Hi all and welcome back for another London Legacy Monthly report!

Due to the European GP we were a little down on numbers, but the hardcore of the London playerbase turned out in the wind and rain to come and sling some cards.

35 players and we still managed to get a Dual land into the prize pool! And eternal thanks to Jay and Daniele (winners of the Spirit of LLM award) for helping out and donating some boosters and sweet foil cards so that we could have a prize for the Top16 play off. It is both for people like this and because of them that we have such a great community and can run LLM every month. Thanks again guys!

It looks like the metagame has settled down a little bit over the last two months. We still have the stalwart Goblin contingent but also a larger proportion of people playing tier decks. Grixis Delver, Grixis Control, Miracles and EsperBlade is a metagame that is more similar to what you might see at a GP or Eternal Weekend and is certainly something you can attack. It is nice to see old powerhouse Infect back. Unfortunately I think the metagame is not in a good place for the deck. Multiple Kolaghan’s Command and removal based decks abound and trying to keep a threat around in that world has to be very hard.

London Legacy Monthly Metagame - October 2018

Deck No. of Players Deck No. of Players Grixis Delver 4 Enchantress 1 EsperBlade 3 High Tide 1 Goblins 3 Nic Fit 1 Grixis Control 3 Merfolk 1 Miracles 3 Moon Stompy 1 Infect 2 Pox Stax 1 Zombardment 2 Sneak and Show 1 ANT 1 Tezzerator 1 Belcher 1 UB Shadow 1 Death and Taxes 1 UR Wizards 1 Eldrazi Post 1 UW Delver 1

It is nice to see a few really rogue decks this month. Zombardment, for those interested, is a deck based around all of the value graveyard interactions one can do with Zombies and the enchantment Goblin Bombardment. The newest addition to the deck that has contributed to its slight resurgence in the face of all the graveyard hate about these days is Stitcher’s Supplier. The extra bit of value this card gives, putting six cards into the graveyard, makes the deck that much more consistent. Another nice thing about Zombardment is that as the entirety of the deck is graveyard based interactions cards like Surgical Extraction don’t necessarily win the game on the spot. You only take one small piece of the puzzle. It does however open the deck up to Leyline of the Void wrecking it. You can see this weakness in the sideboard answers.



Zombardment

You will find the other Rogue lists of Tezzerator and Pox Stax later in the article!





Our archetype breakdown is interesting when compared to the Top24 decks from the recent Eternal Weekend in the USA. In that field 42% of the top decks were combo decks whereas at LLM the % in the room matched the numbers of combo players in the Top8. In the LLM field Aggro under performed, only making 25% of the Top8 and Control put on an outsize performance making up the remaining 50%. (these numbers were mirrored when considering the top16). I think moving forward playing combo at big events gives you a good chance of winning. The fact there are 6 distinct combo archetypes in the Top 24 of EW points towards how difficult it is for the control decks to successfully build a sideboard right now. Grixis Control for example, has to answer Storm, Reanimate and big creature strategies and graveyard and small creature value decks, all the while finding space for the mirror and answers to things like Bitterblossom. This is why if playing control right now I prefer the better sideboard options that white gives you.

At LLM events if people keep bringing Goblins in numbers then with a bit of practice I think ANT should be performing well for you. It is also a deck that can give you some really interesting games where you can leverage your experience and skill. What more could you ask for!

We played 6 swiss rounds this event with James Mills, arriving and borrowing a deck… going undefeated!

Rather than run through the games in the Top8, this month I asked our winner Niklas Ek on some thoughts on his deck and how to prepare for London Legacy Monthly generally. As he is also currently top of the Leaderboard and has made the Top8 of every event he has come to this current season I think it is worth publishing his thoughts in there entirety here. Points 2 and 3 seem particulary important.

I’ll let Nik take over.

