Legacy is a format that does not get a whole lot of attention from “pros” because it is usually only relevant for a handful of large tournaments each year. The StarCityGames.com Open Series has changed that somewhat, but still most of the attention the format gets is from players who primarily play Legacy. Since I just spent much in the past week preparing for a 16-round Legacy tournament in which I finished 13-3, I decided to spend this week talking about the format in general and the specific archetype I decided to play.
Going into the week of testing leading up to the Grand Prix, I was pretty sure I would be rocking the following cards in my deck:
4 Sensei’s Divining Top
4 Counterbalance
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
Anyone who plays Legacy is probably aware that Brainstorm and Sensei’s Divining Top are two of the strongest cards in the format. They provide a tremendous amount of consistency to your early game and a ton of staying power to your late game. Moreover, they have great synergy with some of the next most powerful cards in the format: Fetch Lands, Counterbalance, Predict, etc.
Force of Will is a card that is necessary in pretty much any Blue deck. It gives you game against the all-in style combo decks and provides protection against crucial spells from the opponent while allowing you to force through your own important cards. Daze has a similar effect for a different cost. It is higher variance than Spell Snare and Counterspell, but there are so many ways to utilize it late game that it is worth the risk (Brainstorm; Jace, the Mind Sculptor; Force of Will). Its upside in the early game, especially on the play, is really high.
After the week of testing I added the following cards to the list:
This was actually an important step because it meant I did not feel comfortable with the Enlightened Tutor version of Counter Top. The artifact/enchantment package did not seem powerful enough to justify the card disadvantage of the Tutor. I would much prefer to just play out a creature threat and slowly grind out the games. I would also much rather be the one casting the Predict (on my opponent) than the one casting the Enlightened Tutor and getting three-for-oned.
When I got to the Grand Prix I did some testing against Conley Woods, Brian Kibler, Steve Sadin, and Lou Christopher. My version of the deck felt a few cards off, and when Calosso Fuentes came over he said “You’re playing the same deck I am, except you’re running bad cards in your deck.”
At this point I still did not have much of a sideboard, so I asked and he shipped me his list. We talked about sideboard strategies and the manabase for a short time and then, after playing a few games with his version, I decided to trust him and just run his straight 75.
Creatures (7)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (19)
Spells (31)
After my three byes, I started off the tournament by losing my first two matches. I lost 0-2 to Goblins and then 0-2 to Eva Green (Black/Green Attrition). When the round 6 pairings went up, Calosso asked me how I was doing and I told him I hadn’t won a game yet with his deck and he told me “Sorry bro, I’m 4-1 with it” and assumed my tournament was over.
The next four rounds I played against Zoo, Goblins, Zoo, and Eva Green, winning all four to make Day 2 at 7-2.
The next day started off with an opponent that did not show up, followed by Zoo, Zoo, Burn, Lands, and Enchantress. I won all six of those matches to put me at 13-2. In the final round, I got paired down against a Jace Control deck with the Grindstone combo and lost, finishing 13-3 and in tenth place. The deck actually went 9-3, since three rounds were byes and one round was a no show, but I learned enough about the deck to talk intelligently about it.
For ease of reference, these were my records against each deck:
Zoo 4-0
Goblins 1-1
Eva Green 1-1
Burn 1-0
Lands 1-0
Enchantress 1-0
Painter Control 0-1
Nearly all of my games were won or lost at less than 5 life points. The deck is light on mana and light on threats, but has a very high amount of card access. Literally a third of the cards in the deck allow you to draw cards. One of the things that really stood out to me throughout the day is how much internal synergy the deck has, and how many different options are available to the deck during each game.
Matchups
Since there are literally dozens of viable archetypes in Legacy, it would take forever for me to talk about all of them. Furthermore, since I have never played against most of them, I would not have much to say anyway. So I will talk about the matchups that I learned something about, either during my preparation for the tournament or during the tournament itself.
