How was your weekend? Mine was pretty good. I got to play mini golf, eat at a sweet barbeque place, and see some great friends from other cities.
Oh yeah, and I won a Magic tournament.
If we haven’t before, it’s pleasure to make your acquaintance. My name is Chris Andersen, and I play a lot of Magic. I’ve been bashing my head against the wall of Midwest PTQs and StarCityGames.com Open Series events for about five years now. There have been ups. There have been downs. However, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I’ve met some amazing people and learned innumerable lessons about Magic, games, people, and life in general.
The Beginning of a Legacy
I used to think Legacy was stupid. I figured if I couldn’t qualify for the Pro Tour playing Legacy, it was more or less a waste of my time. Then there was a Legacy Grand Prix in Chicago—three hours from where I lived. That’s when I realized that I’d have to learn the format after all.
After scrubbing out of a PTQ for Honolulu, I had an opportunity to play in a Legacy Grand Prix Trial for Chicago. I asked my friends Josh and David for a spare deck. I told them that I wanted to play something that beat blue decks and that I didn’t care about beating combo. David reached into his bag and gave me 43 Lands. I had no idea what I was doing, and I only played one practice game with it before the tournament started, so I wasn’t expecting much going in.
And then I won the tournament without losing a single game.
It was completely different than any format I had ever played before. I was in game states where I had 35+ permanents in play to my opponent’s lone basic land that was getting Rishadan Ported every upkeep. I was "drawing" absurd amounts of cards with Life from the Loam and playing four Demonic Tutors.
You got gambol?
More importantly, it was the most fun I had playing Magic for as long as I could remember. In that one tournament, my perception of Legacy changed from being a novelty format to being the most fun you can have in tournament Magic.
King of the Forest
I played 43 Lands for about a year and a half, but eventually the metagame shifted. I couldn’t play the deck the way I wanted to because of Mystical Tutor powered Reanimator dominating the tournament scene. The archetype adapted to Blue Lands, but I didn’t like the high spell count, so I moved on to other things. I tried a smattering of different decks, but I wasn’t excited about any of them the way I was about Lands. The magic just wasn’t there; Legacy wasn’t as fun anymore.
I think the low point for me was when I played a U/W/R Stoneblade deck at an Invitational in my hometown of Indianapolis. I went 0-2 with it before I dropped with a 2-4 overall record. I was frustrated with losing and frustrated with playing decks I didn’t really like.
While moping around the tournament hall, I stumbled upon a conversation Patrick Chapin was having about Guillaume Wafo-Tapa. He was talking about how much Wafo loved just playing Magic and how he always had fun while playing. Then he mentioned something that surprised me.
"Guillaume loves playing Elves in testing. He always has the biggest smile on his face while drawing absurd amounts of cards."
What a coincidence! I had just played Elves in Gavin Verhey online Overextended tournament the night before. I’d crushed everyone and had a blast.
Elves is a deck in Legacy too.
I figured what the hell; I’d give it a try in the Legacy Open the next day, Mental Misstep be damned!
And just like that, I was back to having fun again. The deck was decent but not spectacular. I didn’t care though; I was having a blast. I made a conscious decision that from then on Legacy would be a format where having fun would be a higher priority for me than winning. I’ve gotten a lot of flak over the years for not playing "real decks" in Legacy, but I don’t care. I’ll play real decks in PTQs. Legacy is my format to enjoy myself and I’m not going to let anyone take away the magic from me again.
Since then I’ve gained a bit of a reputation for playing Elves, which has been pretty cool. I’ve played other decks too, but with a handful of exceptions—in moments of weakness—aside, I have always played a deck that does cool stuff and that I enjoy. For what it’s worth, I think Elves is a very good deck right now, and I would be perfectly comfortable sleeving up my beloved Elvish Visionarys for a big Legacy tournament tomorrow if I had to. However, my heart has currently been captured by something…colder.
More…metallic.
A Drink from the Chalice
It all started with a deck tech from the last Invitational.
Now, I don’t think I would play Metalworker if given the opportunity even though the deck is cool, but there is one thing from that video that stuck with me.
Chalice of the Void is pretty good.
Like, really good.
Completely bernaners good.
The problem with it was that the rest of the cards in the Chalice deck were kind of bad. Steel Hellkite is sweet and all, but I don’t think it’s what I would go to if I had access to 12,000 unique Magic cards.
So I looked for more reliable shells where I could play Chalice of the Void and came across this buried gem.
Creatures (9)
Planeswalkers (8)
Lands (21)
Spells (22)
Seems like I just can’t quit you, Elvish Visionary.
What’s the difference?
There was only one Chalice in the deck, but the mana base could easily be made to support a playset. I talked to Caleb on Facebook for a bit, figured out what I wanted to keep and what I could afford to change, and came up with the deck I played in Nashville. I was ready to battle!
Too bad the next Legacy Open wasn’t for another month.
