[GenCon] 2008 Legacy Championship - August 15

[Nightmare]

What? Why don't you come play in the 5 year aniversery event or another large Legacy event in the North East? Then try and say "random decks and poor playskill" are the norm in Legacy. As a person who plays a lot of legacy with some of the best players in the area I take a lot of offence to that statement. Think before you post please....

Uh, he's not wrong.

[Wallace]

Uh, he's not wrong.

Maybe not about that event in paticular...

[Nightmare]

Maybe not about that event in paticular...

On the whole, I would stake the playskill of any given limited player vs. any given Legacy player, and bet on limited all day long. Look, we do a lot right, but we're well below the learning curve of every other format when it comes to playing tight, precise games. It's just the way it is.

[Nihil Credo]

On the whole, I would stake the playskill of any given limited player vs. any given Legacy player, and bet on limited all day long. Look, we do a lot right, but we're well below the learning curve of every other format when it comes to playing tight, precise games. It's just the way it is.

Absolutely QFT.

Legacy does from time to time create razor-tight situations (the blue mirror being a good example of this), but I'd say that in the vast majority of games you can make one key good choice (baiting at the right time to resolve a bomb, naming the correct card with Therapy, etc.) and ride that to victory despite making tons of small mistakes along the way. There are many formats in which this is thankfully not true.

To those interested in this discussion, I invite you to the "Easiest format?" thread.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

On the whole, I would stake the playskill of any given limited player vs. any given Legacy player, and bet on limited all day long. Look, we do a lot right, but we're well below the learning curve of every other format when it comes to playing tight, precise games. It's just the way it is.

What is a "limited player" and what is a "legacy player"?

[Ewokslayer]

What is a "limited player" and what is a "legacy player"?

A "limited player" is a player with a mental handicap and is thus "limited"
A "legacy player" is an old player that may or may not be senile.

Both require the use of diapers.

[Volt]

.

[Michael Keller]

On the whole, I would stake the playskill of any given limited player vs. any given Legacy player, and bet on limited all day long. Look, we do a lot right, but we're well below the learning curve of every other format when it comes to playing tight, precise games. It's just the way it is.

I agree whole-heartedly, Adam. I've competed against some fine Limited players and I'll tell you what: If you don't know what you're doing, you're dead in the water in that format. I've recently tapped into it and I like it more than Legacy.

The good thing about limited too, is that the cards you get you can put toward your constructed deck.

[Nocco]

I completely agree with the people who are saying that the Legacy championship was a kind of scrubby event with random decks. For the most part, success at the event really depended on pairings. The sliver guy with the short sleeves on FOWs and STPs was really shady too.

While I do not consider myself a legacy player (mainly t2 and limited), I did pick up aggro loam splash black and pilot it to a 3-2 drop. 2 of my friends who live and breath legacy both played ugb thresh with intuition that they got from a well-known person on the source (the intuition package is genesis, loam, and gigapede or other 1-ofs depending on the situation). I consider them very good legacy players as they know the format and test it very often. They finished x-3 and x-2 respectively.

I watched a lot of other matches and some of the t8 in between rounds of the ptq later that night and I saw some really bad plays. It seemed like the majority of the field was like me and, not knowing legacy very well, picked up a deck like thresh or another successful deck on a whim.

On the subject of general legacy playskill, I agree with the posters that say that it is not up to par with other formats, specifically limited. Don't get me wrong; there are a ton of good legacy players. But i think that there are even more bad ones. A good deal of my opponents throughout the day said that they were mainly legacy players and had been playing for awhile. They then proceeded to punt games left and right and make very questionable or downright awful plays. This confirms my notion that a lot of legacy-only players have this kind of inbred playskill where they know all of the cards in legacy and how to play them, but miss the tricky or more complex aspects of magic in general due to the fact that they don't play limited or other very skill-intensive formats.

[Brizentine Empire]

You know, at first, as a mainly Legacy-only player, I was confused at how people could characterize an entire format as having less skilled players, but as I read on, I actually found some people's comments true. Even when I began playing Legacy, I learned what all of the legacy cards were within weeks, but that doesn't provide skill; just knowing what to name with a cabal therapy in a certain MU doesn't mean you played it at the right time, pending the turn, the opponent's mana situation, or even your own hand. I do believe that in limited and even standard, players have a much stronger feel of how to play correctly, due to the fact that there are less cards to master, often less bomb cards than legacy, and often much less disruption. The current legacy format is basically as follows: Tons of disruption so that one of your 8-12 creatures can hit the board and win. Obviously, there are exceptions, but generally that is how the format plays out. In this way, however, even if you make a player mistake, you have many ways of correcting it with another disrupting card in your deck. I'm beginning to get into Standard, and I can honestly say that it is fun and certainly does seem to be saturated with skillful players. In all fairness, though, Legacy does have very skilled players as well, so maybe its not COMPLETELY fair to characterize the entire format.

