Welcome back for July’s London Legacy Monthly tournament report! This month, after a few shaky early weeks of signups we suddenly and out of the blue, hit capacity! 50 players signed up, 49 of whom made it to the pub to sling some cards. To add to the excitement we announced the new website, LondonLegacyMonthly.com (built by yours truly) where we will publicise all the future events, you can buy your tickets and you can see the leaderboard and some other useful resources.

Intending to play but unfortunately missing the first 3 rounds due to his alarm clock our friend from Axion Now, Francois also popped by. He announced the Legacy and Vintage side events they will be running at English Nationals. With a playset of Underground Sea for first place this does not look like one you want to miss! You can find the event details here.

We buy prizes for the event the week beforehand so the extra 15 last minute signups were a bit of a worry. (Please sign up early!) Luckily we had started preparing for next month so the prize pool could swell accordingly on the day. Many thanks to Callum and Claude for doing much of the prize sourcing.

Metagame

Deck No. of Players Deck No. of Players Merfolk 9 4C Control 2 Grixis Delver 6 Aluren 1 Death and Taxes 5 BG Pox 1 Lands 4 Eldrazi 1 Aggro Loam 2 Miracles 1 Deadguy Ale 2 Mono R Stompy 1 Elves 2 Stax 1 Goblins 2 UWR Blade 1 Infect 2 White Eldrazi 1 Show and Tell 2 4C Midrange 1 UR Delver 2

There isn’t too much I can say about the decks played this month. Eight players decided to bring Merfolk for hilarious reasons and so … yeah … that happened. Obviously next month if you want to win you need to play Sylvan Plug…

You can see from the lists that made the Top8 the effect of this is some really inbred decks, for example the high number of Llawan, Cephalid Empress and Merfolk Assasins in sideboards and even Carpet of Flowers main deck. Luckily the ninth Merfolk player, not in on the joke, didn’t have to play any mirror matches all day!

Silliness aside, things don’t seem to have changed much since last month. Death and Taxes, Lands and Delver (this month Grixis flavoured) are still the best represented decks and so you should plan accordingly. I think my advice from the London metagame article still stands. These still look like great tournaments to play Storm in.

One interesting development actually worth talking about is that certain players are showing that it is not so important which particular deck you are on each month. It is, however, your familiarity with the format at large that is the most important factor in success. I have been saying this for years but the developing leaderboard over at LLM is a good example of this in action. One of the current leaders has played Tin Fins, Dark Bant, Food Chain, Miracles, As Foretold and Merfolk at our events, missing Top 8 with the two ‘better’ decks, Miracles and Dark Bant. This should be great encouragement to those of you who like to brew or play more off the wall decks. As long as you are playing one of the myriad solid legacy decks, your experience will have the larger effect on your chances.

The flow-chart below should help you find an interesting deck if you are lacking some inspiration. Using the chart have a guess at what I played…

It was Stax 😉

We decided to play 7 rounds this month to lower the number of intentional draws in the final rounds. The previous months the top three tables didn’t have to play or people could ID twice and this isn’t really in the spirit of our events. The added bonus is that we all get to play more Legacy! We are still deciding if this worked so please give us your feedback.

The Swiss rounds were dominated by Pro Tour competitor and LLM first timer Autumn Burchett. Her run to the Top8 was a glorious 7 – 0, defeating three Death and Taxes decks, two Merfolk, a Sneak and Show player and UWr Stoneblade.

Top 8

After the Swiss the Top 8 looked like this

Autumn – Grixis Delver Niklas – Deadguy Ale Callum – Merfolk Jon – Grixis Delver Euginio – Death and Taxes Dominik – Show and Tell Jay – Merfolk Claude – Merfolk

Would Autumn continue her dominance by defeating her third Merfolk opponent that day? An opening hand of three Lightning Bolts game one should have put the game away but a massive swing for 15 from Claude turned the tables after the early pressure in the form of an Insectile Aberration melted away. Game two was a classic Grixis Delver affair and we were quickly at a game apiece. Game three started with a Lightning Bolt on Cursecatcher to keep the board clear for Diabolic Edict. Claude sacrificed his Merfolk in response to counter the bolt and Autumn couldn’t pay! As the game went long Grim Lavamancer kept the board clear as Autumn Wastelanded her own lands to give it fuel. A Deathrite Shaman helped put the match away and Autumn remained undefeated!

