Legacy is not a format where change happens quickly.
For starters, many Legacy players are drawn to the format specifically because of the viability of their favorite strategy. If you need to play with Elves
or you absolutely have to Tendrils out your opponent, you’re probably not running out to buy a playset of Young Pyromancer anytime soon.
Many of the best decks in Legacy also feature a steep learning curve, at least compared to Standard. It’s not hard to pick up the ins and outs of Abzan
Midrange in a few days if you’ve got a good testing group, but knowing the perfect line in Stoneblade or Miracles can take months. Add this to relative
scarcity of Legacy tournaments and you end up with a format where the best option for most players is to stick with what they know. At any given Legacy
tournament, I would guess that at least half of the attendees have been playing some variant of their deck for at least a year.
It’s also not financially feasible for most players to switch Legacy decks at will. Even the cheapest decks in the format require a significant commitment
in terms of the manabase, and most of them clock in at well over two grand. If you wanted to build Brian Braun-Duin’s GP winning list, you’d be looking at
$750 in Volcanic Islands alone.
This slow growth curve is part of what makes Legacy so popular. There are several dozen viable decks in Legacy, and most of them have been good for years.
If the balance of power were to shift too far toward a smaller handful of decks, popularity would drop across the board. Fortunately, there is kind of a
recursive logic keeping this from happening. The format’s diversity keeps innovators honest, thereby insuring future diversity. If a deck were to
completely dominate Legacy, it couldn’t do it just by beating up on a few of the top strategies. It would have to perform well across a varied field.
This narrative was challenged over the weekend in New Jersey. Going into the tournament, most of the talk was centered on how Treasure Cruise, Monastery
Swiftspear, and (to a lesser extent) Dig Through Time would lead to a sea of blue and red on the tournament floor. Whether or not this actually happened
depends on your view of the format. While U/R Delver did show up in force, Legacy still proved to be its usual obdurate self. The most popular card by far
was still Brainstorm, a card that has been warping Legacy since the very beginning. The only difference is that we’re all used to it.
Is Treasure Cruise too good for Legacy? Possibly, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at the Top 8 deck lists. Brian Braun-Duin’s list runs four of them,
as does Dan Jordan’s, and Tom Ross’ Infect deck runs a singleton copy. Other than that, Treasure Cruise was absent from the GP’s final tables. With results
like this, don’t expect Treasure Cruise to be banned in Legacy anytime soon.
The card’s impact could still be felt though, especially in the hours leading up to the tournament’s start. With U/R Delver rated as the consensus best
deck going into the event, players were scrambling to find a deck that could beat it. Kor Firewalker was one of the most popular cards onsite with copies
climbing to $5 quickly before selling out. While Kor Firewalker is a solid answer to a Monastery Swiftspear, the fact that it can only really be played in
the sideboard of a Death & Taxes list limits its financial upside considerably. StarCityGames still has a bunch of copies available for $0.99, and
while it might rise in price a little, I don’t see it ending up in that $5 range long term.
Containment Priest was another big seller at the GP, and many dealers were sold out of the Commander 2014 card at $40. This time, the online price seems to
have come along for the ride – StarCity is currently sold out of Containment Priests at $30, and the $15 copies I could still find online over the weekend
have disappeared. Unlike Kor Firewalker, Containment Priest has value outside of Death & Taxes too – Brian Braun-Duin and Philipp Schonegger both ran
two copies out of the sideboard in their Top 8 decks. While there is no doubt now that this card is a Legacy staple, I expect that we are currently at
Containment Priest’s peak value until 2016 or so. The white Commander deck is one of the better ones in terms of overall value, and WotC will keep printing
these until there are enough Containment Priests to go around. I still see this as an $8-$10 card short term, and if you have any copies of this lying
around, sell now and buy back in four or five months from now.
