Welcome to Too Much Information and to our first look at Legacy this season! Unfortunately, technical difficulties have conspired to prevent us from acquiring any data for January’s events (as well as the Charlotte Invitational), but we’ll pick up from where we can with the recent StarCityGames.com Open: Richmond. The spreadsheet can be downloaded here.

This event also marks an important point in the ongoing development of the Legacy format—it was the first Open tournament for which Dark Ascension was legal. As a result, there was a lot of talk leading up to the Richmond weekend about Faithless Looting Dredge clashing with Grafdigger’s Cage. This event is also notable because it was the second Legacy Open in a row, following StarCityGames.com Open: DC, to be won by a mono-red Burn deck, an archetype that typically sees very little success.

So let’s look at what the numbers have to say!

Richmond Open Breakdown

The first thing to take note of is how much this breakdown has in common with the last one we looked at: the one provided to us by the St. Louis Open back in December. The three most-played decks were the same in both events, down to the order in which they appear. U/W Stoneblade came first, with a healthy double-digit field percentage, although its win percentage was rather unimpressive. RUG Delver was played by two fewer people than U/W, but those players had a far better weekend than most of their peers. The tempo deck’s better-than-60% record makes it a clear stand-out.

It may not be too surprising for U/W Stoneblade and RUG Delver to show up at the top of the field breakdown, but it’s a little unusual for Dredge to enjoy such popularity. That was even truer when Dredge was the third most played deck in St. Louis, and at that time we predicted that the surge was temporary (despite the deck’s similarly healthy showing in Las Vegas prior to St. Louis). We don’t know how popular Dredge was through January, but the numbers that we do have seem to indicate that the deck is becoming a more stable fixture in the metagame. The printing of Faithless Looting can only make this more likely.

Of course, Dredge’s win percentages probably make a lot of players think twice about picking it up. Just as in St. Louis, Dredge performed extremely poorly in Richmond. Now, this may be at least partially attributable to a field that was prepared for the surge of Dredge pilots looking to abuse their shiny new Faithless Lootings, and the simultaneous addition of Grafdigger’s Cage to the Legacy deck builders’ arsenals probably didn’t help, either. The tension between the field presence of Dredge and the prevalence of graveyard hate has always made for an interesting variable for players preparing for Legacy tournaments, and the addition of Dark Ascension has only made this problem more complex.

Rounding out the decks that made up more than five percent of the field, we see Pox, an old archetype recently revived by Reid Duke and Liliana of the Veil. Reid’s build, which is somewhere between Mono-Black Control and the Pox decks of yesteryear, was first revealed at the Charlotte Invitational and seems to have curried favor with the (always considerable) crowd of mages aching to play Hymn to Tourach. The archetype managed a respectable win percentage, winning a little more than half of its matches in a tournament that saw several of the more popular decks fall short of doing that.

Maverick had another successful weekend, but it remains outside of the five-percent cutoff as long as Punishing Maverick and G/W Maverick are considered distinct archetypes. Both versions had strong win percentages, with those lists that incorporated Punishing Fire edging out their non-red cousins, both in presence and performance. Bant Stoneblade was just as popular as Punishing Maverick, though it didn’t do quite as well. Only a few people played each of these decks, but all together, about ten percent of players were swinging with Knight of the Reliquary.

Reanimator also came in at under five percent and ended up with a weaker record than we’ve seen from it since last summer (although it had a losing record in St. Louis as well). Splash damage from graveyard hate aimed at Dredge may have contributed to Reanimator’s poor showing.

U/W Stoneblade ― 10.17% of field ― won 47.18% of matches

Example: Ben Friedman, 8th place

Due to the small size of the Richmond tournament, we don’t have a lot of matchup data to look at even for the most popular decks. However, what we do have is enough to create a snapshot of why U/W struggled.

As in St. Louis, U/W failed to come out ahead in its matches against RUG Delver, something that indicates a shift in the matchup since the end of last year. If RUG continues to hold the edge in this important contest, we may see U/W slide from its position at the top of the metagame.

U/W’s miserable matchup against Dredge won’t help it, either, if the latter remains popular.

Stoneblade did well against Pox, but we’re only just starting to collect data on that deck.

RUG Delver ― 8.47% of field ― won 60.61% of matches

Example: Jesse Hatfield, 3rd place

RUG’s success against U/W Stoneblade is the biggest story to tell here as well. Historically, Delver is also favored against Dredge, although the single match between the two decks in Richmond went the other way. The six matches between RUG and Pox were split evenly, but we don’t have any more information about that matchup, yet.

Dredge ― 6.78% of field ― won 32.43% of matches

Unfortunately, Dredge’s matches against the other popular decks don’t tell the whole story of its failure in Richmond. In fact, the deck held its own just fine against U/W (which it historically crushes) and RUG. As far as we know, the deck has yet to best Pox in an Open Series event, but that’s based on only five matches, four of which happened in Richmond.

The rest of the story here probably involves Dredge being generally unfavored against almost any deck that devotes sideboard space to graveyard hate.

Pox ― 5.93% of field ― won 51.32% of matches

Example: Paul Telkamp, 10th place

If we take these matchup percentages at face value, they paint an interesting picture. Pox struggles with U/W, splits with RUG, and trounces Dredge. If this characterization has any truth to it, Pox’s position in the metagame may rest largely on the continued popularity of Dredge. It may also benefit from the fall of U/W, if RUG pushes it from the top spot.

So, that’s it for our first look at Legacy in 2012. Without more information it’s hard to draw conclusions, but it certainly looks like U/W Stoneblade and RUG Delver will be the premier decks to beat for the next few events. RUG, in particular, looks like a solid early consideration for those of you preparing for Grand Prix: Indianapolis.

Until then, good luck at the Memphis Open!

Alix Hatfield

Jesse Hatfield