Best Era of Legacy?

[JosephK]

Best era is today, thanks to Dig Through Time.

[Aggro_zombies]

I miss most the era of Legacy prior to the SCG tournament series really getting off the ground. There were a lot of real regional metagame variations there, and a lot of room for cool, underpowered, or just plain weird decks to win. It was really the last time that the statement, "You can play whatever you want in Legacy and do well," was true, though it didn't finally die until years after that point.

Man, I miss being able to build something dumb the morning of a tournament and still post a positive record with it. :(

[Megadeus]

I was fine with the pre delve spells era. Though I think my favorite (only been playing since 2012) was when I first started and the big three were RUG, Maverick, and Stone blade.

[wcm8]

Survival before Vengevine. Zoo, Goblins, Landstill, RUG (no Delver), Storm... Tier 2 decks like Enchantress, GB Eva Green, GBW The Rock, etc. could all do well in a tournament.

This also was before SCG popularized Legacy.

Then a bunch of busted cards got printed and the format became much more lopsided in terms of Tier 1 vs. everything else.

I think that a card like Wild Nacatl is practically unplayable says a lot about power creep.

[wizard_of_gore]

anybody remember bant deck packing countertop, natural order, noble hierarch and goyf? The biggest mess of deck in legacy history :P

[thecrav]

anybody remember bant deck packing countertop, natural order, noble hierarch and goyf? The biggest mess of deck in legacy history :P

This was the goal I was work toward when I started buying into legacy. Unfortunately the deck fell off right as I acquired my duals :/

[Memories of the Time]

Post Mystical Tutor ban.
Sotf <3

[Phelix]

This was the goal I was work toward when I started buying into legacy. Unfortunately the deck fell off right as I acquired my duals :/

Yeah i Remember the countertop/goyf /natural order deck.

It beat me in the finals when i played this:


4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
3 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Vendilion Clique

Instant [21]

4 Stifle
4 Lim-Dul's Vault
3 Daze
1 Wipe Away
1 Spell Pierce
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm

Sorcery [10]

3 Show and Tell
1 Duress
3 Thoughtseize
3 Ponder

Enchantment [1]

1 Form of the Dragon

Land [20]

1 Forest
2 Island
1 Swamp
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Mosswort Bridge
2 Polluted Delta
2 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Bayou

Sideboard :

2 Pithing Needle
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Form of the Dragon
2 Perish
2 Duress

[Bobmans]

The highlight for me was Full English Breakfast running:
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
3 Volrath's Shapeshifter
1 Phage, the intouchable
1 Flowstone Hellion
Bunch of utility creatures
4 Stifle
4 Survival of the Fittest
3-4 Counterbalance
3-4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
X lands

That deck was do awesome, the bombs just kept coming..
Basicly i enjoyed Survival decks from Urza block on when i dicovered Survival up until Vengine was printed.

[bruizar]

The best era for me personally was 2011. During this time, . My brother had just finished developing what was later dubbed Nic Fit. He took his version (which included Palinchron), to the GP Legacy in Amsterdam and did really well. He was unfortunately deck checked by judges three times that day. Bystanders were all over his tech, telling friends what cards to look out for. I was playing a Jace/Liliana UBg control list with Entomb, just for fun. That was the last big tournament we ever went to.

The Survival era, in particular Patrick Chapins build with loyal retainers, anger and Emrakul and the Mental Misstep era, in particular, the decks that played land tax or squadron hawks, were some of my favorites periods.

To this day, Patrick Chapins build is not seen as the best survival build because it was just played much less than the vengevine builds that put up large attendance numbers. However, the resilience of Patrick Chapin's deck was absolutely insane and in my opinion, if survival wasn't banned, Chapin's deck would have become the dominant deck. Here's his deck tech:



I also regard Patrick Chapin as the single most complete magic player. He's smart, innovative and good at playing out the mechanics of the game.

[Julian23]

In order to be complete, you must prove your skills in Japan.

Oops...

[bruizar]

In order to be complete, you must prove your skills in Japan.

Oops...

Touché!

[Asthereal]

This was one of my favorites too. I also liked the metal misstep era, but I will probably be a minority in this opinion. Stoneblade and Bug landstill were so much fun..

Me too. Misstep was cool. You could play anything. Even Hive Mind combo was DtB back then.

Still, my favourite Legacy meta was when Alara block was brand new. Canadian Thresh was a cutting edge deck, CounterTop was sluggish, Combo decks were hard to play and Dark Ritual into Hypnotic Specter was actually a dangerous play. I miss those days.

[catmint]

I was still a noob back then so not sure if I get it right. But before Delver:
Maverick the best deck (according to TCdecks), UW Stoneforge and NO RUG as the best blue decks and a lot of combo, dredge and all tribals still viable/tier decks.

But I always enjoyed legacy ever since...
strategical diversity was always there... overpowered cards are/have been questionable for the format development.

[Tammit67]

mishima_kazuya
commonly transitioned between offense and defense roles during a game

That is something I am dearly missing as well in today's meta.

I agree. Canadian threshold was all about answering threats until goyf/goose were able to win in combat, then suddenly you were the one with the pressure. These delver decks never have to "turn the corner" so to speak and switch from a defensive playstyle to an aggressive one, they are simply aggressive.

Goblins probably signified it best: outside the T1 lackey starts, the deck kinda just stalled until aether vial and ringleader took over the game. There was much more of a discernible development phase for most decks, which I feel is crucial to the feel of the format at the time (Legacy somewhere around 2010). Blue decks required time to set up engines/card selection/threats, which gave faster 40x similar card decks like Zoo/sligh gain advantages should the filtering fail or development stumble.

Now that development phase is gone, in no small part thanks to Delver: blue gets basically the same pressure as zoo with additional protection in the form of cantrips and permission.

[dsck]

My fav eras were before vengevine made survival of the fittest "too good" and before RTR block that brought bunch of BUG stuff + shardless agent was printed around same time in planechase.


Current era feels the worst, prices have gone out of control and local legacy tournaments have been replaced by modern.

[kinda]

When mystical tutor, show and tell, and Emrakul were all around. I wish I could have actually afforded to build it on something other than workshop. Overall though I would say late 2009 when I started playing legacy until my hiatus in early 2012. I came back to a much different game in 2014. I still don't understand why delver, tnn, treasure cruise, and dig were printed. Blue was already the dominant color before those cards.

Edit: Upstate NY legacy in 2009-2011 was awesome.

[Michael Keller]

This era lasted a day: The day I won four Tropical Islands playing a deck with three Polar Krakens.

[Quasim0ff]

This era lasted a day: The day I won four Tropical Islands playing a deck with three Polar Krakens.

Show and Tell or Eureka?

[JamieW89]

For me it was probably 2010-2012; we had a healthy group of 10-20 legacy players in the really close area and Dutch events regularly had 100+ (sometimes even 200+) players, compared to 2 people and 16-64 players nowaways. Decks such as all the Bant variants, pre-Vengevine Survival variants, Maverick, pre-Delver Canadian Thresh, Mystical Tutor storm variants and Landstill were all pretty sweet as well.