[Legacy Lessons] Top 6 Decks - Top 6 Recommendations - GP Lille

[Ellomdian]

But Miracles is able to perform well at GPs, including Top8 by Phillip at two different GPs last year and a strong showing at GP Kyoto this year.

Everyone wants to remember Kyoto as a coming out party for Omni. People seem to be repressing that the real story was the huge number of people playing Miracles at the top tables...

This was a good article and pretty comprehensive. I was a little surprised that there was no mention of Belcher as a recommended deck - it's hard for me to think of a time in Legacy when that deck was better positioned.

FTFY. Seriously though, MUD is another Variance deck, and you have to love the archetype to justify playing it competitively, pretty much regardless of the texture of the room. It has a lot of natural power, but the compromise is the number of games you lose because you Mulligan to oblivion.

With Omnishow running around, I can not totally agree with this, as much as I wish it were true. Lands is under represented for its power level but it can be inconsistent, it has issues against decks with large amounts of basics and it's deceptively difficult to Master. Right now it is strong, but it's not top dog.

God I hope we see a ton of Lands again. The best part of the SCG Legacy Open was the Lands Mirror match. They should get the commentary team drunk for that.

[Admiral_Arzar]

FTFY. Seriously though, MUD is another Variance deck, and you have to love the archetype to justify playing it competitively, pretty much regardless of the texture of the room. It has a lot of natural power, but the compromise is the number of games you lose because you Mulligan to oblivion.

The comparison of MUD to Belcher is moronic, and I would expect something a little more intellectual from a long-time Legacy player. The deck is well positioned because it crushes Miracles and combo despite its own issues (which are exaggerated - the modern lists are by far the most consistent Chalice deck I have played, and I've played them all). I would not recommend the deck if the meta was heavy on Shardless, Jund, and Team America (to name a few). Belcher can never be described as "well-positioned," at least as long as Force of Will is omnipresent.

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

God I hope we see a ton of Lands again. The best part of the SCG Legacy Open was the Lands Mirror match. They should get the commentary team drunk for that.

In my limited experience with the mirror (two matches) I wouldn't wish that on anyone

It's actually awful

[Dice_Box]

In my limited experience with the mirror (two matches) I wouldn't wish that on anyone

It's actually awful

Respectfully disagree. It's complex and engaging. It is even more fun if one person is Control lands and the other combo.

[Piceli89]

Good article, Philipp.

I am suprised that you did not mention Jund as a deck that may be well positioned in this metagame (perhaps you are implicitely biased towards considering blue decks- no blame). If the top dogs are:

- Omnitell;
- Miracle;
- Stoneblade/ "Gold Digger" or whatever it is called;
- Grixis Control;
- Death and Taxes (I doubt so personally but let's stick to it);
- ANT or whatever else,

then a well-tuned version of Jund with maindeck Pyroblasts, Sylvan Library and even Chains of Mephistopheles can give fits to blue decks as long as you can solve the critical blue spells (Dig/Show and Tell/TNN). Also, sideboard Choke.
Dark Confidant and Liliana should provide a source of disruption that is potentially troublesome for the control decks. Golgari Charm or similar can be brought in from the sideboard to deal with Young Pyro tokens in the Grixis matchups as well to regen against Bolt in fringe cases. And the list goes on. Last, you can fill the sideboard with a million of additional discard spells to fight the combo decks.

Any thoughts? I hardly play Legacy anymore but I think there may be some truth in this.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Good article, Philipp.

I am suprised that you did not mention Jund as a deck that may be well positioned in this metagame (perhaps you are implicitely biased towards considering blue decks- no blame). If the top dogs are:

- Omnitell;
- Miracle;
- Stoneblade/ "Gold Digger" or whatever it is called;
- Grixis Control;
- Death and Taxes (I doubt so personally but let's stick to it);
- ANT or whatever else,

then a well-tuned version of Jund with maindeck Pyroblasts, Sylvan Library and even Chains of Mephistopheles can give fits to blue decks as long as you can solve the critical blue spells (Dig/Show and Tell/TNN). Also, sideboard Choke.
Dark Confidant and Liliana should provide a source of disruption that is potentially troublesome for the control decks. Golgari Charm or similar can be brought in from the sideboard to deal with Young Pyro tokens in the Grixis matchups as well to regen against Bolt in fringe cases. And the list goes on. Last, you can fill the sideboard with a million of additional discard spells to fight the combo decks.