[Dxfiler]

On the whole, I would stake the playskill of any given limited player vs. any given Legacy player, and bet on limited all day long. Look, we do a lot right, but we're well below the learning curve of every other format when it comes to playing tight, precise games. It's just the way it is.

This is pretty accurate. I'd still say legacy on the whole is above vintage on the curve, but yeah when it comes to playing tight games legacy has a ways to go still. Eternal formats just happen to be on the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to the skill curve, but that's completely intentional by WOTC.

I wouldn't say that it's limited vs. legacy, it's more 'WOTC' supported formats vs. legacy. The reason why legacy has a ways to go is because it isn't supported alot by Wotc, which means that higher level events rarely focus on it. If you don't have high level legacy events, you don't have pros focused on it hence the level of competition is down and non-pros don't have incentive to reach that higher level.

If there were legacy ptq's for example, you'd see the curve in legacy rise drastically and fast. There'd be an influx of players who don't normally play that would generally play tight and hence the legacy regulars would be forced to do the same, and in general you'd see alot better plays on the whole.

It's a tradeoff though. If legacy got more support from Wotc, it would defniitely be a less fun format for many of the regulars. Legacy isn't really meant for a PTQ environment, it's just a little bit more casual than that.

I think the way WOTC approaches the format now is OK, but it needs a little more support. Just some more GP's to keep people on their toes. I doubt you'll ever see Legacy get the support of limited because limited forces you to buy more cards every time you play, which is exactly how WOTC wants it.

Overall it's not a big deal. WOTC supported formats are just more skill intensive than eternal ones because WOTC supports the formats that make them the most money. There's still plenty of skill in Legacy and it's definitely not scrubby. Plus the bar is raised significantly when you get a giant event like a GP or even the Source anniversary tournament. The bar gets raised for events like that because they mean more than say Legacy champs.

Anyway interesting debate just wanted to put in my 2 cents.

- Dave Feinstein

[voltron00x]

I'm the guy (Matt Elias) who played Belcher and ended up in 3rd place, going 6-0-2 in Swiss and losing in the semis to CounterSlivers.

Here's the list I ran:

Belcher:
4 Lotus Petal
4 LED
4 Chrome Mox
4 S. Spirit Guide
4 E. Spirit Guide
4 Rite of Flame
4 Seething Song
4 Dark Ritual
4 Tinder Wall
4 Land Grant
4 Burning Wish
3 Infernal Tutor
1 Plunge Into Darkness
4 Belcher
3 Empty the Warrens
3 Manamorphose
1 Bayou
1 Taiga

SB:
2 Pyroblast
2 REB
4 Xantid Swarm
3 Shattering Spree
1 Thoughtseize
1 Cave-in
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Empty the Warrens

I posted a tourney report as a blog on my tcgplayer.com:
http://my.tcgplayer.com/blog/view/id_2399/

To summarize, I beat Sui Black, some Red/White deck (he got a G1 game loss for deck mis-reg and I killed him turn 1 of game 2 - and for what it's worth, I did not say "thanks for the bye" so whoever that was, please don't misquote me like that. I pride myself on not being that kind of player / person, even when the deck I'm playing is sort of ridiculous), goblins, boros, u/g/b standstill with bitterblossom, u/w control, two IDs (6-0-2 swiss), then quarters beat standstill again (same player, he also got a g1 loss for deck mis-reg) and then lost 0-2 to counterslivers.

I didn't really play anyone I thought was a particularly bad player, but I did play people that made bad deck decisions, in my opinion. I might not be a Legacy player but I did spend a week reading forums here, on Starcity, and going through a few hundred netdecks to get a feel for what people played and have some options, and then playtested for 6 hours or so. This also wasn't a typical metagame and lots of people were running burn or beatdown decks that are basically hopeless against a non-blue combo deck like Belcher, which made my choice very strong. Had CounterSlivers (blake? I think that was his name) lost even one game in the quarters, it's probably my tournament as I'd then play goblins in the semis and boros in the finals.

