendency to metagame against the decks that have put up the strongest results recently in an attempt to get an edge. This often results in a bit of over-preparation for the deck that is perceived as “the best” or that won the most recent large event. People are now very aware that D&T has the potential to put up strong results, so there may be an increased amount of hate for the deck that could prove problematic. Your life as a D&T player is a little harder when everyone is bringing Dread of Night and Massacre to the table.

Andrew had two closing pieces of advice for newer Legacy players. “Know your deck,” was the first. Legacy, perhaps more so than any other format, rewards knowledge of interactions and rules. Knowing the intricacies of things like priority can be the difference between a win and a loss in Legacy. Knowing how your cards work, how your opponent’s cards work, and knowing your road to victory in a given matchup is key. At one point in the interview, I asked him if he had an interesting scenarios or rulings come up. His response was, “No. I’ve read the Comprehensive Rules. I wasn’t really surprised by anything.” He then cited an opponent who tried to Rending Volley one of his cards while he had an active Mother of Runes in play. Unfortunately, Rending Volley’s “cannot be countered” clause doesn’t actually get through Mom’s protection. Knowledge is power!

“Assess the metagame properly.” That was his second piece of advice. Andrew contributes much of his success this weekend to a few called shots. He believed D&T was a good choice for the weekend based on its current positioning in the format, though he had believed it was a dubious choice right after the top banning due to the initial resurgence of Elves and other fast combo. Obviously, he was correct. SoLaS was an incredible sideboard card choice given how Grixis Delver rose to the forefront of the format. He was right, and that’s a sideboard choice I hadn’t explored in the past few weeks (and believe me, I explored a ton of weird ideas!). Andrew felt that his graveyard hate cards were the least useful cards this weekend, though he 100% was happy they were there. If his matchups had broken in a different direction, he would have been glad to have them. That’s great insight; sometimes the cards that are good for you on a given day and the cards that are necessary to have are very different things.

Finally, Andrew wanted to thank Pro-Play Games for their support. He actually borrowed his deck for the event. It turns out Legacy cards can be expensive or something… Even the best pilots can only go so far without support from patrons, testing partners, and friends. Speaking of community support, mad props to Bob Huang, The Source, and Reddit for managing to piece together the top 64 decks when WotC didn’t publish them. Here’s the breakdown:

11 Grixis Delver

5 Show and Tell

5 Bant Deathblade

5 Elves

4 BUG Delver

3 Miracles

3 4c Loam

3 DnT

2 Czech Pile

2 Food Chain

2 BR Reanimator

2 BG Depths

2 Lands

2 RUG Delver

2 UW Stoneblade

2 UR Delver

2 Grixis Control

1 UB Shadow

1 Eldrazi

1 Infect

1 Aluren

1 Merfolk

1 BUG Lands

23 different archetypes in the top 64…Legacy is certainly a healthy format, and it looks like a huge swath of strategies are viable. Delver, unsurprisingly, is leading the pack, but I’m not going to complain about that. One thing to keep in mind is that at an event of this scale, the difference between top 8 and top 64 isn’t that huge. A record of 13-2 (39 points) was good enough for top 8 if your breakers were insanely good; otherwise that was a top 15 finish. The only 11-2-2 (35 points) was 64th place, meaning most of the people between had a record of 12-3 (36 points). One win (plus breakers) separates the vast majority of the top 64 from the cutoff from top 8. Yes, really, that’s how the math works out. Keep that in mind as you talk about the metagame and deckbuilding decisions in the weeks to come. I’d sleeve up the following to test if I were playing this week:

WW D&T

The changes from Andrew’s list are as follows:

Main: -1 Spirit of the Labyrinth, -1 Horizon Canopy; +2 Plains

Side: -1 Gideon, -1 Rest in Peace; +1 Containment Priest, +1 Ethersworn Canonist

While Andrew felt the deck could function at 22 lands, I’m much more comfortable at 23. I attribute many of my losses to not drawing enough lands over the course of the game. Given the mana sinks we have in equipment and Port, I’m fine with playing another land. While things certainly worked out on the combo front for Andrew, I’m a little nervous about the amount and ratios of combo hate he has. I opted to switch one of his Rest in Peace to a Containment Priest since it is strong against both Elves and Sneak and Show, while also having good overlap with most of the places Rest in Peace is good. While ANT was notably absent from the top 64, its consistent MTGO numbers suggest that it is still a fine deck choice. I threw in the second Canonist, as it puts a little bit of a strain on most combo decks of the format anyway. I’d also try to squeeze in another removal spell in the sideboard, but I’d want to play some games with the current list before making any more changes.

Friday is my birthday…and the one year anniversary of Thraben University! *party favor noise* Check back on Friday for a reflection on the past year as well as what I hope to accomplish in the year to come.