Previously, I explored some of the potential avenues of development for the up and coming Legacy Grand Prix. This time, I’m going to take a look at a more entrenched deck: R/G Beats. This deck won’t be nearly as prevalent as Goblins was this weekend at the Legacy World Championships, but it has some pretty solid game against the field and is something you need to be aware of if you want to succeed in the format.
First turn, I played a Goblin Lackey. Second turn, Lackey came across to dump Kiki-Jiki on the table, and EOT of Brandon’s turn, I copied it. I untapped and sent in the Lackey and his clone, using one free Lackey trigger to dump a Goblin Matron on the table. The Matron digs up Mogg Fanatic from my deck and I play it for free using the clone’s trigger. I then played Intruder Alarm, cloned the Fanatic a million times, and sacrificed all of them aimed at Brandon’s dome. Ah, the sweet taste of surprise.
The new Legacy format is upon us in the form of the World Championships at Gen Con and two Grand Prix towards the end of this year. Many people have questions about this fledgling format. If you’re one of those people, Ben’s written a complete guide explaining this history and rules of the Legacy format!
Steven Menendian was correct when he argued that some may incorrectly believe Legacy to be “Extended with dual lands and Force of Will.” That’s simply not true. True, it’s not uncommon for Extended decks to make viable ports to Legacy, but that means nothing. Legacy truly is very different than Extended, and there’s almost limitless potential in a largely unexplored format… so let’s start tossing around some ideas.
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?
With the announcement of Legacy Grand Prix, I began in earnest to look at Legacy once more. I watched part of a Legacy tournament at Origins and I searched through the major Legacy forums and Legacy websites. I fully intend on playing in the Legacy Grand Prix, and what’s more, I intend on breaking the format.
During Legacy’s birth, you could be guaranteed that you’d face combo decks, Sligh, and combo/control ports from Extended like Aluren, as well as control decks, like Landstill or Fish. With those constraints in mind, Monoblue was probably the one of the best two or three decks in the format. While it’s no longer the best deck, BBS is a strong choice – and it builds the foundation for playing control in Legacy.
With all the broken cards available to the Legacy format, one might figure that combo decks would be dominating the young format. Not so, says Kevin Binswanger, and here he takes an in-depth look at the contenders to the Legacy Combo crown and tries to figure out why they aren’t doing quite as well as some players might have predicted.
In the past year, StarCityGames.com has interviewed him and imitated him both to great degrees of success, but we all know there is only one Jamie Wakefield, and he hasn’t picked up a Magical card in five years… until now. What brought Jamie out of retirement, what deck did he play, and what does the man, the myth, the legend have to say about the state of the game today? It’s all here folks, so what are you waiting for?
