Sometimes horrible things happen that put the insignificance of a mana flood or an unfortunate top deck back into context. After all, Magic is just game
and something that we all do to have fun. As many of you all may already be aware, earlier this summer a terrible tragedy happened to one of our community
members – Mariah Pagliocco.
The whole circumstance is tragic and my sincerest thoughts and prayers continue to go out to Mariah and her family. Although I don’t know her personally,
one of the aspects of Magic that I love the most is that I like to think we are all a like-minded community of friends, and when something bad happens to
anybody the community takes a loss.
What I wanted to talk a little bit about today is how impressed I’ve been with the community’s heartfelt reaction to this unfortunate accident and ongoing
support. For instance, I know that SCG dedicated the Open Series in Providence to her, which I think is absolutely outstanding and makes me proud to work
for such a great company.
Last weekend a local Michigan Level 3 Judge named David Rappaport did something really cool that I believe is worthy of recognition as well: He organized a
grassroots, statewide benefit tournament series here in Michigan and put up his Judge Foil Force of Wills (in addition to other Judge Foil) as the prizes
for the events and then donated all of the proceeds to The Medical Fund for Mariah.
Each store ran a tournament for a different Constructed format so that basically every player in the state (no matter what their favorite format of
preference) had an event that they could play in. The store that I work for was lucky to get the Legacy event which means that in addition to being
involved in helping with a good cause, I got to watch some epic Legacy games!
I’m the kind of person who can be pretty critical and outspoken about things that I don’t like or enjoy, but I also fancy myself as a person who can also
be fair and give credit where credit is due. I’ve been really impressed with how members of the Magic community come together and have a great capacity to
do good for others. I can’t even say that I’m surprised as I’ve seen the community rally together hundreds of times in my long time playing the game over a
variety of issues. Nonetheless, a story like this is plain and simple a nice story that I thought was worthy of pointing out.
I didn’t get a chance to see what people were playing at the other Michigan events this weekend, but I certainly got a first hand look at some of the sweet
Legacy decks that people were playing at the RIW event, and lucky for you Legacy fans out there, Dave was nice enough to give me the top 8 decklists to
post for my article this week.
The top 8 was actually pretty sweet as it featured seven significantly different archetypes and was full of mainstays as well as cool fringe decks.
Honestly, my absolute favorite part about Legacy is waiting to see which bizarre down and out decks surge back to the forefront and throw down a strong
showing.
The event was won by the Michigan’s favorite shamanistic combo guru son, Ben Perry, who was playing Lands of all things!
Lands (33)
Spells (27)
- 1 Forest
- 4 Exploration
- 4 Gamble
- 2 Manabond
- 4 Crop Rotation
- 4 Mox Diamond
- 4 Life from the Loam
- 4 Punishing Fire
Sideboard
Lands has always been a deck that I’ve had a real soft spot for. I played a version of the deck myself back in the day and can with some authority say that
the deck is way better now than it EVER was in the past.
The addition of the Dark Depths + Thespian’s Stage combo fixes one of the archetypes major problems from the past (taking four hours to finish a round)
while at the same time adding an explosive and outright powerful combo to the deck. Ben also told me of his deck that the full suite of sideboard Chalice
of the Voids were pivotal in winning multiple bad matchups against fast combo decks on the day!
I’m a ‘the cup is more than half empty’ kind of guy.
The finals of the tournament was a hard fought match between Ben’s Lands deck and Caleb Gothberg’s Legacy Jund deck. In the final game Ben Perry had a
sweet out of nowhere win where he topdecked a Crop Rotation to make Marit Lage to win out of nowhere against a nearly lethal enemy army.
Caleb’s deck also makes good use of the Grove of the Burnwillows + Punishing Fire combo and backs it up with a plethora of powerful threats and grindy card
advantage engines.
A centerpiece of multiple Legacy decks: I can’t even believe this was legal in Modern!
Creatures (15)
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (23)
Spells (18)
The spiciest card in this 75 in my opinion:
A lot of confusing text that ultimately boils down to: YOU ARE DOOMED.
I know that Chains of Mephistopheles has been creeping up in price for years now, but I’ve never actually gotten to see somebody play with the card before.
Wow! It’s basically like a black Spirit of the Labyrinth that can’t be killed by creature removal.
The rest of the top 8 was rounded out by some familiar as well as some unfamiliar archetypes:
3rd: Anthony Enokian, Jund
4th: Chad Teuscher, Sneak and Show
5th: Josh Warren, Death and Taxes
6th: Alec Mayernick, Elves
7th: Chris Warren, R/W Painter
8th: Michael Danielson, BUG Delver
A lot of these archetypes are fairly straightforward, but I wanted to feature the R/W Painter decklist because I thought it looked really sweet.
Creatures (18)
- 3 Goblin Welder
- 4 Imperial Recruiter
- 1 Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
- 3 Simian Spirit Guide
- 1 Magus of the Moon
- 4 Painter's Servant
- 2 Phyrexian Revoker
Lands (19)
Spells (23)
Firstly, any deck that is playing with Goblin Welder is clearly my favorite deck in the tournament. 🙂
Secondly, Chris’s deck goes super deep with some of his card choices.
Finally, a deck that can profitably team up with the dynamic duo of Jaya and Koth!
Jaya Ballard seems absolutely awesome in a deck playing with Painter’s Servant. I’m not exactly sure what Koth is for, but I’m pretty sure it’s probably
awesome.
I love looking at decklists from local tournaments because they often contain awesome tech that people have tested or figured out that simply hasn’t made
it’s way into the hive mind yet. Also, local lists are awesome because people are more willing to try out new/weird tech in a smaller tournament than in a
big one where they have to invest more overhead and time into traveling to play.
I’d like to congratulate all of the Michigan Legacy players who came out on Sunday and battled for a good cause. I’d also like to thank Judge Dave and his
staff for organizing and putting on a fun and well-run event.
Magic is a tremendously fun game, and the only thing that makes it better is getting to have a great time and to do it all for a great cause.
I’m proud to be a gamer for life.