This Week in Legacy: Paper and Online Tech

legacy This Week in Legacy Landstill Miracles Affinity Nic Fit Czech Pile Bant DeathBlade Eldrazi Stompy

Welcome to another This Week in Legacy! We’ve had a bevvy of large events in the past couple of weeks to analyze, but this week, we’ll look over various smaller tournaments across paper and online and glean some new technology being adopted.

Magic Online

The first list we’ll look at is from the recent Legacy Challenge on November 26, 2017, which placed third. See the results of this challenge here. This is Blue-White Landstill featuring an odd bulk rare from Dragons of Tarkir: Myth Realized.

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Myth Realized is a very potent force under a Standstill. In a similar fashion to Mishra’s Factory, it can beat down the opponent while they hesitate to cast any spells and is also an excellent mana sink. At end of turn, it can keep growing larger than anything on the board. Not that there should be anything left on the board—this deck runs four Terminus to sweep everything away. With only eight cantrips, three Snapcasters, and two Jace to help set up the miracle effect, it’s a little unreliable, but I’m sure it has the nod over options like Supreme Verdict due to mana efficiency. Draw-step Terminusing everything away and then slamming a Standstill (with Myth or Factory on board) sounds like an excellent plan. This long-term plan is not the only one this list has, however. The three Daze (not unseen in Landstill lists before) makes slamming a Turn 2 Standstill (especially on the play) very threatening, since it can be defended with free countermagic that does not leave the Landstill player down on cards.

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The sideboard is full of the usual goodness that white provides in Legacy. Humility is particularly spicy, allowing Myths or Factories to rule the battlefield.

Moving on, other blue-white-based control lists include more variations on the Miracles shell. A caveat before looking at these, however. For all of you interested in the neo-Miracles builds, essential reading includes Nicklas Lallo’s (ItIsUnfair) recent document outlining construction (and game play) of the new deck. Find that here. He outlines a lot of useful information that critiques lists such as those I’ll be looking at.

Nonetheless, here is one featuring Nahiri, the Harbinger and Emrakul!

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This has been a novel idea ever since Nahiri’s printing (Gerard Fabiano and Eli Kassis placed well with a list utilizing Emrakul, the Promised End instead of Aeons Torn pre-Top banning, I recall) but I agree with Nicklas that the package is a bit too clunky, especially since it forces Volcanic Island to be fetched—despite it closing out the game very, very quickly. The six planeswalkers really emphasize a tap-out plan for this list than may be good against a deck such as Czech Pile, where reactive countermagic gets quickly shredded away by Hymns and cantrips are made ineffective once Leovold is in play. But this tap-out plan breaks apart the elegant engine of Predict (reduced to two) and Terminus to set up advantages at instant speed, which has always been the main boon of the Miracles deck. It also makes the curve of this list a bit awkward (especially with only 20 lands still).

I also can’t imagine that opening a hand with both Terminus and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn feels particularly great.

This list is a bit more traditional (despite how odd the numbers look), with Search for Azcanta once again getting the nod as powerful new technology, as is the reincorporation of Counterbalance. Porphyry Nodes is what raises the most eyebrows, but the color-shifted Drop of Honey (perhaps Lands’ recent use of Drop was the inspiration!), in its worst case, is a delayed removal spell (hence why it replaces the fourth Plow in this list, I suppose) and, at its best case, a mini-sweeper effect. I think this card would particularly shine against Czech Pile, as sometimes Miracles can fall behind due to chip shots from Baleful Strix and Snapcasters that have gotten their value anyway. More ways to clean up these slow-draining idiots other than Terminus are useful indeed.

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Also, who doesn’t mind a big, bomby Baneslayer Angel for when the opponent has sided out their removal?

Paper

Let’s next look at some paper tournaments from around the world. First, the 150-person Brazil Nationals event:

Deck Player Placing Eldrazi Stompy Henrique Belumat 1 Miracles Stefano Silveira 2 Grixis Delver Carlos Tiberio 3-4 UR Delver Mauro Edi 3-4 Slivers Daniel Nunes 5-8 Lands Felipe Duarte 5-8 Czech Pile Jose Zilli 5-8 Bant Deathblade Daniel Caixeta 5-8

A few interesting points include the Counterbalance and Soothsaying in Miracles, main-deck Abrade in Grixis Delver, RUG Lands making an appearance, and the Slivers deck from last week getting some love!

