Unlocking Legacy — European Developments

Sometimes we forget, as American Legacy players, that an entire other metagame exists across the

Atlantic Ocean in Europe. While it might seem so easy for the decks played globally to standardize with

Internet forums and online stores, the truth is that there is little interaction between continents for

Legacy.

While in the past, we may have thought that it was due to card availability, the strong euro-to-dollar

exchange and global shipping have proved otherwise. In Vintage, Europeans have no trouble finding

expensive and rare out-of-print cards for their decks, so that excuse doesn’t work here, either. Instead,

it may be due to language barriers, metagame preferences or even the warm blanket of insulation that

surrounds any geographical area, holding people to the same lists forever. Even in America, the East Coast

and Midwest metagames look very, very different.

In spite of all of this, there is still all manner of tech being brewed up across the pond, in

basement laboratories and empty storerooms, and even better, all of this is being reported! We know about

Terrageddon and the other Life From The Loam decks popular in Europe, but today, let’s look at some of the

new developments and styles in Legacy deckbuilding that are being tested and played a continent away.

First, there is this, the winning decklist in an 87-person Legacy event in Madrid:

First, let me say that we very rarely have tournaments in North America that reach 87 people,

so the fact that this deck took first place at such an event really means something and demonstrates its

power.

The first thing that struck me about the deck was that it supported both Chalice of the Void and, with

sixteen Blue cards, can run Force of Will. What a backbreaker for combo! On top of that, it has Wastelands

and a scarily fast gameplan to beat combo decks. If you are looking for a Suicide-Black style deck, this

is probably your best bet. Chalice creates tremendous virtual card advantage, and Myr Enforcer and

Arcbound Ravager are comparable or better than just about any Black aggro creature.

I am bummed that the deck doesn’t have Disciple of the Vault, which really gives it the oomph to beat

board-clearing and artifact destruction strategies. The lack of it means that the Goblins matchup may be

poorer, as you remove a good deal of the combo element that made Affinity so deadly in other formats. I am

confident that it could be worked in if it would turn out to be needed; with Cranial Plating and fliers

though, it may be completely unnecessary.

AfFOWnity feels like a very solid deck to take into an unknown metagame. The deck has no dead slots

and a strong central plan. Being able to disrupt with Force of Will and Wasteland while attacking with

Cloud of Faeries equipped with Cranial Plating seems simply savage.

I am also pumped that StarCityGames.com own Kevin Binswanger had his day in the sun when, unbeknown

to him until I pointed it out, his creation took 6th place at a 75-person event in Iserlohn

recently.

You can read more about the deck and how it works by clicking here.

The Reader’s Digest version is that the deck is geared towards optimizing Pyroclasm and efficient

attackers. Serra Avenger, in particular, ends up being a strong control creature and Aether Vial lets you

cantrip or hold up mana while still playing creatures. Binswanger has since switched Sleight of Hand to

Serum Visions, but with the success of this deck, I’d be inclined to say that Sleight is just fine where

it is.

Suffice to say, I’m glad that my innovation of Aether Vial is still in the deck! Hey, I’ll be taking

my successes where I can.

There are also very interesting tweaks happening to existing decks. Take, for example, the sideboard

of 2nd place Ill-Gotten Gains decks from a 64-person event in

Dulmen.

2 Echoing Truth
2 Wipe Away
3 Massacre
4 Phyrexian Negator
2 Phyrexian Scuta
2 Masticore

While the maindeck is fairly standard and doesn’t need reprinting here, this board fascinated me. One

of the problems of IGG decks is that the namesake card of the deck lets players return Force of Will and

blue cards to their hands, which can potentially stop the combo. Instead of trying to fight through that,

as well as the counterwall that one would normally face, this player bypassed all of that. This hails back

to Mike Long’s innovative transformational sideboard of Ernham Djinn and Juzam Djinns in his G/B

StormDrain (Storm Cauldron, Fastbond, Drain Life) combo deck from ages ago. Players will side out all of

their creature control cards in favor of a withering amount of anti-combo elements. In light of that, a

combo player with enough board space (and IGG has very few sideboard requirements) can board in a

completely different strategy in the later games.

Imagine that you are a control player. You have drawn an excellent opening hand in game 2, containing,

say, Brainstorm, Stifle and Counterspell. You drop an Island and pass the turn with Brainstorm up. Then

your opponent casts Dark Ritual, Lotus Petal, Phyrexian Scuta! All of those seemingly awesome cards in

hand are now worthless, and on top of that, you’re facing a four-turn clock with no creature-kill elements

left in your deck. Bad times.

