[Article] December 2013 Legacy Metagame Analysis

[Griselpuff]

http://www.channelfireball.com/artic...game-analysis/

I had a lot of fun writing this piece, and it took a fair bit of work as well. Enjoy!!!

Also, I'm only replying to comments posted at the end of the article on CFB's site. Thanks!

[lordofthepit]

Thanks for the article!

[Wilkin]

Very good article. I will say though that it looked like a lot of Death and Taxes builds were already adjusting to the splash hate of True Name. I saw lists with less creatures like Mangara of Corondor and the return of Serra Avenger.

Still, they do get hit pretty hard with -x/-x effects.

[Sasan]

Great, great article!

[BlackPurple]

Great article. Thanks!

[lyracian]

Interesting read. Not quite sure why you class Burn as a combo deck?

Apart from Jund, which you said was on the decline, all the Aggro decks are Blue based with Delver and/or TNN.
In fact 18 of the 25 decks listed are blue.

[L0cke]

Interesting read. Not quite sure why you class Burn as a combo deck?

Apart from Jund, which you said was on the decline, all the Aggro decks are Blue based with Delver and/or TNN.
In fact 18 of the 25 decks listed are blue.

Burn is effectively combo because it doesn't interact with its opponent if possible. Its just a simple linear combo deck that consists of all redundant combo pieces that to 3 damage for 1 mana.

[twndomn]

Burn is effectively combo because it doesn't interact with its opponent if possible. Its just a simple linear combo deck that consists of all redundant combo pieces that to 3 damage for 1 mana.

That's a ridiculous statement and most mtg players would not classify like that.

The definition of Aggro or Combo should not hinge on the so called interaction. To be called a combo, the deck has to have somewhat distinct or unique creation of advantage over 2~3 combo pieces. If you cannot identify these combo pieces, then it's just the overall synergy of the deck. Hence, you confused yourself with deck synergy and combo pieces. Also, by your definition, Burn, Dredge, Affinity are all combo decks, which is wrong.

With that said, Burn definitely has interaction against other aggro decks, taking out problematic creatures, or even taking out the combo creature piece.

[PirateKing]

Mountain + Lightning Bolt, oldest combo in Magic, still going strong.

[Patrunkenphat7]

Great article! I don't understand why Show and Tell decks are somehow assumed to be bad matchups for ANT though... Show and Tell into Griselbrand is good, but every other combination of their combo cards is too slow. The discard also rips their hand to shreds. Post-SB Xantid Swarm is insane and trumps the high-variance Leylines.

[Koby]

Great article! I don't understand why Show and Tell decks are somehow assumed to be bad matchups for ANT though... Show and Tell into Griselbrand is good, but every other combination of their combo cards is too slow. The discard also rips their hand to shreds. Post-SB Xantid Swarm is insane and trumps the high-variance Leylines.

Show & Tell -> Griselbrand is effectively game over for any storm deck. FoW on demand is really strong. Lifelink to follow up is even stronger. Xantid Swarm is roughly the only way to break out of that.

[Patrunkenphat7]

Show & Tell -> Griselbrand is effectively game over for any storm deck. FoW on demand is really strong. Lifelink to follow up is even stronger. Xantid Swarm is roughly the only way to break out of that.

Yes, I pointed out that Show and Tell into Griselbrand is good (even though I've beaten resolved Griselbrand multiple times in sanctioned games), but their combo consists of S+T Griselbrand, S+T Emrakul, Sneak Attack Griselbrand, or Sneak Attack Emrakul. 3 of those 4 combinations are too slow against the Storm deck. Also the discard is much better than the Forces in this matchup, as the person with the discard gets to decide if they are going to be the combo or control player based on the situation. I am always happy to play against Sneak and Show with my Storm deck.

[ironclad8690]

I can get behind Bob's classifications here:

Aggro decks primarily focus on attacking with creatures and removing opposing creatures (Zoo for example), whereas Burn kind of has Grim lavamancer and Goblin Guide in it's back pocket just in case. You could play the more "Sligh" version with more creatures and less flame rift effects, but I think the more spell based "combo" version is better positioned.

I like how he classifies death and taxes and maverick as control decks as well, even though they aren't what most people would think of when they think of "classic" control.

Kind of a sad day when blue has the best aggressive 1 drop and the most resilient 3 drop creature in addition to the most powerful spells.

[Koby]

Yes, I pointed out that Show and Tell into Griselbrand is good (even though I've beaten resolved Griselbrand multiple times in sanctioned games), but their combo consists of S+T Griselbrand, S+T Emrakul, Sneak Attack Griselbrand, or Sneak Attack Emrakul. 3 of those 4 combinations are too slow against the Storm deck. Also the discard is much better than the Forces in this matchup, as the person with the discard gets to decide if they are going to be the combo or control player based on the situation. I am always happy to play against Sneak and Show with my Storm deck.