Callum managed to defeat Domink’s Show and Tell in two games. Game one a Sneak Attacked Emrakul swung in but not before Callum tapped an Aether Vial with two counters. Phantasmal Image copied the Emrakul, Callum sacrificed six permenants leaving only the image copy and then swung back next turn for the win! In Game two Chalice of the Void shut down Dominks early cantriping. After Callum got aggressive with his Fish Domink had to use Echoing Truth defensively but a Vialed in Lord put Dominik to one, shutting off his three fetchlands. Unable to cast a combo piece the game was over.

On the other side of the bracket Niklas defeated Jay’s Merfolk leaving Callum as the last fish representative. Jon defeated Eugenio’s Death and Taxes to set up a Grixis Delver vs Grixis Delver semi final.

Semifinals

In the Semi Finals Grixis mirror Autumn remained undefeated after quickly dispatching Jon. Game one they both mulliganed to five cards but Jon never drew a black source. In game two a Gitaxian Probe from Autumn saw Jon’s hand of Deathrite Shaman x3, Daze x2, Delver of Secrets and a Volcanic Island. Pictured above. A Wasteland on that Volcanic and after Jon missed his land drop Cabal Therapy naming Deathrite closed it out.

In the other semi final lone Merfolk representative Callum had a close three game match against another LLM first timer and second seed, Niklas Ek playing Deadguy Ale. The deck is named after a beer brewed by Rouge Ales from Oregon. It was a rouge deck built by team Deadguy! It’s a solid Black and White midrange deck where everything accrues some value! Recently Jeff Hoogland has been playing it a bit on MTGO if you like his stuff, but the deck has been about for years.

In game one Umezawa’s Jitte and Liliana of the Veil dealt with the Merfolk before they could assemble enough pressure. Game two was decided by the sweet sideboard tech of Manriki-Gusari. Once Niklas’ equipment was dealt with his creatures were quickly outclassed by the fish. In game three Niklas managed to resolve an Engineered Plague naming Merfolk. However, this was’t enough thanks to Callums Merfolk Lords and Jitte easily racing Lingering Souls tokens.

Finals

In the finals our STILL undefeated player faced off against chief Merfolk metagame menace, Callum. Their previous meeting in the swiss had gone Autumn’s way, would the finals be a repeat?

In game one a double Young Pyromancer draw just about managed to race Callum’s increasing army of Islandwalkers. If Autumn had been on the draw then she would have lost, luckily we use the Swiss seeding to dictate play or draw! In game two Callum turned the tables and True-Name Nemesis went wild as Autumn couldn’t find an answer for it.

The final game started poorly for our undefeated hero as Autumn lacked early pressure. Callum developed his board while Autumn got two Delvers down that both flipped. The final game of the day was turning into a race! Autumn was ahead and looking likely to win but a sudden Chalice of the Void from Callum turned off the rest of her hand and the game had gone pearshaped. From then on it was simple for Callum to win!

Congratulations to our Winner and Finalist, Callum Smith and Autumn Burchett!

Top 8 Lists

1st – Callum Smith

Merfolk

2nd – Autumn Burchett

Grixis Delver

3rd – 4th – Jon Roads

Grixis Delver

3rd – 4th – Nikalas Ek

Deadguy Ale

5th- 8th – Dominik Deradjat

Sneak and Show

5th – 8th – Claude Schmit

Merfolk

5th – 8th – Eugenio Gomez Martinez

Death and Taxes

5th – 8th – Jay Richardson

Merfolk?

I don’t have a deck for the Spice Corner this week as I think Jay Richardson’s deck will do that well enough. What I do have for you are a few pics from our Vintage Cube we ran as a side event! After round four people could drop and join the cube. It went really well and we managed to cube twice on the day. We will definitely be bringing that back for future events. I hope everyone had as much fun as I did! First pick Ancestral Recall is always good!

Thanks to everyone who came to the July London Legacy Monthly! We look forward to hosting you all again on August 27th!

You can find tickets for the next event here.

All the best

Tom Kellock

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