As usual the assembled hordes were champing at the bit at the thought of getting to play some Legacy and quaff some beers! The competition would be fierce in the quest for some sweet prizes. It was a great vote of confidence in both us and Legacy to get 34 players out to play on Pre-Release weekend! (This was the first time tried fitting in 34. Every table available was used so we will have a think about how it worked out)

We had out done ourselves once more and got in plenty of staples to give out to the Top 8!

A Volcanic Island for first place, a playset of Show and Tells for second, Mox Diamonds for third and fourth, and a Grove of the Burnwillows and Knight of the Reliquary for the rest of the Top8.

It seems like everyone from last month took my advice and Death and Taxes was everywhere in the room!

Deck No. of Players Deck No. of Players Death and Taxes 5 BG Depths 1 Delver (UR, 4C, UWR, Grixis, BUG) 5 DeathBlade 1 Food Chain 3 BUG Lands brew 1 White Eldrazi 2 UB Omnitell 1 Miracles 2 Painter 1 Goblins 2 Bloody Stompy 1 Nic Fit 2 Dark Bant 1 Reanimator (UB, BR) 2 Cloudpost Eldrazi 1 Aluren 1 ANT 1 RG Lands 1

Well, calling the ‘Reign of Death and Taxes over’ was possibly a little premature last month….

However, this months event is a story about Food Chain. The deck has been putting up great results since Marius Hausman won MKM Milan with it. It wins the game by making infinite mana with its namesake enchantment and either Misthollow Griffin or Eternal Scourge. All this mana goes to power out an enormous Walking Ballista that promptly ends the game. The advantage over the previous versions that won with Emrakul, the Aeons Torn are that all of your combo pieces now work independently and are actually good cards! You can read an in-depth primer on the deck here.

The meta on Sunday was a prime hunting ground for the deck. Two Goblins decks, five Delver decks and seven Thalia, Guardian of Thraben decks not only kept a lid on traditional combo, ANT etc, but are pretty weak to the combination of midrange and creature combo that are Walking Ballista and Misthollow Griffin. My matchups were a perfect example of the meta. Two vs DNT, two mirror matches and one against Delver! Callum and I both showed the power of the deck by making the Top8.

In the rest of the room Miracles was an even smaller part of the meta with only two players bringing it along. It was a rather inauspicious send off to the formats boogey man over the last 5+ years, as neither player made the Top8 and one had just recently bought into the deck 🙁 The rest of the field was made up of all sorts of more traditional Combo, a couple of Blood Moon decks and some sweet mid-range in the form of Nic Fit and Stoneblade decks.

Looking towards the next event will be very interesting. Miracles is no more after the banning of Sensei’s Divining Top, but in our small meta the deck was never really dominant. I think this was because of the slightly more relaxed atmosphere when compared to the usual sanctioned Legacy events. Players felt they could bring their pet decks or new brews but still get to test them in a competitive event. I think the meta we see over the next month at the four Vegas GPTs in the southern area will be very interesting as people feel their way forward after the ban. One would usually have to prepare for, and expect to play against good Miracles players in the last rounds and Top8. Now I would suggest having a plan for the more traditional Combo decks like ANT and Sneak and Show and bring some sweepers for what many predict will be an Elf renaissance.

Even though the Swiss rounds were all about DNT vs BUG Combo, they were thoroughly dominated by previous winner Tom Brown, and Sebastian Amrogowicz, playing the proven champions affectionately known as Callum’s Deck and BR Reanimator respectively. This Month four players made it through on 12 points, a record of 4-2. Unfortunately MKM London Champion Diego came in 9th on tiebreakers, by less than 1%!

The Top 8 looked liked this

Tom Brown – Callum’s Deck Sebastian Amrogowicz – BR Reanimator Marcello Scatena – Goblins Hamish Maclver – UR Delver Callum Smith – Food Chain Mikko Hirvonen – Grixis Delver Tom Kellock – Food Chain Nathan Western – Nic Fit

In the quarter finals Tom B defeated Nathan in three games and Marcelo’s Goblins took out Mikko’s Delver deck in two. Food Chain continued its dominance with Callum dispatching Hamish in two very short games while I managed to squeak past Sebastian and his fast Reanimator deck in a far less dominant style as Seb had a bad mulligan in game two and in game three he was just a tad too slow to get to the board before I had a Deathrite Shaman active and I attacked with a 1/1 Waling Ballista for a bunch of turns

Luckily everyone was happy with their Prizes, Sebasitan especially as the Knight of the Reliquary finished his playset!

The semi finals saw the dreams of an all Food Chain 74 card mirror match (for the third time today…) finally dashed upon the might of Tom Brown’s Dark Bant deck, dismantling Callum, with his own deck no less, in a poor matchup for the combo deck. Marcelo’s Goblins turned the tables on a deck full of bad cards for the little red men, Deathrite, Balista and a Combo kill, and defeated me unceremoniously in two games. A Pyrokinesis wiping my board the final nail in the coffin.

The Finals were set to be a great set of games. Would Tom win a second London Legacy Monthly? Or would Legacy’s whipping boy since GP Ghent way back when, Goblins, show there is life in the deck yet?

The first two games were evenly split. Noble Hierarch into Stoneforge Mystic plus True Name-Nemesis andBatterskull is a start that no Goblins deck is beating. However, neither is a greedy four colour deck beating a turn two Blood Moon. Game three came down to Marcelo not making any mistakes and Tom making two tiny ones. An aggressive early Daze put Tom’s curve back and Marcelo took advantage of the space created, Wastelanding him twice after killing a Noble Hierarch with a Gempalm Incinerator. Here is where Tom made his second mistake. He could have stopped Marcelo by removing the only Goblin in play, but unfortunately he missed the line. Both players then drew plenty of lands but the tempo damage had been done. Marcelo’s 1/1 and 2/2 Goblins got in some damage and by the time Tom resolved a Batterskull, a sandbagged Pyrokinesis sealed up the match!

Congratulations to our finalist Tom Brown and winner Marcelo Scatena!

Top 8 Deck lists

1st – Marcelo Scatena

Goblins

2nd – Tom Brown

Callum's Deck

3rd/4th – Tom Kellock

Food Chain

3rd/4th – Callum Smith

Food Chain

5th-8th – Sebastian Amrogowicz

BR Reanimator

5th-8th – Hamish Maclver

UR Delver

5th – 8th – Mikko Hirvonen

Grixis Delver

5th-8th – Nathan Western

Junk Nic Fit

Thank you to everyone who made the April London Legacy Monthly such a great success. Callum Smith, Lauri Achte and Claude Schmit who organised it with me, and Tom Cadden for providing a great venue. (This months drink of choice was Waen Lemon Drizzle. A delicious and not too strong or hoppy IPA.) We will not be holding an event in May so as not to detract from the many Legacy GPTs happening that month. When there is sanctioned Legacy we should all do our best to support it! I would encourage as many of you as possible to go to these and win some byes for GP Las Vegas! The details of these GPTs can be found on my Upcoming Tournaments Page here.

I look forward to seeing you all at a GPT in May or the next LLM in June!

All the best

Thomas Kellock

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