I’ve got issues.
Er, that didn’t come across so well.
Since the This Here Edits This Site Guy decided that it was worthwhile to have my mugshot posted for your viewing pleasure, I’ve made a commitment to live up to the opportunity and write a regular series on one of the formats that gets little attention, i.e. Legacy.
Let’s backtrack for a moment. As much as I like to rib Oscar Tan, he did awesome things for Vintage. Now that doesn’t mean he was the grandmaster of knowledge when it came to the format. I can remember when he wrote an article about The Deck (a.k.a. Keeper, 4C-Control, Yo-Mama’s-A-Messed-Up-Manabase) vs. Suicide Black, and I practically tore him a new one in the forums for using a SuiBlack deck so outdated it could even make Margaret Thatcher look Live and Barely Legal. He followed it with an article that used a more respectable build, and we rejoiced and frolicked.
As a long time fan, I have great reverence for Tan. Not because I think he’s the end-all, be-all of Vintage magic, nor do I think his articles indicate him as a revolutionary thinker. He’s not the brainpower of the format – that’s where greats like Smennen, Stanton and Kowal show their goods – and subsequently, none of today’s decks are his brainchild. [Kowal? That was unexpected. – Knut] Nonetheless, it would be hard to deviate from the notion that Tan has contributed much more to Vintage than can be described through tournament success. Tan never created a deck on his own and he never won an SCG P9, but he still trots with a grandiose sense of authority – and in my opinion, it’s well deserved. (That doesn’t mean we won’t tease him about it, though.)
Tan’s most important contribution was exposure. Without Tan writing about the format extensively, I doubt Vintage would be as successful as it is today. That’s certainly arguable, but most would agree that the exposure he gave the format in his articles had an undeniably positive effect on the format. As much as people told him to shut up, and as much as us forum posters told him he had no clue and that he didn’t know jack – and regrettably, I did that, too – Tan was a revolutionary. He got people to pay attention. He got people to care.
Now it’s time for Legacy to get that same exposure.
Let me say this: I am no Oscar Tan. He outweighs me in both sheer intelligence, knowledge of the fundamentals, and breadth of historical reference. I am no Smennen, I am no Zvi. Yet I’ll be damned if I let a format I love drop off into obscurity. And for the last time, The Source members, I am not a revolutionary. I read some of your remarks posted on the Source boards, and it’s clear that you are looking at my articles from the wrong perspective.
Some of you sit there and critique my decklists to the point of absurdity. When I suggested that Transmute Artifact might be worth exploring in Legacy Affinity, someone questioned if I had the right selection of artifact lands in my sample decklist! As if I was really giving them a tested deck they should take to GP: Lille in three months or something! My articles aren’t about netdecks; they are about exposure and ideas. If you come from The Source, you shouldn’t expect much tech out of my articles; the same way nobody reads Tan to find out the latest Vintage tech. That’s not what this is for. Maybe there will be some hot piece of strategy that makes an impact in my articles, but it’s not my aim and purpose in life; so get over it.
I’m interested in new ideas. You may have tested those ideas, but hey, as far as I know, no prominent member of the Source is actually on the Pro Tour. As far as I know, the collective analysis of all the Legacy players on the Source is not the same as the entire Magic-reading audience.
Then, of course, comes the retort. Please don’t give me the crack about how others or even pros don’t know better because, “Can you believe Gadiel SzZsSzleifffferrr put Chrome Mox in Solidarity during the Legacy Champs? What a n00b!” That’s not a good response. On the other side of the spectrum, you have Adam Chambers placing 7th in an SCG P9; with very little knowledge of the Type 1 format beforehand. The pros’ play skills are tighter. While they may not know the optimal deck tweaks yet, they may be able to consistently wallop people with that terrible tier-three deck you keep denouncing. It all starts with exposure: the pros need to come out in huge numbers to the GP and start showing the community what they did and how they did it.