But most notable were two Top 8-ing lists…

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Mask of the Mimic is a bit of a reader! But I suppose this is a slot that has previously been filled by cards like Unearth or Reanimate. Czech Pile is known for having tons of disposable creatures like Snapcaster Mage or Baleful Strix on the battlefield. Deathrite or Leovold, as natural removal magnets, can be sacrificed at instant speed in response and transformed into a Strix lying around for the almighty three-for-one. Bonus points go to this card in the mirror (or even pseudo-mirror—copying a Deathrite of Grixis Delver is probably fine too!). I’m also a big fan of Spell Snare as a powerful one-of to Snapcaster back. It's great in the mirror and a little less clunky than Counterspell.

Other than a mess of a mana base and zero main-deck Force of Will, this list also incorporates, over the more traditional True-Names, sets of Dark Confidant and Spellstutter Sprite! With only Brainstorm as selection, I can understand Bob’s appeal as a card-advantage engine, especially since this deck has so many things to point removal at. Sprite also has minor synergy with Clique, but I don’t think it’s really enough to fight through opposing combo decks effectively on its own—but I suppose a meta-game call of no combo and hence no main-deck Forces required served Daniel well, considering the Top 8. Although a bit wild, this list does highlight that Bob and Sprite—somewhat antiquated cards from Legacy’s past—can still have a place in the format.

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The results of the Mox Boarding House Legacy Preservation Series are always a treat to see. You can see the Top 8 of the recent 1k here. The list I’d like to highlight is Affinity!

This isn’t Frogmites, Ornithopters, and friends?! Rather, this looks like a pseudo-port of Vintage Aggro Shops builds, and I like what I see here. Foundry Inspector allows for some explosive starts, although sadly, it is a little expensive for Legacy without Mishra's Workshop pulling it out on Turn 1. The synergy of Overseer, Hangarback, Ballista, and Ravager also makes for a powerful combo in this list, especially with artifact lands and Mishra's Factory available for sacrifice. Tezzeret and Thoughtcast compensate for the inability to fully imprison the opponent by giving this list a bit of a longer game plan. Although the numbers may need some tinkering (I don’t like Mox Diamond in a 21-land deck, for example), Foundry Inspector in Legacy looks somewhat promising!

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Lastly, from an event in Geneva, whose Top 8 can be found here, NO BUG:

Green Sun's Zenith with blue cards doesn't really get much love these days, with overpowered monsters like True-Name Nemesis available instead, but the tutor box and multiple avenues to either Rampant Growth via Dryad Arbor or Deathrite, beatstick via Tarmogoyf, or disruption via Leovold are welcome and provide a lot of consistency. Green creatures are also of huge value to this list because of the namesake Natural Order, but only two are found here, with a third in the sideboard for when the “combo” is more reasonable (non-blue matchups, I’d imagine). I’d like to see a split of Decay and Push in this list. Again, this is a list that needs a bit of tuning but certainly shows potential after it placed so well.

Conclusion

That’s all for TWiL. As always, here are some links from around the net:

The wonderful James Hsu has a new double episode of Humans of Magic out, featuring the eminent Jarvis Yu. Life talk and Lands talk—find it on James’ Soundcloud or wherever you want your podcasts.

From ChannelFireball—Mengucci plays Big Eldrazi, weird Reanimator, and Belcher! EFro profiles Spanish Inquisition too!

What I’m Playing This Week

I’m interested in using Unclaimed Territory to tweak Eldrazi. Credit and inspiration mainly comes from this list.

Maybe this is too many gold lands and some utility ones like Karakas or Wasteland can be included. But the point of this is that a full 12 gold lands are available now to make a multi-colored Eldrazi deck very feasible—and this slows down the mana very little. So filler like Matter Reshaper now makes way for quality cards like Displacer (pushes away blockers, ruins Show and Tell and Reanimator) and Skyspawner (edict protection, ramp, blockers for Delver). Drowner may not be the optimal six-drop (Endbringer is still fine) but certainly helps with the aggressive curve-out plan. I’d like to see more experimentation in this realm.

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The Spice Corner

Welcome to Nyx Fit. Streamed on Paragon City Games to a 10-0 record, this list is not your typical Zenith toolbox Nic Fit deck. Rather, it uses sac outlets (including the impressive Evolutionary Leap) to chain Explorers into Rectors into some very powerful enchantments that lock out creatures and spells entirely. Lingering Souls further ties this all together, buying time blocking and acting as additional sacrifice fodder (while not flipping to leap). Disruption from Therapy and Brutality (Brutality is also great with Souls) gives this more game against combo than one would think. There are tons of great synergies in this list. Also, Sandwurm Convergence is in the sideboard. C’mon.