Change is often difficult to perceive. A day can often feel just like the one before, and the one after. When situations change dramatically, it is sometimes hard to focus on anything else. However, more often than not, change comes in much smaller increments. But with enough smaller changes, the result is something than can be recognized as being different from what came before it.
This applies to Legacy, just as it does to virtually every part of life. The printing of Tarmogoyf, or the discovery of the Hulk Flash combo, were dramatic events that changed Legacy in drastic ways, and it was very easy for everyone to understand that the future would be very different from the past. These types of events have been rare in Legacy’s history, but it is riddled with much smaller changes that have gradually transformed the format into what it is today. Such changes include the printing of high power and low mana cost creatures that helped Zoo become a top deck, the gradual decay of Goblins, and the evolution of Suicide archetypes that lead to modern variants like Eva Green.
When minor changes become significant enough, the result is often a deck that is substantially different than what existed in the past. New Horizons is one such deck. Its original design was developed sometime last fall by David Price. The deck has been through some slight alterations, but it has essentially retained its core. The deck is a Blue-based aggro-control deck very much in the vein of Canadian Threshold (UGR) and Team America (UGB). It incorporates many of the same elements, but in many ways it has solved some of the problems that plagued these decks by making a number of small but incredibly important changes.
Creatures (11)
Lands (23)
Spells (26)
Sideboard
The deck is, to a large degree, based around the land Horizon Canopy (which is part of the inspiration for the name of the deck). Horizon Canopy is a unique land in Legacy as it’s like a Savannah, but has the key ability to cycle itself when the deck has drawn too many lands. This ability is very important because it can reduce the chances the deck will get mana flooded. Horizon Canopy also allows the deck to play more lands, which means that the deck is also less likely to be short of mana in the early game. The increased land count makes the deck more resistant to mana destruction strategies as well. Decks like Zoo have shown that this card can be invaluable by increasing initial land counts without suffering the consequences of drawing too many lands. New Horizons uses this card for the same purpose.
Since the deck is using Horizon Canopy, it only makes sense if the deck plays both Green and White to make optimal use of the card. In addition to playing Tarmogoyf, the deck plays Knight of the Reliquary, which in many ways is the heart of the deck. It not only can be cast off a Horizon Canopy, but it can trade a land in play to fetch up the land and draw a card at instant speed. This can be important when needing to respond to an opponent’s play without having something like Brainstorm in hand. In addition to finding Horizon Canopy, the deck can repeatedly tutor for Wasteland to completely annihilate an opponent’s manabase. An untapped Knight of the Reliquary can shut down opposing Wastelands, as the deck can easily cycle the land that is being targeted in response to the Wasteland activation. All of these uses are powerful by themselves, but they also enable incredibly large Knights that become lethal quickly. This does not even take into account the natural use of early fetch-lands, which can often mean that Knights start out at 4/4 when they enter play.
Unlike Tempo Threshold and Team America, not only does this deck play more lands, but it also plays more threats. Both of these decks rely on their eight threats (Nimble Mongoose or Tombstalker along with Tarmogoyf). This can often be a problem, because both of these decks will sometimes not find a threat in a reasonable time frame. These other decks have been unable to find supplemental creatures that work in their strategies to prevent this from becoming a problem. The third creature that New Horizons adds is Terravore. In a deck where lands will be going to the graveyard because of fetch-lands, Wastelands, and Horizon Canopies, Terravore will always be large threat. It also benefits from opposing fetch-lands and Wastelands, which are omnipresent in Legacy. Knight of the Reliquary complements Terravore by increasing its size, but Terravore’s trample ability can break ground stalls and win games that would otherwise be difficult to pull out.
The other card that is different in this deck is Engineered Explosives. Engineered Explosives provides more flexible removal beyond standard creature removal. It also works better in a deck that plays no permanents with a one mana cost and only 4 Tarmogoyfs at a mana cost of two. New Horizons can usually use this to answer more low casting cost cards that other decks maybe playing before it can put its more powerful creatures into play. It also important to realize that this deck plays Swords to Plowshares which, in terms of removing creatures, is less conditional than Lightning Bolt, Fire/Ice, and Snuff Out, which see play in the other tempo variants.
The rest of the deck retains the Blue-based aggro control shell that is used by other tempo variants. It uses Brainstorm and Ponder to filter its draw. It uses Force of Will and Daze as its primary counter-spells. It uses Stifle along with the aforementioned Wasteland for its mana denial component. The mana denial is even stronger in this deck as it can tutor for Wasteland with a Knight of the Reliquary. There are a great deal of the cards that are common with the other tempo variants, which means that this deck can easily be viewed as UGW tempo variant, but this would miss the importance of the changes. It is not simply change of colors, but of the nature of the deck. New Horizons has been able to address so many of the concerns of the other decks without losing much of the disruptive elements that makes these types of decks competitive.
In many ways, this deck is superior to other similar decks. It has creatures that can become larger than anything the other decks can even dream of. It has more lands, but can cycle them later in the game. It can tutor for any land in its deck including the all important Wasteland. All of this is accomplished while still retaining the best elements of the Blue-based shell that has had such a great deal of success in Legacy.
This does not mean that this deck is better in all situations when compared to the other variants. Having more disruption like Team America will help against combo decks, or having reach like Canadian Threshold can be crucial against control decks. Any specific matchup would be have to be evaluated to figure out which of the variants would be better, but it is hard to ignore many of the advantages that New Horizons has over its competitors. These will likely help it in a majority of matchups where specific interactions are not as important as the overall strength of the deck.
Emerging decks like New Horizons are usually only played by the player or group of players who have developed them. Up until recently, David Price was the only person that I was aware of that was playing the deck. He has made several Top 8 appearances with the deck in large tournaments, including a German tournament on January 2, 2010 with 270 players and 9 rounds, which became a GPT for Grand Prix: Madrid, with every player in the Top 8 receiving a 3 round bye. His other success stories with the deck includes winning a recent Vestal, NY tournament with 106 players, and making Top 8 at another with 91 players, along with Jesse Krieger playing the same deck making Top 4. This is only important because, with very limited play, the deck is putting up very impressive results.
The impact of New Horizons on Legacy is currently very low and hardly perceptible. It has done well at some tournaments, but hardly sees any play. If this trend of doing well at large tournaments continues, perhaps the quality of New Horizons will be self-evident, but this is more likely to happen after many success stories because eventually this gradual change will become apparent.
The development of this deck really represents gradual change that comes from making subtle improvements. These alterations, when taken as a whole, culminate in a deck that is different from its predecessors, and we come to view this development as something new.