Exposure. It’s all about exposure. You see, Tan had dedication. I don’t write articles because I feel people should soak up my wisdom like it was crack wrapped in chocolate – I write because I want Legacy to flourish, to further grow, and to get more and more people into the fold. If the best thing you can glean from my numerous “piles of Legacy trash” is public exposure, well, at least I got someone to shoot me a PM about the format. Some discussion is better than none at all.
Oddly enough, some have wished that I stop writing about the format. Seriously. Some (relatively prominent) members on The Source have said that they would prefer that StarCityGames not have anyone write about Legacy, unless they were a respected member of The Source. There was even some backlash when Zvi Moshowitz himself wrote an article on the Legacy Championships. To approach these articles this way is terribly shortsighted, in my opinion, and I will say this:
Brotha, you’re going to be disappointed. No matter how wrong I may be sometimes – as all humans are wont to be – at least people will learn about the format. You don’t like my work? Operation Yellow Elephant would tell you to start writing your own regular series, which I for one will be more than happy to read and support.
Let me also make a side-remark: You can criticize my work, call me an outsider, or tell me I’m nowhere near as aWeSoMe-Az-U; but let’s have some respect and be civil. There’s no reason to insult me or the people I play with. You have no right to call my wife “idiotic” because she suggests card X should go in a deck. That’s just immature. (Although Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned: If you are planning on going to the GP, I suggest you wear some protection.)
So, from there, let us proceed. If I haven’t pissed off everyone at The Source yet, why don’t we get started, eh? After all, God forbid I should write about Legacy. Awful! Tragic! Stone him! (“FATALITY!” *gurgle*)
Looking at the results from most recent series of events, it should be very clear the Legacy has a pretty established metagame: Landstill, Goblins, Survival, and a smattering of everything else. Here are the basic tiers, with some leeway between them:
Tier 1:
Landstill
Vial Goblins
Tier 1.5:
R/G Survival Advantage
Solidarity
Angel Stompy / Wayfarer White Weenie
Burn Sligh
Tier 2:
Grow
MWC (“Rabid Wombat” – was someone drunk when they named that deck?)
R/G Beats
Tier 3 (if even):
Pox
Belcher
Fish
Hulk Smash
The Game (Use Gamekeeper to Oath up Darksteel Colossus)
BBS / UWBS (Non-Landstill Blue-based permission decks)
Storm Tendrils (“Nausea”)
Without a doubt, though, Landstill and Goblins are dominant. In the forums, I was challenged by Jack Elgin (the “King of Legacy” – where he earned the title, I’ll never know) that the Legacy metagame is actually vibrant, with innovation sprouting all the time. We had a good debate; and to his credit he put up a decent defense of his opinion. In fact, many of his arguments were compelling enough for me to concede on certain points. Nonetheless, I can summarize my position as follows:
Poppycock.
Legacy for the past year has really been nothing but Landstill and Goblins. Those two decks have pulled more high-profile Top 8s than almost all other decks combined. (Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but it sure feels like it.) Those two tier one decks made up six slots out of the Top 8 at GenCon’s Legacy Champs. While it’s true that both decks have evolved quite heavily, I don’t classify that as shaking up the format; I simply believe that’s a matter of optimization.
Vintage has never been like that; the Top 8 from P9 to P9 tourney has always had a bit of a mixup. New decks break out all over the place; some ebb and some flow, some fade into obscurity only to be resurrected all over again. Consider Stax. Right now, Stax has proven to be quite good. At other times, though, Stax was less than impressive. Fish has gone up and down because of tweaking, and Dragon has been in and out. Oath started off very strong, lost for a bit, got better, etc. Goblins has been on top of the Top 8 and on the bottom of the Top 32. It all changes.
The fact of the matter is that the Vintage metagame has a very large pool of successful decks, and those decks’ successes are constantly fluctuating. Sometimes a deck is awesome. Sometimes it’s not. Sometimes hot new decks like Doomsday are a flash in the pan, despite their strong ability to compete. Other times, hot decks like Control Slaver prove to be solid all around.
Extended was no different, and even in Type 2, the rise of Blue Tron occurred very late, as various deck ideas were still being tested and tuned. Metagames change. Decks to beat change. Expected field percentages of decks change.
