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AuthorAdam Barnello

Adam Barnello, better known online as Mr. Nightmare, has been an active participant in the development of Legacy since it's inception. He has a number of top 8 placings at large Legacy events, has been a key contributor to the development of many of the top tier decks in the format, and works tirelessly as a moderator on mtgTheSource.com.

Unlocking Legacy – Preparing For Chicago

Play Legacy at Grand Prix: Chicago!
Thursday, March 5th– In this week’s Unlocking Legacy, Adam tells us a little about what excites him about GP Chicago, and a lot about what you can expect. If you’re unfamiliar with the Legacy format, be sure to look here first, and make sure you don’t get surprised by some strange card interactions!

Unlocking Legacy – Elf Survival

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Thursday, January 8th – Hello everyone, and Happy 2009! It’s a pleasure to be back in the driver’s seat, writing for you all as we head on toward the third American Legacy Grand Prix, and hopefully I’ll provide you all a little insight into the format before that event to help you choose your deck wisely.

Unlocking Legacy – Swan Song

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Monday, April 21st – If you’re looking for some insight on what Shadowmoor brings to the Legacy scene, then look no further. This week, Adam takes a look at the newest combo to hit Legacy, and how the functional changes to Mox Diamond could affect the metagame.

Unlocking Legacy – Extending a Hand

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Tuesday, March 25th – In the last few weeks, a wealth of information has exploded onto the Magic scene. Unfortunately, not much of this is Legacy info. Fortunately, it’s Extended info, and never before have two formats resembled each other as much as Legacy and Extended do this season. I firmly believe that the parallels between the two formats can be used to uncover technology that may have been overlooked by the people focusing on one format, but not the other.

Unlocking Legacy – Are You There, Wizards? It’s Me, Adam

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Monday, February 25th – This week, Adam tackles a range of topics including ruminations on Eternal Magic, a Legacy perspective on Organized Play, the Banned and Restricted List, and a long forgotten card from Alpha…

Unlocking Legacy – The EPIC Control Part 2

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Last month, I unveiled the latest deck I’ve been working on, and my submission to mtgTheSource’s “Create a New Good Deck” contest, The EPIC Control (TEC). The response to the decklist was about what I had expected, which was a few people, mostly those who had seen the deck in action, praising the work we’ve done on it, and a whole lot more people calling every card choice into question. As this isn’t the first time I’ve written an article on a deck that throws convention out the window, I’m used to it at this point.

Unlocking Legacy – The EPIC Control

Read Legacy articles every week... at StarCityGames.com!
This week’s Unlocking Legacy brings you the latest creation from Legacy’s leading innovators, The EPIC Syndicate. If you’re looking for some brand spanking new Legacy technology, then look no further. In part one of his series on the deck, Adam shares the decklist and explains some of the theory and reasoning behind the card selections of TEC – The EPIC Control.

Unlocking Legacy – Mythbusters

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I decided this month I would take a stab at whittling away all the baggage that comes along with being a Legacy player, and try to take an objective view of the format. I’ve gone out to the frightening wilderness known as Friday Night Magic, in order to interview some of the local non-Eternal players, hopefully to get an appreciation of what the outsiders’ perception of the format is.

Unlocking Legacy — The Pet Deck

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In a format as wide open as Legacy, there is a lot of room to find a deck you love and stick with it. This week, Adam discusses why this is a bad idea, and shares some insight into how this folly contributed to some serious scrubbing out. Plus, decklists!

Unlocking Legacy —Breakfast of Champions

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In my last article, I very briefly discussed my match with Alix Hatfield at a 50-player event in Annandale, Virginia. He was the eventual tournament winner — he and three of his compatriots took Top 8 slots with A Cephalid Illusionist deck. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, the combo revolves around the Nomads/Shaman En-Kor and Cephalid Illusionist…

Unlocking Legacy — Far Beyond Driven

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With all the time we as players spend wrapped up in the latest tech and the hottest new decks to hit the scene, there’s a significant part of this game we often overlook, or take for granted. In the long run, it’s far more important than the results of a tournament, or the last-minute sideboard tweaks that helped you win or lose that match round 3. In a word, it’s the community that is the most integral part of this game, and it’s summed up in mere paragraphs before deck lists, and in lists of “Props and Slops” at the end of tournament reports

Unlocking Legacy — Looking at Landstill

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It is impossible to play a control deck in Legacy without a concrete understanding of the metagame, and the role in which each deck fits within it. There is simply too much range of strategy to cover all bases at once, without knowing specifically what aspects of strategy you must contain in any given matchup. A player new to Legacy is unlikely to pick up a deck like Landstill and pilot it with success, because control in Legacy is extremely complex.