I’m not quite sure what the Masticores are doing on the board in this deck; they seem a little

mana-hungry and out of place. However, if the environment has a lot of Fish-style decks, against which you

have little chance of resolving the Storm combo, then machine-gunning their threats while attacking seems

like a fine plan. Negator seems less-than-stellar against heavy-creature aggro-control style decks as

well, but obviously intelligent sideboarding will tell you what is prudent. Speaking of Juzam Djinn, he

would make a fine replacement for the Scutas if you happened to have his gigantic, scary ass sitting in

your binder.

Sometimes, tech can come in the form of even a single card. Such is the case with this list, from Karlsruhe:

In this case, Academy Ruins is that one, single, amazing little piece of innovation that tickled me.

It fits so well in a Landstill-style deck like this. On a long enough timeline, it will allow you to recur

whatever you need, starting with Crucible of Worlds. Think about it – Nevinyrral’s Disk every turn! Simply

play it, activate it during your next upkeep, and then use Ruins to immediately put it back on top for

that turn. Blowing up the world never seemed so easy.

It also ameliorates the disadvantage of Thirst For Knowledge. The maindeck contains a few tweaks to

optimize it while remaining strong on their own; Phyrexian Furnace is the best example of this. You can

selectively prune a graveyard while still giving yourself a card draw for the turn. Off the sideboard, one

could run Tormod’s Crypt to recur as well.

While the deck has not fundamentally changed due to the addition of a single Academy Ruins, it has

become incrementally more powerful. Landstill has a pile of drawing cards, but at times, card selection

matters far more. Unfortunately, it is a colorless source of mana in a deck with four Wastelands and

Mishra’s Factories, so one must temper the incremental advantage versus yet another land that can’t play

Counterspell. In this case, the addition seems to have worked well. I’d be interested to see a further

take on Ruins in Landstill, utilizing other cards that play nice with it like Pyrite Spellbomb or

Engineered Explosives.

That isn’t the only innovation happening with the seemingly ancient archetype of Landstill. From the

Madrid Tournament mentioned earlier, the 7th place

Landstill deck ran three copies of Spell Snare on the sideboard. That card is, in a word, ridiculous.

It makes up for the disadvantage of going second, and against certain decks, it completely catches them

with their pants down. The opponent must calculate against two or more counterspells with only three

Islands open on the other side of the table. It also helps with the colored mana issue that Landstill

sometimes has problems with. Spell Snare is a card that will always have strong utility, but it is

certainly specialized. Against Goblins, obviously, it’s worthless, but against B/W Disruption or Life From

The Loam/Devastating Dreams decks, it can rob a lot of tempo. Three is a good number on the sideboard, but

four is likely better.

I’d like to finish up with a deck that may be amazing or terrible, but looks like a blast to play in

any case. It’s from

Hanau:

4 Scrubland[/author]“][author name="Scrubland"]Scrubland[/author]
4 Polluted Delta
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Phyrexian Tower
3 Swamp
1 Bayou
4 Autochthon Wurm
4 Academy Rector
1 Overgrown Estate
4 Nefarious Lich
4 Nourishing Shoal
2 Sickening Dreams
4 Duress
4 Dark Ritual
4 Chrome Mox
4 Night’s Whisper
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Grim Tutor

Sideboard:
4 Dodecapod
4 City of Solitude
1 Moat
1 Seal of Cleansing
4 Orim’s Chant
1 Ivory Mask

The combo is to get Lich out somehow and then gain a lot of life, which magically turns into cards.

Get a bunch in hand, drop Sickening Dreams for however many you need, and win with all those Nefarious

Lich triggers on the stack. It’s reminiscent of TurboNevyn from days long past in Vintage.

The deck has the smooth combo of Autochthon Wurm + Nourishing Shoal for fifteen life cards. It also has a baller-shot-caller 4 Grim Tutors, so

make friends with a Vintage player before you try building it. The Academy Rector engine seems

conditionally strong as well, being able to grab Moat and Ivory Mask, which will shut down aggro decks of

all kinds. I’m curious about the Overgrown Estate – could a Zuran Orb be better? Perhaps one of the

understated strengths of this deck is that it looks completely immune to the kinds of cards usually

brought in to hose combo.

Yeah, you lose to enchantment hate, but take some risks in life. The deck looks really fun, and it

makes use of several crap rares sitting in your binder. If anyone repeats the success of this deck, I’d

love to hear about it!

In conclusion, I refuse to believe that the European metagame is in any way inferior or more limited

than the American metagame. With events that, every month, pull in far more players than North American

events, could it be that we are resting on our laurels? Previous conceptions that Europe has a bad

metagame are being shattered; look at the results and you will find a steady increase in Storm-combo deck,

mirroring the American metagame. I hope to periodically revisit this topic and bring more tech from the

thriving Legacy scene in Europe.

Doug Linn
Hi-Val on the interweb
Team Meandeck

Special thanks to the fine folks on themanadrain.com, germagic.de and morphling.de