AuthorAnwar Ahmad

Anwar Ahmad and Alix Hatfield co-wrote this article about Legacy High Tide and the best way to build it. With Mental Misstep out of the picture, it may be time for the tides to rise again in Baltimore.

Friday, June 11th – The arrival of the StarCityGames.com Philadelphia Legacy Open was another chance to play high level Legacy for hefty prizes. It is the type of event where better decks and better player prosper because the competition is intense, and a player needs every advantage to pull out close games. Unlike other events, I had already decided awhile back to play Entomb Ichorid.

Thursday, June 3rd – The StarCityGames.com Philadelphia Legacy Open occurs this Sunday, June 6th. The preparation will be frantic this week, but knowing what to be ready for is very important. While no one can accurately predict the metagame this Sunday, there is a great deal of information about previous Legacy Opens that should provide a useful starting point.

Friday, May 28th – If the case to include Entomb is overwhelming, then the only decision left is what it should replace in any given list. As mentioned earlier, this is not a simple decision, but the number of cards that can be considered is incredibly small, as much of the deck needs to remain intact for it to work as designed.

Thursday, May 20th – Sometimes a card is adopted by one deck, and it takes some time before other uses of the card are fully explored. It may seem that, at first, the card works best in that one deck, and there is no reason to try and place the card in another deck. While such a card may work well in its original setting, there may be other uses for it, uses which may improve the decks that choose to add this card to their designs.

Thursday, May 13th – The Suicide archetype has an impressive record of success in Legacy’s history. Earlier builds like Deadguy Ale (B/W), which were slower but much more disruptive, made an early splash. As the metagame and the card pool changed, so did the design of Suicide decks. There was a brief period where Red Death (B/R), a much more aggressive deck using cards like Phyrexian Negator and Lightning Bolt, performed very well.

Thursday, May 6th – In the weeks leading up to StarCityGames.com Atlanta Legacy Open tournament, I had done very little Legacy testing. I had tested Reanimator in the past and decided to play a list very similar to the one developed by Alix and Jesse Hatfield.

Thursday, April 29th – Change is often difficult to perceive. A day can often feel just like the one before, and the one after. When situations change dramatically, it is sometimes hard to focus on anything else. However, more often than not, change comes in much smaller increments. But with enough smaller changes, the result is something than can be recognized as being different from what came before it.

Friday, April 9th – My last article, In Search of Flash: Reanimator in Legacy, concluded with a potential Reanimator list based in part on Steve Sadin’s winning Hulk Flash deck from Grand Prix: Columbus 2007. The list was a merger of Steve’s list and Andres Mullers’ list from Grand Prix: Madrid 2010. The idea was to retain the strengths of both decks as much as possible.

Wednesday, March 24th – Every competitive player is in search of a deck that has an edge over all other decks in a given format. If such a deck exists, it gives any player playing it a clear and present advantage over any player not playing the same deck. There has rarely been any such deck in Legacy’s short history.

Thursday, August 20th – Hybrid archetypes are those that combine parts of the three basic archetypes (aggro ,combo, control). Aggro-control decks are quite common in Legacy represented by decks like CounterTop, Merfolk, Dragon Stompy, and others. Combo-control decks are rare in Legacy but decks like Aluren and Solidarity can be out into this category. Aggro-Combo decks are not all that common, but decks like Elves are a good example of such an archetype in Legacy.

Thursday, August 13th – Goblins was one of Legacy’s defining decks. In the past, it was both very successful, and usually had a large presence at many of the larger tournaments. Recently, not only has its success become more limited, but so has its appearance at tournaments, especially on the East Coast of the United States. This decline did not occur overnight, but much can be learned from why it was successful in Legacy, and why it is no longer winning.

Thursday, August 6th – A quick look around a Legacy tournament or a review of any Top 8 will reveal that Wasteland is omnipresent. To really understand why Wasteland sees so much play, one has to take a look at Legacy’s mana production…

Thursday, July 30th – Innovation is often the combination of great effort and a moment of inspiration. Regardless of the pursuit, a great deal of time and energy is spent to achieve anything worthwhile. This applies to virtually every human endeavor, whether designing a piece of software, writing a novel, playing a musical piece, building and playing Magic decks as well as many others.

Thursday, July 23rd – Many of the best spells in Legacy cost two or less, but most of these cards do not generate card advantage. Standstill is one of the few examples in Legacy where low mana cost meets card advantage. Its ability to draw three cards for only two mana makes it perhaps the most efficient card advantage spell in Legacy.