The most interesting card to sell out onsite before the event? Chalice of the Void. A whopping 28 spells in the main of Dan Jordan’s Top 8 U/R Delver deck
have a CMC of one, so you don’t need me to tell you how good Chalice is against decks like this. It has been a while since Ancient Tomb and City of
Traitors dominated Legacy, but there are few things in the format better than a turn 1 Chalice right now. Take a look at Joseph Santonassino’s 7th place
MUD deck:
Creatures (20)
- 4 Metalworker
- 1 Platinum Angel
- 3 Sundering Titan
- 4 Lodestone Golem
- 3 Wurmcoil Engine
- 4 Kuldotha Forgemaster
- 1 Blightsteel Colossus
Lands (24)
Spells (16)
There’s not a lot of new stuff going on here since last time you saw this deck, but it’s worth noting that the rise of Delver may allow MUD to step back
into the spotlight. Almost all of these cards have spiked in price at least once, but I wouldn’t be shocked if the breakout star this time around ended up
being Kuldotha Forgemaster. Serendipitously, I was going over potential Commander specs this weekend when I realized that there were very few copies of
Forgemaster available for sale anywhere and that trade demand was through the roof. This card, along with Duplicant and Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer, are
auto-includes in Daretti. The fact that Forgemaster is a four-of in such an exciting Legacy deck can only help demand, and the price of the card has
already doubled since the end of last week. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this one end up in the $5 range before long.
Creatures (3)
Planeswalkers (1)
Lands (24)
Spells (32)
Lam Phan’s U/R Landstill was another unexpected addition to the Top 8. Standstill is a very strong card against a tempo-centric field though, and this was
about as pure a control deck as I’ve seen in a long time. While U/R Standstill requires many of the priciest format staples to build, I wouldn’t be
surprised if its namesake sees a bit of a resurgence in popularity. It is a fine mid-term pick up at the current retail price of $5.99.
Creatures (12)
Lands (20)
Spells (28)
You can’t really call Infect a ‘rogue’ deck in Legacy, but it is certainly outside the consensus top eight or ten decks in the format. That said, Tom Ross
piloted this beast right into the finals, and I wouldn’t be shocked to see it gain popularity going forward. Foil Blighted Agents and Glistener Elves are
already quite pricey, but Become Immense is still an under the radar pick-up in foil.
Creatures (12)
Lands (16)
Spells (32)
U/R Delver was the deck to beat going into the tournament. Even though only one copy made the Top 8, I don’t think that the target is off its back.
Monastery Swiftspear generates an unreal amount of tempo for this deck, and Treasure Cruise is the perfect way to regain that lost card advantage. Foil
copies of both of those cards spiked long before this weekend’s antics, but even non-foil copies of Forked Bolt remained underpriced going into the Grand
Prix. The spike it took to $5 on Saturday was a long time coming, and I doubt the price will drop again unless the card is reprinted in Modern Masters II
or another soon-to-be released set. If you have a stack of these on spec, there’s no need to dump them into hype. Hold out for fair value.
If you asked me to find an undervalued card still in this list, I’d sigh for a moment before reluctantly pointing at Daze. If it wasn’t for the duel deck
version of the card (and its re-release in the anthology set) it would already be $10, and there’s a chance it’ll end up there at some point. I don’t like
betting on expensive commons though, so I’d hold off for now unless you need a personal set.
Price of Progress would have been my other choice, but that spiked to roughly $10 a few days before the Grand Prix. You can still find the Premium Deck
Series versions for single digits, but they’re disappearing fast.
I wouldn’t be shocked if Volcanic Island is the most expensive dual land by this time next year. Only Underground Sea is higher, and Volcanic Island sees a
lot more play than its Dimir counterpart.
It’s also worth touching on the high number of main deck Pyroblasts and Red Elemental Blasts at this event. While there isn’t much financial upside here,
if you’ve got any of these sitting around in your bulk, now is the time to go find them. There should be plenty of opportunities to buylist them above bulk
in the coming weeks.
Creatures (10)
Lands (16)
Spells (34)
Is it time to buy True-Name Nemesis? Commander 2013 decks are still moldering on the shelves of my local Target, but there hasn’t been a copy of Mind Seize
there in several months. While WotC did end up printing more of these than any of us expected, I doubt we’ll see the card again anytime soon outside of a
possible judge foil. There isn’t much room to grow at $20 over the short term, but I could see it reclaiming that $40-$50 price tag a few years from now.
If you don’t have a few of these in your long-term collection, remedy that sometime over the next couple of months.