Yet in Legacy, you can’t possibly tell me that the metagame is that vibrant. Maybe in Virginia, or San Diego, or in Albany, people are being innovative; but it sure doesn’t seem to translate into the larger picture at all (at least not yet). In Legacy, the metagame is so rigid it’s almost like it sat on a telephone poll. (Ahem.) If you walk into a Legacy tournament, you can probably expect at least 40% of the field to be made up of Landstill and Goblins. (And Zvi seems to agree with that sentiment.)
Let me also clarify – I don’t think the metagame isn’t healthy. In fact, I think the metagame is actually perfectly balanced between control and aggro, with a smattering of combo that is competitive without being broken. It is quite a healthy format – it just doesn’t change much. If it doesn’t change much, it will get boring real fast.
How hard is it to build a deck that beats both? Don’t tell me that MWC is the best you can come up with. As of this writing I know of no instance where it was successfully piloted through a large field of players. Of course, I could be wrong here, so if you know of a Rabid Wombat deck (WTF with that name?) making T8 in a field of more than 40, let me know in the forums.
(In fact, if you look here, you’ll find only ten tournament results from events with more than fifty participants since the beginning of 2005; hardly what I would call a perfect basis for statistical assessment. Only two events had seventy-five or more, and only one with more than a hundred competitors. Only three additional events had more than forty-five people; and any less than that and the results could be seriously skewed towards play skill over deck choice.)
There are soooo many ways to screw with the format. Heck, anyone think about Root Maze? That and Tsabo’s Web or Back to Basics would probably give Landstill fits – and many other decks that rely on fetchlands, Wastelands, and manlands. Burn decks? How about playing Chalice of the Void for one, or even Trinisphere? These strategies aren’t even bullets; they’re more like Napalm. Huge swaths of the metagame could be mowed down with the right tools.
How about something crazy and ridiculous, like Green Stax? I’m sure somebody could tweak a Machine/Stax deck to beat both, since the tools are all there. Even White Stax might work, since you could run Hannah’s Custody, or inversely Seal of Cleansing. Orim’s Chant wouldn’t hurt, either. Yes, I know Stax isn’t very good in Legacy; but some sort of hybrid build might be.
Of course, I’m not saying these decks are viable or that they have never been tried before. But have they been played by Tsuyoshi Fujita in a tournament? By Bob Maher? Has anyone seen Steve Menendian or Roland Chang play Solidarity? There are significant possibilities that skilled pros could win with decks previously thought to be steaming piles.
What about The Rock? In Extended, the Rock has proven to be a contender in a field that typically included Goblins and other U/W control decks (namely, Scepter-Chant). It certainly could be ported to Legacy, and I’m sure I wouldn’t be the first to suggest it. From what I can tell, the Rock might be an auspicious choice, since it comes with a couple of advantages:
- It dodges all of the REB / BEB splash damage that is commonplace in sideboards.
- It has very flexible spot removal; ranging from targeted removal like Naturalize, Diabolic Edict, and Terror (not bad in Legacy, since there is a dearth of Black).
- Access to global removal like Pernicious Deed, Nevinyrral’s Disk, Engineered Explosives, Powder Keg, etc.
- Discard packages to help against control.
- Recursion is relatively easy, with Volrath’s Stronghold, Eternal Witness, and even Regrowth if necessary.
- Engineered Plague in the board and possibly even Plague Spitter to fight Goblins.
To be fair, there are certainly some downsides; namely, the deck is fairly slow, runs a relatively difficult manabase, and can be vulnerable to counterspells. However, given the fact that the Rock is one of the most successful and longest surviving archetypes in Extended, it seems fair to state the deck could probably do well if tested and tweaked. I don’t know about consistent T8s, but I would bet Jeroen Remie could probably own with it.