My experience has been the opposite, so I'd probably put it at a 50/50 matchup that's dependent on the draws from each deck. Just as Sneak Show needs to find Show & Tell, Storm needs to find discard.

RE: article
It dawned on me reading this article that the majority of Legacy's "Aggro" decks are really Brainstorm-Delver decks. This is sad.

[twndomn]

I like how he classifies death and taxes and maverick as control decks as well, even though they aren't what most people would think of when they think of "classic" control.

Kind of a sad day when blue has the best aggressive 1 drop and the most resilient 3 drop creature in addition to the most powerful spells.

Let's see what's the so called best aggressive 1 drop? Aether Vial, DRS, and Goblin guide. Which one of them is Blue?

To call Death and Taxes control is just being lazy. Death and Taxes is implementing Prison strategy. To be more precise, it's actually Aggro-control without Counters.

Maverick is not control, it's a different from of Midrange, just as Shardless BUG is a form of Midrange. However, I personally dislike this so called concept of Midrange, I would rather call both decks Aggro-control as well.

[Finn]

How is Delver of Secrets not on a list of best aggressive 1-drops in Legacy? Also. I am petty sure that Aether Vial is a control card now.

[pointicus]

My only beef with the way you classified decks as aggro,control and combo is that it is done in such a way that the top 8 finishes are broken down in to be relatively even across the board. This is misleading as you admit there are decks in some categories that do not really fit the concept of either aggro, combo or control, making the spread of top 8 finishes not as neat as your list would have a reader believe. I think that archetype part detracts from what you are trying to accomplish, and you should have just gone straight into discussing different decks/metagame choices, and then reference the apparent decline in combo as something like since TNN release, ANT, Showntell, Omnitell etc have only accounted for X% of all top 8 finishes.

[bjholmes3]

I think that the argument about Blue's dominance of the color pie is about as ridiculous as that stupid clay things that shows up when I Google'd my username. Especially when used to assert that TNN "should have been white".

Blue is good first and foremost because it 1.) allows you to find crap and 2.) allows you to keep your crap safe and 3.) keeps you safe from your opponent's crappiest crap. Take away cantrips and the game turns into Standard topdeck mising contests. Take away counters and suddenly SI is the best deck in town (which I think most of you doomsday preachers would agree would be unhealthy for the format ). When I read about complaints regarding Brainstorm being everywhere, so what? Brainstorm makes Legacy better. Decks that run it resist discard and find their crap. It's as format-defining, I would argue, as the black tutors are in Vintage. It makes the format work. As for complaints about blue having the "best aggro cards", when was the last time you lost to a mono-U aggro deck?

[ESG]

As for complaints about blue having the "best aggro cards", when was the last time you lost to a mono-U aggro deck?

This misses the point entirely.

Kind of a sad day when blue has the best aggressive 1 drop and the most resilient 3 drop creature in addition to the most powerful spells.

RE: article
It dawned on me reading this article that the majority of Legacy's "Aggro" decks are really Brainstorm-Delver decks. This is sad.

Welcome to the sad club.

[TsumiBand]

RE: article
It dawned on me reading this article that the majority of Legacy's "Aggro" decks are really Brainstorm-Delver decks. This is sad.

When people stopped trying to splash Blue in aggro decks to play Delver and just tore out a Zoo color instead, that was an early indicator that there was imbalance in the Force.

Kind of a sad day when blue has the best aggressive 1 drop and the most resilient 3 drop creature in addition to the most powerful spells.

Welcome to the sad club.

It would have been enough to, like, maybe just have printed Delver, right? He's "just a beater" after all, and while that's still a bit outside the flavor scope of Blue, at the end of the day it isn't like it doesn't die to Shock. We'd have this putative "UR Counterburn" deck which used to be a vaunted imaginary archetype instead of the pissy Rug Delver + GoodStuff thing we have now.

Hell, if they'd printed Snapcaster in Red like many players wish they had, decks like RUG Delver would remain largely unchanged, *and* we might have one or two more viable "non-Blue decks with Red" floating around.

In fact, as I think about it, the argument for a Red Snapcaster is as good as any an argument for a "non-Blue TNN". Forget about WotC justifications for the color of certain cards for a minute -- think about what experiments might be possible if every other card in Magic were exactly the same, only Snapcaster Mage cost 1R and True-Name Nemesis cost 1WW. The fact that such attractive cards exist in those colors drives people to build in those colors. Whether Blue ends up in those decks is incidental; the way players shell a card necessarily changes significantly between colors, especially when you're dealing with double-colored casting costs.