Similar logic applies to Stoneforge Mystic. Not only is this card the best addition to the white Commander deck, but Stoneblade has proven that it belongs
in the top 2 or 3 overall Legacy brews right now. At just $23, Stoneforge Mystic has serious room to grow thanks to both casual and competitive demand.
Creatures (3)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (21)
Spells (33)
Creatures (4)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (15)
Spells (38)
Before the Grand Prix, the consensus seemed to be that Miracles was too slow to compete against the blistering speed of U/R Delver. So of course it became
the only deck to place multiple copies in the Top 8. Never forget that Legacy is a stubborn format.
If Miracles staples like Terminus and Entreat the Angels were going to spike, that would have happened months ago when this deck was arguably the best in
the format. Instead, these Top 8 finishes are mostly going to keep any of these cards from dropping in price in response to the shifting metagame. Miracles
is still probably not the best choice to play right now, but it isn’t going anywhere either. If you’re holding any of these staples in your Legacy brew
binder, you can rest easy and keep them.
Creatures (13)
Lands (18)
Spells (29)
- 4 Brainstorm
- 4 Force of Will
- 4 Daze
- 4 Ponder
- 3 Thoughtseize
- 1 Disfigure
- 2 Spell Pierce
- 4 Abrupt Decay
- 3 Treasure Cruise
Sideboard
I’m posting this one because it’s how far down I had to go before finding a copy of Tarmogoyf. The days of Legacy being dominated by Tarmogoyf, Deathrite
Shaman, and Dark Confidant appear to be at least temporarily behind us. Don’t worry about your pricey ‘goyf investment though – the card is still an
absolute house in Modern.
Even though Grand Prix New Jersey did a pretty good job of shaking up the format, I don’t expect much to change in the world of Legacy finance. Price-wise,
the overall Legacy index is still slowly dropping, a trend that has been going on since the price spike last March. The market overcorrected in the first
quarter of 2014, and prices are just now coming back down to where they were prior to that jump.
While the success stories coming out of the GP have the potential to rise in price, most Legacy-playable cards will continue to slowly drop in value until
the next major bull market. This generally happens at some point between February and April each year, and if it doesn’t happen in 2015, we’ll have to
re-examine the long-term future of these cards. For now though, it remains a fine time to both buy and sell Legacy staples without having to worry all that
much about major shifts in price.
This Week’s Trends
– Titania, Protector of Argoth showed up as a 1-of in a Legacy daily event deck this week. It’s a mono-green brew with Green Sun’s Zenith, Obstinate
Baloth, Sylvan Library, Trinisphere, and Chalice of the Void. It’s a cool deck, but if it were to gain popularity, Sylvan Library would be the spec target,
not Titania. Library is already a Cube and Commander staple that is hard enough to find at its current retail price of $20. I could see it hitting $35
easily.
– Did you know that there was a major Modern Grand Prix last weekend as well? Pros battled for supremacy in Madrid as well as New Jersey, with Delver
coming out on top here as well. This version was Temur with a light Tarmogoyf splash in addition to the standard Treasure Cruise and Delver of Secrets
interaction. The Top 8 wasn’t all Delvers though – Pod, Through the Breach, Scapeshift, Abzan, and a Martyr of Sands deck showed up as well. In fact, Siege
Rhino outnumbered Delver of Secrets in the Top 8. Rumors of Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time, and Jeskai Ascendancy taking over Modern may have been
exaggerated, and I’m fascinated to see where the format goes from here.
– There has been a lot of talk about Gitaxian Probe as a spec, but I don’t like it. This card is going to be in Modern Masters II alongside Serum Visions.
It might spike between now and whenever that set is announced/released, but it’s a short-term flip at best.
– Other than Containment Priest and Titania, all the other singles from Commander 2014 are heading down in price fast. This is a trend I expect to
continue. As of now, it is still very easy to find all of these decks at MSRP.
– Khans of Tarkir cards continue to drop in price, but the bottom is approaching. If you’ve been patient to this point, stick with it and grab your singles
in about a month. That will be the set’s overall low until next August at least.
– If you’re looking for a Standard spec, I’m still in love with Crackling Doom. It was a 4-of in three very different Mardu decks that made Top 8 at SCG
Columbus a week and a half ago. Whatever the format is going forward, this card is going to be a part of it. At just $2, there’s a little room here.