Any thoughts? I hardly play Legacy anymore but I think there may be some truth in this.

As someone who used to play Jund a LOT in Legacy, the deck has some issues nowadays. Issue number one is that Omnitell is just an abysmal matchup. High Tide was bad, Omni is awful. The second one is that all the blue decks are better than they were when I was playing Jund (first half of last year) because they have access to new toys like Dig through Time, Monastery Mentor, Gurmag Angler, and Tasigur. Jund doesn't really have anything new and shiny, so it's playing on a lower power level versus the blue decks than it was a year ago. Jund is capable of playing all the hate cards to beat most of the blue matchups, but you still have to draw those in your non-blue, cantrip-less deck, and you have to draw them before the blue deck pulls ahead and renders them meaningless.

[iamajellydonut]

Jund is capable of playing all the hate cards to beat most of the blue matchups, but you still have to draw those in your non-blue, cantrip-less deck, and you have to draw them before the blue deck pulls ahead and renders them meaningless.

Basically this. Also, it's worth noting that Jund's "hate" cards and Jund's "clock" cards are mutually exclusive, and this makes for a really challenging victory.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Basically this. Also, it's worth noting that Jund's "hate" cards and Jund's "clock" cards are mutually exclusive, and this makes for a really challenging victory.

I gave up on Jund for all of these reasons quite a while ago. It's all about DnT, Lands or MUD if you want to go nonblue now IMO.

[iamajellydonut]

I mean, all it would really take is one BG value-bear to make the deck viable again. But it's just grown stale in the modern day.

[ESG]

As someone who used to play Jund a LOT in Legacy, the deck has some issues nowadays. Issue number one is that Omnitell is just an abysmal matchup. High Tide was bad, Omni is awful. The second one is that all the blue decks are better than they were when I was playing Jund (first half of last year) because they have access to new toys like Dig through Time, Monastery Mentor, Gurmag Angler, and Tasigur. Jund doesn't really have anything new and shiny, so it's playing on a lower power level versus the blue decks than it was a year ago. Jund is capable of playing all the hate cards to beat most of the blue matchups, but you still have to draw those in your non-blue, cantrip-less deck, and you have to draw them before the blue deck pulls ahead and renders them meaningless.

Excellent comment, Admiral_Arzar. This is precisely why decks fall out of playability. New cards are printed and decks change, but some decks can't adapt to the new environment. It's why I would never foil out a deck and expect to play it forever. I think it also illustrates why Dig is overpowered. Nonblue decks like Jund can't splash UU, so the card buries them. The matchups that used to be positive are now even, if not outright unfavorable. At such a point, it doesn't make sense to play nonblue unless you're running just a bunch of main-deck hate cards, which are obviously a critical liability if you get paired against combo or a nonblue deck not running main-deck hate cards.

[Kl'rt]

Excellent comment, Admiral_Arzar. This is precisely why decks fall out of playability. New cards are printed and decks change, but some decks can't adapt to the new environment. It's why I would never foil out a deck and expect to play it forever. I think it also illustrates why Dig is overpowered. Nonblue decks like Jund can't splash UU, so the card buries them. The matchups that used to be positive are now even, if not outright unfavorable. At such a point, it doesn't make sense to play nonblue unless you're running just a bunch of main-deck hate cards, which are obviously a critical liability if you get paired against combo or a nonblue deck not running main-deck hate cards.

What about Aggro Loam? Prague Eternal was just taken down by Kronberger who played almost his exact list that he took down BoM with over a year ago. Seems his list has a lot of common elements with Jund.

[iamajellydonut]

What about Aggro Loam? Prague Eternal was just taken down by Kronberger who played almost his exact list that he took down BoM with over a year ago. Seems his list has a lot of common elements with Jund.

Completely different decks.