Zoo
In the Zoo matchup, before sideboard it’s usually important to Swords to Plowshares or Force of Will their first turn creature, since otherwise it will drop half your life total while you are setting up. After board you can rely more heavily on Firespout to wipe the board and to yield card advantage, so you have more liberty to hold the point removal for Tarmogoyf and Knight of the Reliquary.
For Counterbalance you want to set up a 1, 2, and 3 casting cost card on top of the deck. Fireblast is their only way to fight through the soft lock, so hold your Force of Wills for that if possible. Having a two on top is really important for playing around Price of Progress, so if Tarmogoyf is your only two on top, it’s usually better to leave it there until you hit another two.
+3 Firespout, +2 Path to Exile, +2 Sower of Temptation
-3 Vendilion Clique; -3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor; -1 Predict
If you’re on the draw, side out two Dazes and leave in the Predict and one of the Vendilion Cliques. This matchup feels heavily favored for us, even though nearly every game they will get us below five life.
Goblins
This matchup is similar to the Zoo matchup, except their creatures come en masse and often have haste. They also have more disruption in the form of Wasteland and Rishadan Port and less burn or removal. I made the mistake of not casting Daze on an opposing first turn Aether Vial one game, and lost because of it. That card is one of their few ways around the Counterbalance soft lock.
Game 1 is really tough unless you get a pair of early Tarmogoyfs backed by counters and Swords to Plowshares. After sideboard, you get access to your Firespouts, which are by far your best card in the matchup. Post board it feels rough for Goblins, but they still have two legitimate types of hands against you: early Vial backed by heavy land disruption draws, or overloading you with creatures and then reloading after a Firespout.
The matchup feels about 50/50, where most of your wins will come post-board.
Lands
I played and finally beat one of the most experienced Lands players in the world, Chris Woltereck. Chris and I tend to play each other at just about every StarCityGames.com Legacy tournament regardless of how well either of us is doing, and he usually gets the best of me. Fortunately, this time I had Counterbalance to stop his Life from the Loam engine, and Tarmogoyfs and Vendilion Cliques to eventually fight through his Maze of Iths.
Surprisingly, Jace, the Mind Sculptor was not as big a factor as I figured it would be. Instead, it was my sideboard cards that gave him difficulty. Tormod’s Crypt stopped Loam recursion while Krosan Grip kept him from going crazy with Manabond. It also gave me more three-drops to protect Counterbalance against opposing Krosan Grips. It is also worth noting that I knew he liked to sideboard into Dark Confidants and Meloku the Clouded Mirror, so I kept in two copies of Swords to Plowshares (and took out a clutch Meloku with it one game).
The matchup in general often comes down to whether Lands can resolve and start going off with Manabond. Our deck runs 2 Islands and 1 Plains, so Wasteland is tough but not crippling unless combined with Rishadan Ports. Our deck can operate off very few lands though, so Lands has to get a big jump from something like Manabond in order to avoid getting locked out of the game by the soft combo.
+3 Tormod’s Crypt, +1 Ravenous Trap, +3 Krosan Grip, +1 Red Elemental Blast
-2 Swords to Plowshares, -4 Daze, -2 Ponder
Chris was running Intuition and Meloku, so I brought in Red Elemental Blast, but against decks that are not running these cards, just leave in one more Ponder.
Merfolk
I did not play against this deck in the tournament, but I tested against it some, and here is how I would probably sideboard for it with this deck:
+3 Firespout, +2 Path to Exile, +2 Sower of Temptation, +1 Red Elemental Blast
-4 Counterbalance; -3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor; -1 Ponder (on draw); -1 Daze (on play)
Dredge
I also did not play against this deck in the tournament, but Counterbalance and Jace seem pretty bad in this matchup, and the cards you bring in our pretty obvious for the most part.