I did completely screw up my first turn in my quarterfinals match by not playing LED before I cast Burning Wish. I have to blame it on fatigue. At that point I'd been playing 48K Magic for 22 of the last 27 hours, after coming in 2nd place to Sam Black in the Block Champs. My brain was just completely fried. It's also sort of tough to change gears like that. I'd played 10 rounds with block Doran, a creature beatdown/midrange deck that often goes turn 1 vivid, pass. Then I had to play a deck that often said turn 1, empty my entire hand.

Still, I enjoyed the tournament, met some cool people, and think the format is really awesome and I enjoyed playtesting it, reading about it, and everyone I played was very cool I really hope that WoTC realizes that the enthusiasm and passion of Legacy players is something they're wasting and shouldn't be ignored.

[xsockmonkeyx]

I want the Slivers list nao! In your face, everyone.

[Pinder]

and losing in the semis to CounterSlivers.

Do you remember much about that match? Like how many colors the other guy ran, or if he had anything out of the ordinary in his deck? I'm just really interested to see a Sliver list that won GenCon.


And congratulations.

[kicks_422]

I really hope that WoTC realizes that the enthusiasm and passion of Legacy players is something they're wasting and shouldn't be ignored.

I find Legacy players as the friendliest in general, especially compared to Standard players. Is this a general trend? Or is it a meta call?

[voltron00x]

Yeah, I remember some. I lost the die roll, which is huge because not only does he get an island in play for Daze, but he can Brainstorm for FoW. My first hand was decent. It had everything I needed except for one mana source to go off on turn 1 if he didn't have a FoW and even if he had a Daze. I thought about mulling it anyway, but with that many outs (basically Lotus Petal, either Spirit Guide, RoF, Song, Dark Rit, or potentially manamorphose into action) I didn't think it was worth the mull. As it was, I drew a 2nd belcher, so i played land grant into land and passed. I believe he brainsormed EoT and played a sliver. I drew a 3rd belcher and played a chrome mox. He played another Sliver. I drew a 2nd chrome mox and passed. He played a 3rd sliver. I drew a 3rd Chrome mox. GG.

2nd game my opening hand was again pretty strong but I had no REB and no Swarm, so I suppose I could've mulled. It wasn't a turn 1 win but it was a turn 2 warrens with backup against Daze and potentially a REB on top. He kept a hand with 2x FoW, Ponder, Krosan Grip, a sliver, and Stifle. Yes, no blue sources. I played Land Grant and passed. He drew a fetch land off the top and played ponder and hit his mana from there. I tried to go off and he used his FoW, then blew up a chrome mox with Krosan grip and I couldn't get back in the game fast enough before sliver + mutavault beat me down.

So basically, neither of my hands were extraordinary but both were just good enough to keep. The first game in particular I had a million outs and just drew total garbage. I'm pretty sure that if you play a 10 round tournament with Belcher, you'll hit at leaset one round that you don't draw the nut high, and I picked a bad round to do it, because Slivers has enough counters that you need your best hands. Both of those hands would've owned any non-blue deck. Obv the keeping a mutavault hand is awfully loose and I wasn't happy to hear that after the fact.

His deck was Blue/Green/White, with FoW, Ponder, Daze, Stifle, Brainstorm, Sinew Sliver, Muscle Sliver, Fetches, Mutavault...

[kicks_422]

His deck was Blue/Green/White, with FoW, Ponder, Daze, Stifle, Brainstorm, Sinew Sliver, Muscle Sliver, Fetches, Mutavault...

I guess MeatHooks still works.

[Arkham]

I remember having a debate with somebody over whether or not Mutavault would be a good addition to Counterslivers. Looking at the price tag alone, I laughed at him, and pointed out that because of the deck's fragile mana base it probably wasn't a good idea to try and put colorless lands in a deck that needed to rock three colors simultaneously. Besides, if I were to fish out lands out of counterslivers for a useful colorless land, I'd pick wasteland for my metagame specifically every day of the week.

But anyway, nice job, Voltron.

[Firebrothers]

What I think Legacy needs is more 'grassroots' support from the playerbase. Texas magic players recenty started a Texas Magic Tour that includes many formats, Legacy included.

More support from Wizards would help as well.

[Parcher]

The tournament was full of shitty players with shitty decks, deal with it.

The problem is that it has no real relevance toward the Legacy format in general. I would estimate that 80% of the participants had never played in a Legacy tournament before. Of those, probably half were part-time casual players that joined simply because it was an open chance to be "World Champion", and they were already at GenCon.

As for the decks that made Top8 sucking, quit bitching. To quote Edinger, if you think you could do better, you should have gotten off your ass and gone to the event. I saw a total of six Sourcers all weekend, one whom I came with.