After what felt like waiting forever, I was ready to unleash some robots on the unsuspecting magicians of central Tennessee. I did well there with a Top 8 appearance, but the dream fell short to a bit of flooding and the masterful play of Jack Fogle.
I would go into detail about the card choices, but CVM did an excellent job with his write-up, which you can find here.
CVM ended up losing playing for Top 8 in Baltimore, one week before my next chance to cast some Tezzerets, which was St. Louis. He recommended I use a Jester’s Cap in the board. As spicy as that sounded, I ended up getting talked out of it at the tournament. Instead, my friend Jessy Hefner came up with Vintage superstar Lodestone Golem. Turn 2 Lodestone seemed too good to pass up, so I made room for a few in my board and went to battle.
Creatures (4)
Planeswalkers (8)
Lands (22)
Spells (26)
- 4 Force of Will
- 1 Ensnaring Bridge
- 2 Transmute Artifact
- 2 Thirst for Knowledge
- 3 Talisman of Dominance
- 4 Chalice of the Void
- 1 Engineered Explosives
- 3 Dimir Signet
- 2 Sword of the Meek
- 2 Thopter Foundry
- 1 Ratchet Bomb
- 1 Nihil Spellbomb
Sideboard
The Open
SCG Open Series: St. Louis was one of the most fun tournaments I’ve been to in a while. Other than the shoddy Internet, it’s the perfect site for a tournament. I didn’t do too well in the Standard portion. I got a feature match in which I played terribly against a 12-year-old and got burned out for exactsies, eliminating me from Top 8 contention early in the tournament.
Instead of trying to grind out a Top 64 finish, I went to the "Fun Center" next door to play mini golf with 10K Champion Lauren Nolen, his Notionless victim Justin Uppal, and Jack Grannan. We played a skins game for a dollar a hole with no maximum stroke count. That’s right, you had to play out that volcano hole all the way through! Jack turned out to be quite the putt-putter and won the course by ten strokes. Poor Justin got all tuckered out around hole 12 and ended up about 30 strokes behind the pack. He looked a bit like this after we were done.
Not the best mini golfer on the planet.
Doing something other than Magic was a great way for me to clear my head after having such a crappy Standard showing; I got to enjoy myself with some friends and not dwell on doing so poorly. It really helped me keep a positive attitude, which enabled me turn my weekend around Magic-wise. I’m likely going to do a similar thing for multi-tournament weekends in the future, and I recommend you try the same.
I don’t want to bore you with a round-by-round walkthrough of everything that happened to me in the Legacy Open, but I will go over some of the highlights.
In round 2, I got a game loss for not putting a Ratchet Bomb in my decklist. I counted one too many lands when I double-checked my decklist and therefore didn’t notice it was absent. Oops. My opponent was playing Belcher, but thanks to some heavy lifting by Chalice of the Void and Lodestone Golem, I got there anyway.
Round 4 I played against my friend Jason Brinkman playing Dream Halls. In game 3, I managed to get a Chalice on one, three, and FIVE to lock him out of the game. Yes, that’s right—I tapped for ten mana. Unfortunately for him, he couldn’t do the same to get Omniscience into play.
In round 6, I got a camera feature match against Burn, which you can watch here once the archives are posted.
This was Jon’s first Legacy event, and it was great to see him do so well. He was a pretty cool kid, and I hope to see him around more.
Round 9 I got paired up against a Qdoba. There was no Chipotle in sight, so I had to make the best of the hand I was dealt. I decided to play a Queso Chicken Burrito with both kinds of beans, brown rice, extra queso, and extra meat with a double wrap. Sound off in the comments section below if you think you would have played it differently.
Most of my Top 8 was on camera, which you can watch here once the archives are posted.
I’m not super happy with my play looking back. I missed a couple triggers with Sword of the Meek, and I actually forgot a City of Traitors trigger, which probably looked pretty sketchy on camera. I want to clear up that I was the one who noticed the missed trigger. When I told the table judge and asked if I should bin it, he said it was too late and we couldn’t redo the trigger. I don’t know if it was the right ruling or not, but looking back on it I should have just set the City of Traitors aside and not used it for the rest of the time it was in play. I didn’t think of doing that at the time and feel kind of bad using it to cast spells. That being said, I don’t think it changed the outcome of the match.
Props to Reuben Bresler for letting me pick the radio station that drowned out the coverage team’s voices in the finals. How could I lose while listening to the alluring falsetto of Robin Thicke?
WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
I did it! I finally won an Open! And more importantly, I won an Open on my own terms: I piloted a super cool deck and had an absolute blast playing with it all day. If you enjoy fun, I highly recommend giving this deck a try; it’s incredibly competitive and an absolute joy to play.
I want to thank all of my friends who supported me throughout the Top 8 and beyond. I may not show it much, but the fact that you guys care about me and have a true interest in my success means more to me than you could ever imagine. If it wasn’t for getting to see all of you at tournaments, I would have quit this game a long time ago. For me, Magic has always been about the people, and it always will be about the people. I love you guys!
See you all this weekend in Columbus!
-Chran