AuthorDan Spero

Wednesday, March 19th – Anyone who knows my writing from other websites knows that I need little provocation to write a tournament report. If someone looks at me cross-eyed: I’ll write a tournament report. If I stub a toe on the coffee table in living room while drunk: I’ll write a tournament report. And when I have two first place finishes at local Legacy tournaments fresh in my memory, you can bet your ass I’ll write a tournament report.

The key to success in any competitive endeavor is the Will to Win. This is a disposition of the mind to overcome obstacles, maximize incremental advantage and prevail victorious in the face of unfavorable odds. It is, in essence, a psychological mindset. A positive attitude to win comes more naturally to some people than others, but everyone has bad days and winning in the long run requires a certain mental training in this area.

In another installment of Dan’s development series of Legacy Threshold, Dan explores the inclusion of Tarmogoyf in the deck, supporting his analysis with many detailed practice games.

Countdown to Grand Prix: Columbus! In his pre-Grand Prix: Columbus article, Dan surveys some of the most successful Legacy players in the format and shares their thoughts on the upcoming Grand Prix and the emergence of Hulk Flash.

Countdown to Grand Prix: Columbus! In today’s Legacy article, Dan explores a lengthy list of his personal deck design successes and failures. This epic article brings a plethora of differing deck ideas to the table, each listed and filed in its appropriate archetype. Grand Prix: Columbus is just around the corner… be prepared!

In today’s episode of Unlocking Legacy, Dan tackles the pile of letters that accumulated after he made his call for questions.

In this article, Dan surveys 4-color Landstill and the Ill-Gotten Gains-based storm combo deck “IGGy Pop” in Legacy, concluding with an interview with the inventor of Angel Stompy, Patrick Maeder, better known around the Internet as GodzillA.

Now that we’ve established that the current Legacy environment is dominated by three decks (Goblins, Solidarity/Reset High Tide, and Threshold), how can you use this information? That is, to what extent is Legacy a “three-deck format” that is ripe for decimation by a well-designed rogue deck?

And lo! the Powers That Be decreed that the small yet vocal Legacy community be given a third Grand Prix with which to test their deck construction and metagaming prowess. Things couldn’t be better.

In preparation for GP: Columbus, I’ll be examining the current Legacy metagame and summarizing the decks that define it. This article is primarily written for Legacy novices, but I’ll be sure to add enough detailed analysis to make it worth the time of format regulars. You know who you are.

Historically, SCG Duel for Duals (DFD) have been dominated by Goblins and Reset High Tide (“Solidarity”), with each of those decks winning the past two DFDs. How did they do this time?

Control-based Psychatog has broken every format since the card’s printing in Odyssey block. To this day, despite numerous upheavals in its respective formats, Tog remains a top tier deck in Extended, taking First Place at Grand Prix: Los Angeles; and, in Vintage, taking Second Place at the most recent Waterbury, where it lost to Grow-a-Tog, of all things. But Psychatog’s absence in Legacy is perplexing.

The guy that’s been pushing this deck since its inception reviews the Days of the Mongoose that took place recently in France. Can Threshold keep the top slot in the Legacy format? Check out what Dan has to say for possible answers.

Why should you read this final part of a four-part series discussing Legacy Threshold decks? Because this past weekend, at the first Legacy Grand Prix ever, no less than three Threshold decks appeared in the Top 8, suddenly catapulting this archetype into “Deck to Beat” status, that’s why.

When I sit down to play a game of Magic, nothing delivers the goods like Super Grow. Because the things I enjoy doing the most in this fine game, namely, drawing tons of cards, countering everything thrown at me, and beating my opponent bloody with cheap and arbitrarily large creatures is what 3cThreshold does best.

Fish is one of the most popular decks in Vintage, and it’s equally popular in Legacy… and one of the reasons people love it is because it’s so darned customizable. You can build it out of almost any blue/x color combination, and it does well. But how do you need to change Fish to ensure its success in the creature-hostile Legacy format?