Over the course of the last year, Legacy has rapidly evolved. Following the ban of Deathrite Shaman, we’ve seen a lot of innovation amongst established archetypes as well as new decks popping up. With the format being in such a rapid state of flux, I’ve heard a lot of conflicting opinions as to what decks are actually good in the format. I’ve decided to throw my two cents into the mix. Within the last six or so months we’ve seen a bevy of changes happen to the format. I don’t want to spend too long rambling about these this part so I’m just going to bullet-point the changes and their subsequent effects.

DRS ban

-A short spike in RUG Delver until people realized that DRS wasn’t actually what was holding the deck back.

-Without a clearly defined metagame, a lot of players struggled to figure out what was going on and subsequently ended up trying out a lot of random strategies.

PT 25

–UB Shadow is the breakout deck

UB Shadow galvanizes the format.

-Ex Grixis Delver pilots + random Modern players pick the deck up leading to it warping the metagame giving people direction.

-Grixis Control starts to rise in popularity becoming the go-to ‘control’ deck, and possibly the best deck at the time. .

Miracles adopts Accumulated Knowledge

– UB Shadow loses its position at the top of the food chain because of its poor Miracles matchup.

– Miracles begins with Grixis for the “best” deck sport.

-Format gets completely overwhelmed by fair blue control decks.

-Wasteland decks fall into the background due to an increase in basic lands.

Anti-control wave

-Eldrazi Aggro, Big Eldrazi, UR Delver and Medium Depths increase in popularity due to their largely favorable matchups against the control decks.

Current Day

-Increase in Grixis Delver, and other Wasteland shells.

-Spike in Stoneforge Mystic

I find it easiest to analyze the format by breaking it down into pillars consisting of macro archetypes that the other decks in the format can easily be lumped into. As things stand the pillars of the format as I see them consist of the following macro archetypes:

Fair Xerox decks

Miracles

Delver Variants

UBx Control

UBx Shadow

Grixis Control

Chalice/Big Mana

Eldrazi Aggro

Eldrazi Post

Mono-Red Stompy

Steel Stompy

Depths

BG Turbo Depths

BUG “Negator77” Depths

BG Medium/Slow Depths

Combo

ANT

TES

Sneak and Show

Elves

Phoenix

BXx Reanimator

Non-Xerox Fair

Death and Taxes

Maverick

Aggro Loam

Humans

Just pointing out the pillars of the format is helpful, but what’s more important is to understand how important each deck is within the format. Having an idea of the tier list helps you better tune your deck to attack the format.

Tier list:

1: Delver, Eldrazi,BG(u)Depths,ANT

Delver strategies have proven to be very powerful as of late. Whether it be Grixis, UR, or UW these decks are too good to ignore. Eldrazi and Depths may seem like odd additions to Tier 1 but I truly think they deserve the slot. A lot of people feel like Miracles is one of the best decks but I disagree and will explain more on that later. Both Depths and Eldrazi are both natural enemies to the slow fair decks that people are playing and because of their powerful proactive plans, they are incredibly good against the rest of the format. I’m not 100% sure if ANT is Tier 1 or if Cyrus Corman-Gill is just a gangster that’s running everyone’s pockets, but like Eldrazi and Depths it’s very powerful against a large portion of the metagame but also like the previously mentioned decks, it has the added benefit of being a deck that people tend to play poorly against so you naturally get more equity because of this.



1.5: Elves Miracles, BR Reanimator, UW Stoneblade, Burn, Mono R Prison

I think Miracles is Tier 1.5 because of flaws in its construction. Players have skewed towards playing more and more do nothing draw spells and further away from spells that actually do something. If people move back towards cards like Monastery Mentor and further away from playing 4 Accumulated Knowledge as well as 2 copies of Predict I think the deck will start to dominate again. Another reason that I’m not as bigon Miracles position is that there are more and more decks that are able to attack it from odd angles that force the deck to play way more oddly situational effects that start to decrease the decks’ consistency. The rest of the decks on this list are there because of their straightforward plans that either outright beat the opponent, or put them in situations that will induce misplays.

2: Dnt, Grixis Phoenix*, Maverick, Dredge, Humans,Sneak and Show, Steel Stompy, Aggro Loam, Lands

I think this Tier is pretty straight forward. All of these decks are decently good, but the slightest shift in format can easily lead to them being not so good. Each strategy is very powerful against some portions of the format but are dogs against other commonly played decks.

*Phoenix is a tentative Tier 2 and can go up or down from there. The deck hasn’t been ‘solved’ yet and it’s hard to tell if it’s success is because of it being good, or if all of the pilots are Legacy Masters. Also, with any new deck, people are still trying to figure out how to combat it. I’ve seen a lot of players sideboard or take poor lines against the deck without realizing it. Time will tell if the bird is the word, or if its just a boiled goose.

3:Grixis Control, UBx Shadow

At face value, it may seem odd that Grixis Control and UBx Shadow are this far down on the list but I don’t think either deck is really that insane. UBx Shadow gains some percentage points because of its positive Grixis Delver, and combo matchups, but I think it’s hard to rate this deck too highly when decks like Miracles and Stoneblade are so common. In my experience, Grixis Control is very overrated. The deck could easily be a huge player in the format if its construction was reconsidered but as things stand, the deck is basically a Jund strategy with no actual clock. Legacy is too powerful at the moment to simply be on the plan of grinding the opponent into the dirt without having a powerful end game threat like Monastery Mentor or Entreat the Angels that will slam the door shut in a matter of a few turns and as things stand almost every deck in the format is set up in such a way to mitigate Gurmag Angler. With cards like Bitterblossom, Swords to Plowshares, Young Pyromancer, and Diabolic Edict floating around I think you really need something else to lean on.

To be clear, I compiled these lists based on the MODO metagame and through discussions with my good friend and secret Legacy Master Steven Hendrickson. I don’t think most paper Legacy events have defined metagames. It’s much more common that people just show up with the deck that they own/like. The barrier of entry is much lower online so players are more likely to try various decks. Subsequently, the MODO metagame not only moves at a much faster pace, but there is a much more fleshed out. I’ve noticed that there is a much larger percentage of fair decks floating around and a lot of decks have skewed towards playing many more grindy elements in an attempt to “out midrange” their opponents. With that said, looking at the most commonly played decks from MTG Goldfish’s data shows a nice spread of decks. In the words of Wilson Hunter, “The format is wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide open”. Or in other words, play the deck you enjoy/know the best and you’ll do well as long as you have a solid plan for the commonly played decks.