+3 Tormod’s Crypt, +1 Ravenous Trap, +3 Firespout (for Zombie tokens)
-3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor; -4 Counterbalance
Counterbalance Top Mirrors
I only played against one mirror match, and I lost, but it was a non-traditional version that ran the Grindstone combo. There are, however, two distinct archetypes that utilize Counterbalance, and each requires a slightly different plan.
Against the Blue/White Thopter version your Swords to Plowshares are garbage, so you want to side those out for Krosan Grips and Red Elemental Blast. Against the Green version with Tarmogoyfs (and possibly Knights of the Reliquary or Terravore), Swords to Plowshares is one of your best cards.
The idea in either matchup is to establish the Counterbalance combo first and to protect it. Krosan Grip is the foil for this strategy in games 2 and 3, but the same principle applies. Jace, the Mind Sculptor is also really powerful in the mirror, but don’t overvalue it. It often rightly gets pitched to Force of Will in order to protect a Counterbalance.
+2 Sower of Temptation, +1 Path to Exile, +3 Krosan Grip
-4 Daze, -1 Ponder, -1 Vendilion Clique (against the Green version)
+1 Red Elemental Blast, +3 Krosan Grip
-4 Swords to Plowshares (against the Thopter version)
Legacy in General
I have said it before, and I will continue to say it: Legacy is the format that rewards perfect play more than any other active tournament format. Every time I play in a Legacy tournament, my results come down to a key decision or series of decisions that determine the outcome of the match.
It is very unlikely that I get overrun or color screwed or flooded or out-cascaded. The decks are so highly tuned and internally consistent that the draws are relatively low variance. Cards like Sensei’s Divining Top and Brainstorm go a long way toward making sure you are able to find whatever you are looking for in short order. And cards like Daze and Force of Will allow you to keep up with the higher variance combo decks without substantially compromising your ability to compete with the beatdown or control decks.
I had been playing Reanimator in Legacy prior to the banning of Mystical Tutor, and the deck was just too linear for me to pilot flawlessly. Everyone had a variety of hate cards for me, and I wasn’t good enough at the guessing game to play around everything. Part of my (reasonably) successful performance in Columbus is due to my increased knowledge of the Legacy format that I had gained through competing in StarCityGames.com Open tournaments, and part of it also had to do with playing a deck I was better equipped to play at a high level.
In terms of raw power, Zoo is probably middle of the road among Legacy decks. It has an explosive early game backed by burn spells, and it can side into a handful of hate cards in various matchups. After sideboard, Zoo can typically offer a single line of resistance to whatever you are doing, and the deck hopes that the single piece of disruption will provide sufficient time to close out the game (usually via one final attack before unloading lethal burn).
Many players are attracted to Zoo because it is a good deck, and for most Legacy players it is a deck that will give them their best chance at succeeding in tournaments. But very few pros showed up piloting kitty cats (accept Tom Ross, who is the master of all things that meow). Most pros showed up packing decks that require more complex decisions, force opponents to make difficult choices, and pose a greater challenge to playing flawlessly.
In the end, Bill Stark prediction came true and the tournament was not won by a Legacy player, but rather by a mainstream pro (Tomoharu Saito). I believe the main reason pros keep winning all the Legacy Grand Prix tournaments is because the format is so rewarding to perfect play and so punishing for misplays. Out of the 12 rounds I played in the tournament, only one of them was unwinnable for me had I played optimally. This seems to be the case for every Legacy event in which I compete, which says something quite positive about the format in general.
Overall, I believe a healthy and diverse format can certainly thrive even with cheap efficient card access and counter-magic. It is fine to have overpowered cards in a format as long as only the top players are maximally utilizing them. Tournaments should be won by the best players, and the more difficult the best decks of the format are to pilot, the more likely it is that the best player will win the tournament with the best deck.
[Editor’s Note — In response to events in the latter rounds of Grand Prix: Columbus, Craig has penned an Open Letter to Drew Levin and the Magic Community. You can find it here.]