“If I may shoot myself in the foot and highlight why I think Eldrazi is a good choice for LLM:

The deck is powerful: No two ways about it. Access to Chalice, built in life gain to offset Ancient Tomb, powerful threats, answers to JTMS, inevitability and versatility in Ballista are all great People switch decks and try new things often: This means that people will generally be more unfamiliar with whatever they are playing, being more likely to screw up sequencing and struggle with sb-ding. As a result, I am convinced that the key to doing well at LLM is a mixture of luck (MTG always is) and minimising the amount of mistakes you make. Trying to “outplay” your opponent is only fundamentally relevant once you stop making fundamental mistakes Access to any deck gravitates people towards less liner decks: This being UK magic and cost not being a problem, makes people favour interactive, often blue, decks. If there are fewer Goblin Charbelchers and turn two Griselbrands that makes Eldrazi a much better choice SB-ding with Eldrazi is fairly straight forward: Ins and out can be fairly easily derived from an understanding of your role in the match up and what other decks are potentially boarding

Last month we had an Eldrazi mirror in the finals. This made me take extra note of the deck and that month I think the deck had a 100% rate of winning the event. To highlight what it takes to win (luck in games and on the pairing board combined with a friendly meta) my match-ups throughout the day were:

R1: UW Stoneblade (W) R2: Esper Stoneblade (L) R3: ANT (W) R4: Nic Fit (W) R5: Grixis Control (W) R6: ID (v Miracles) Quarters: Grixis Delver (W) Semis: Tezzerator (W) Finals: Grixis Control (W)

In terms of progression throughout the tournament, while I didn’t play optimally, I tried to make fewer mistakes than my opponents, which paid off. I don’t want to call any of these out other than the finals, but there were some mistakes during the event that certainly helped me make it through to the finals.

In the Finals recent GP top 8er Claude Schmit, who was less than excited about the pairings, unsurprisingly lost G1. A game down, he decided to play Blood Moon into a Ratchet Bomb on 2 instead of K-Command. The subsequent turn saw me tap Eye of Ugin for red, play another one, crack the Ratchet Bomb (now on 3) and have exact mana to tutor up and cast Ulamog. It was late and I’m not sure he was winning even if he hadn’t taken that line, but it hopefully proves the point: Most of us don’t need to focus on getting the strategies exactly right. Just punt less, get lucky and win more!”

Well done to our finalist and winner, Claude Schmit and Niklas Ek!

Top 8 Decklists

1st – Niklas Ek

Eldrazi Post

2nd – Claude Schmit

Grixis Control

3rd – Deng Pan

Sneak and Show

4th – Artur Malimonov

Tezzerator

5th – 8th – James Mills

Miracles

5th – 8th – Diego Massone

EsperBlade

5th – 8th – Jay Richardson

Grixis Delver

5th – 8th – Marcelo Scantena

Goblins

After four months of LLM the leaderboard now looks like this

Player Name 1st 2nd 3rd-4th 5th-8th Number of Top8s Total Points 1 Niklas Ek 1 2 3 9 2 Francis Cowper 1 1 5 2 Callum Brownson-Smith 1 1 5 2 Michael Woodleigh 1 1 5 2 Jay Richardson 1 1 2 5 6 Enrico Selis 1 1 4 6 Mario Espinosa 1 1 4 6 Amar Dattani 1 1 4 6 James Mills 2 2 4 6 Diego Massone 2 2 4 6 Claude Schmit 1 1 4 12 Stavros Denaxas 1 1 3 12 George Moulton 1 1 3 12 Nic Genieis 1 1 3 12 Aston Ramsden 1 1 3 12 Joe Baddeley 1 1 3 12 Artur Malimonov 1 1 3 12 Deng Pan 1 1 3 19 Charlie Bridger 1 1 2 19 Thomas Kellock 1 1 2 19 Matthew Johnson 1 1 2 19 Michael Yearby 1 1 2 19 Juan Carlos Jara 1 1 2 19 Alex Rea 1 1 2 19 Lauri Achte 1 1 2 19 Rory Smith 1 1 2 19 Marcelo Scantena 1 1 2

Spice Corner

This month’s spicy list is a Pox Stax hybrid. Of course it was going to be this list! Stavros made the Top16 with this list and mentioned that it performed above expectations and he will be fine tuning it for next month. Prepare to be hardlocked out of the game!

Stavros Denaxas - Pox Stax

Thanks to everyone who came to October’s LLM. Tickets are up for November’s event and you can find them here

We look forward to seeing you next month!

Thomas Kellock

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