Just brainstorming here (hard to do with my small brain, I know), but what about a hybridized Black / White critter build? I’ve seen it before, sometimes called SuiBlonde, but I’m thinking more along the lines of a controllish build. The following definitely has issues, but I’ve had some promising results when testing it against Goblins and Landstill:
Temporary Solution, by njx
Creatures: 20
4 Silver Knight
4 Auriok Champion
4 Temple Acolyte
4 Plague Spitter
3 Exalted Angel
1 Eight-and-a-Half-Tails
Spells: 16
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Night’s Whisper
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Diabolic Edict
2 Unearth
Mana: 24
4 Aether Vial
2 Flooded Strand
2 Windswept Heath
4 Scrubland[/author]“][author name="Scrubland"]Scrubland[/author]
8 Plains
4 Swamp
Sideboard: 15
3 Samurai of the Pale Curtain
3 Honorable Scout
3 Duress
3 Disenchant
3 Orim’s Chant
The Unearth may look a little odd, but I love them. With Plague Spitter (a house against Goblins) and Cabal Therapy, they just absolutely rock; and Temple Acolyte (the Portal favorite now actually legal in Legacy) also makes Unearth worthwhile. In a pinch, it cycles; so I never feel like it’s a dead card. Some may question the moxen, but as I said earlier, this build has issues since its mana curve starts at two. Thank goodness for Vial, huh?
The 8.5 Tails is just because I wanted another small creature, and it seemed like a good choice in case I wanted some pro-white to dodge opposing Swords to Plowshares. It certainly could become something else, but I might even want more. It’s possible the Unearth slots could be two more of these.
The sideboard is aimed at tuning the deck against control or combo. Pale Curtains are good against Landstill’s Crucibles and 2/2 Factories; Chants help the Solidarity matchup. The Scouts are nice against Goblins and Burn in a deck that plays Unearth, although they might not be necessary. Duress is sideboarded because it almost always misses against Goblins, which makes up a very large portion of the field. Cabal Therapy maindeck seems like a better choice in this deck, though; so I’m not too worried about having them sit on the sidelines.
The deck doesn’t run Wasteland, particularly because I really need access to the WW in the mana costs of many creatures, even with Vials. It is possible that extensive testing could reveal some Wastelands could be fit in, but for now, I haven’t had time to reach that conclusion. For those of you wondering why I split the fetchlands two-and-two, it’s because Pithing Needle can name fetchlands, so I want to be as versatile as possible.
I’ve played about thirty or so pre-boarded games against Vial Goblins, and it was practically a blowout; I won more than twenty of them. (Auriok Champion and Silver Knights are kind of rough, from what I hear, eh?) Against Landstill, I’ve won a little more than half of pre-board and post-board games (about ten or so of each), with an edge in the post-board games. Unearth was really helpful at recovering from Wrath in game one. I’m sure the matchup could be improved by tweaking and better sideboard allocation.
That’s all for today. Before anybody gets up in arms and starts wailing on the forums, just remember: my decklist above is not a netdeck, just an idea. (Sheesh. You know it’s awful when you have to tell people to think for themselves. Crikey.) See you in the forums, where I’m sure I’ll see another flame war. Everybody make sure to bring some marshmallows.
Cheers!
-Nathan J
Important Thanks:
First, I would like to express a real hardy thank you to Anusien (LordKiev), Peter Rotten and GodZillA from The Source, for their support and encouragement; despite other members’ less-than-kind remarks. As much as it may seem like I’ve railed against The Source in this article, it is an awesome resource, and the people there do know a lot more about the format than anyone. If you are interested in Legacy, you should definitely check it out.
Second, stupendous props to the guys in the SCG forums: Esternaefil, RavenousElf, Jimmy_Page, Stupid_Newb, turboeli, JohnDoe, misterorange, AIcOPed, fedaykin13, NameChangeMan, glavin, Gandhi, Ashram, Ryusei, ShrapnelMoon, and all the others who I can’t seem to remember who have made me proud to rise from the forums. Kudos to y’all for all your remarks, good and bad, and just for plain-old being rational. Special thanks to Esternaefil and Stupid_Newb for all the deckbuilding help they’ve done with me in the past. And AIcO, come home soon, soldier, okay? We want you back safe and sound.