St. Louis marked the last major event for Mystical Tutor and, like a death-row inmate eating his last meal, the Reanimator fans came out in force. Sadly for them, this last meal was Burger King as the deck had a thoroughly mediocre performance with no top 16 players and a sub 50% win percentage. Although Ad Nauseam also had no representatives in the money, on the whole it had a very consistent day and one of the highest average finishes. (67.67) The decks that have been dominating recently are the aggro decks, Merfolk, Zoo and Goblins, and all three put up impressive numbers in St. Louis.
Here’s the spreadsheet. Let’s take a look at the field:
Counter-Top Thopters was so close to being the first deck to win the TMI Triple-Crown, as it finished less than a percentage point behind Merfolk for the Win% title. As the Counter-Top combo floats around looking for powerful archetypes to pair up with, it may have found a new winner. Natural Order Bant has been a strong contender for a while but it has always had problems with fast decks and that seems to be where the field is heading as Mystical Tutor exits. Thopters managed a winning record against Merfolk, (3-2) Zoo (2-1) and Goblins. (2-0) That is a major improvement over NO Bant that rarely touches the 50% mark against those decks. It is also worth noting that many of the Pros attending the event (Pat Chapin, Sam Black and Brian Kowal) all brought a version of Counter-Top that featured Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Humility and Mishra’s Factory, so look for more new ideas revolving around Counter-Top.
Reanimator — 11.40% of the Field — Won 47.81% of Matches
Example: Joshua Wood, 30th
So much for going out with a bang, although with the field saturated with aggro decks, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise. Until a deck comes along that cleans up Merfolk, Zoo and Goblins, Reanimator is going to be a hazardous choice, especially with the loss of Mystical Tutor.
Zoo — 8.81% of the Field — Won 57.14% of Matches
(Cat Sligh) — 5.70% of the Field — Won 48.91% of Matches
Example: Cody Damm, 7th
(Cat Sligh): Mark Larson, 10th
Cat Sligh has not outperformed standard Zoo at any of the events where I have recognized it as an archetype. Up until this point, however, it had still had strong independent performances. Dipping under the 50% mark may indicate that players are getting used to playing against this new variation and now have a better plan; or just that the cats had a bad day. Still, it seems that Zoo’s standard build has been devastating enough recently to not need much tweaking.
Merfolk — 7.77% of the Field — Won 62.78% of Matches
Example: Alex Bertoncini, 2nd
Apparently, I don’t have the ear of the Legacy community on this issue because pretty much everyone played Mono Blue Merfolk in St. Louis… and they dominated. So, this is me saying my mea culpa. Three Top 16 decks, including 2nd and 3rd place, is a pretty good answer to my call to abandon Mono Blue builds. The one concern that I have is that this deck really beats up on Reanimator, a deck that will probably be dropping in popularity in this brave new, post-Mystical Tutor world.
New Horizons — 6.74% of the Field — Won 54.41% of Matches
Example: Landon Doty
The darling of the past few events looked simply strong in St. Louis. No eye popping numbers, but good match-ups across the Tier 1 decks makes it an excellent choice going forward.
Goblins — 5.70% of the Field — Won 52.88% of Matches
(+B) — 4.66% of the Field — Won 59.38% of Matches
Example: (+B)Anthony Avitollo, 4th
Seeing as there were very few Mono Red Goblins, I have only included the “(+B)” version in the examples. It seems that the correct build of Goblins in St. Louis was definitely with Black, but I am not sure about that going forward. The black that you find in Goblins decks is usually for Warren Weirding and it also adds some sideboard options. If Reanimator falls off in popularity and none the other “One Big Guy” decks (NO Bant, Stiflenought) spike in popularity, it may be more effective to transition back to Mono Red.
Under the Radar:
Merfolk, Zoo and Goblins weren’t the only agro decks hanging around the top tables, Doyle Bledsoe brought his B/W Aggro deck and pushed all the way to a 6-2 finish and 21st place.
Creatures (23)
- 4 Mother of Runes
- 4 Dark Confidant
- 2 Jotun Grunt
- 4 Serra Avenger
- 3 Faerie Macabre
- 3 Ethersworn Canonist
- 3 Stoneforge Mystic
Lands (21)
Spells (16)
- 1 Sensei's Divining Top
- 1 Umezawa's Jitte
- 4 Swords to Plowshares
- 4 Aether Vial
- 1 Sword of Light and Shadow
- 1 Sword of Fire and Ice
- 4 Vindicate
Sideboard
B/W Aggro posted some strong results in Seattle as well going 13-9-1 with a Top 8 finish. In St. Louis, Doyle added Aether Vial to push the pressure and increased the Equipment suite for Stoneforge Mystic. Doyle managed to play Tier 1 decks all day long and had to knock off format favorites Reanimator and Merfolk to finish off his day. All in all a good performance for a deck that hasn’t gotten much attention.
So we are now on a month and a half break from the StarCityGames.com Open Series, but don’t think that means a break from me! Too Much Information will be weighing in on the Legacy Metagame on the Monday before GP: Columbus with a compilation article featuring all of the 2010 Legacy Open results. I will be breaking down which decks will benefit from the format changes and which decks will suffer some damage from loss of good match-ups. Also, I will see you in Columbus, where we will try to break the record for the largest North American Grand Prix! I think it is time for Legacy to take it back, don’t you!