[Premium Article] The Engines of Legacy

[Smmenen]

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/17126_So_Many_Insane_Plays_A_Birds_Eye_View_of_Legacy_The_Engines_of_Legacy.html

Last week, we reviewed the Tribes of Legacy. Today, we look at the most popular and common card engines you are likely to encounter in your Legacy experience. We take a look at the notorious Counterbalance/Top engine, powerful Life From the Loam based archetypes, annoying and controlling Standstill decks, aggressive and oppressive Ancient Tomb decks, blistering Dark Ritual decks, and then Dredge.

[Ozymandias]

I wonder if Survival and Goblin Ringleader/Recruiter got mentions. I'd say those are two of the top 5 engines of Legacy.

[freakish777]

Goblin Recruiter

Too bad that card is banned and will earn you a game loss.

[bowvamp]

Lol, I bet this wasn't mentioned:
4 Disciple of the Vault +
4 Urza's Bauble +
4 Mishra's Bauble.
It's one of my favs but only because I seem to be the only person using it.
Pros:
Essential 52 card deck
Anti-discard
cheap damage
grave filler
lower curve/ 4 more 1 drops
Cons:
delayed drawing
based off of the TD
2 card combo that does barely anything noticeable

I love it in my discipline pox list (yes Capt. Hammer, I tried your list...) which I continue to play up till this date.

EDIT:
To make my post not completely worthless, I speculate that there was a mention of 1 of these cards at least somewhere in the article:
Land Grant
Imperial Recruiter
Trinket Mage

[Whit3 Ghost]

Don't have premium, but lack of discussion of Stifle/Waste doesn't exactly seem optimal. If the article covered this, never mind.

[Apex]

I read the article, very extensive coverage, I like it. There are some minor parts where I don't agree with (I think some of those lists are outdated, like Slithermuse in TES?), but overall it's a very good read.

Also, I don't consider FoW+Brainstorm+Ponder+Stifle+Wasteland+Tarmogoyf an engine. That's just part of a tempo deck, much like how Lightning Bolt+Chain Lightning+Rift Bolt+Lava Spike is not an engine, that's just part of a burn deck. So I don't think it would have been appropriate to cover it under the "Engines of Legacy" article. Maybe tempo decks could be a discussion topic for next week (that is, if you are still covering legacy).

Though you seem to have an almost unhealthy affinity for Dark Confidant. That guy went into like every single deck you made, even maindeck for a storm deck? I've been playing Dark Confidant in my sideboard for a while in my storm deck, and that's been great, because people will actively side out creature removal against you in the second game, and Dark Confidant becomes either counterspell target (which is not bad), or it goes unanswered and wins you the game. It's also quite good in the combo mirror if you've maindeck Orim's Chants (which is the one major part that I didn't agree with in your storm lists, I think Chants are very important for combo decks, both against decks with counterspells and in the mirror, and even Dredge to an extent, since it's actually kind of hard for them to answer a Chant in response to their Narcomoeba trigger).

[Ozymandias]

Too bad that card is banned and will earn you a game loss.

Sorry, meant Matron. Been playing FCG in Vintage too long.

[Smmenen]

Though you seem to have an almost unhealthy affinity for Dark Confidant. That guy went into like every single deck you made, even maindeck for a storm deck? I've been playing Dark Confidant in my sideboard for a while in my storm deck, and that's been great, because people will actively side out creature removal against you in the second game, and Dark Confidant becomes either counterspell target (which is not bad), or it goes unanswered and wins you the game. It's also quite good in the combo mirror if you've maindeck Orim's Chants (which is the one major part that I didn't agree with in your storm lists, I think Chants are very important for combo decks, both against decks with counterspells and in the mirror, and even Dredge to an extent, since it's actually kind of hard for them to answer a Chant in response to their Narcomoeba trigger).

That's interesting because I have always felt that Bob is overrated in Vintage. The most successful Vintage Ad Naus lists run Bob maindeck. It makes alot of sense in any deck with 4 Chrome Mox and such a low average coverted mana cost. It also lessens the Tendrils requirements.

Is Chant better than Xantid Swarm?

The problem I have with Chant is that it has to be played the turn you are going off, unlike Duress and Swarm, which are played earlier.

[Eldariel]

That's quite the list of decks to go through. The three important things I found missing in this series are Survival-decks (the classically most successful engine in Legacy that's still putting up numbers in a variety of archetypes), Black Disruption (since Deadguy/Eva Green/Team America/etc. never seem to go away) - call them Sinkhole-decks or something - and Stifle/Waste tempo-decks (since they're everywhere between Team America, UGr Thrash, Dreadstill, et co.). Also, I think you should have at least made a passing mention of Painter's Stone, with or without Ceph. Breakfast. Also finally, I think Natural Order Progenitus needed mention; it's recently been doing very reasonably and it's probably a tool most players aren't even aware of.

The Stax-part was rather meaty, almost enough to make for foundations of an article of its own; you clearly have a lot to say about the deck and its various incarnations in Legacy so that may be something to look into. I was naturally disappointed by how little screentime Tomb Aggro got, but I suppose the room for Stax had to be taken from somewhere and the decks with similarish mechanisms are the logical victim.


I was a bit surprised you chose an Ad Nauseamless TES-list, seeing that the card has almost universally been adopted as a 1-3 of. That does make for the contrast between ANT and TES, certainly, but the principal difference between the two nowadays is that TES plays 5 colours while ANT plays 2-4.

Good job though, I definitely liked the article as a whole - the huge number of decks covered should give people some insight into the versatility the format offers.

[Pinder]

Is Chant better than Xantid Swarm?


I'd say yes here, if only for the simple fact that you can use Chant as a Time Walk/Fog if neccesary. I've won a fair number of games because second turn Chant prevented someone from playing their Counterbalance, allowing me to win the next turn, or Chant with kicker stalled Aggro for that extra turn it took to pull a win out of a mediocre draw.

Plus, you can't Swords Chant.

[Toad]

Sorry, meant Matron. Been playing FCG in Vintage too long.

Goblins has been covered in Part 1 of the article.
This Part 2 focuses on non tribal deck engines.


The three important things I found missing in this series are Survival-decks (the classically most successful engine in Legacy thats still putting up numbers in a variety of archetypes), Black Disruption (since Deadguy/Eva Green/Team America/etc. never seem to go away) - call them Sinkhole-decks or something - and Stifle/Waste tempo-decks (since theyre everywhere between Team America, UGr Thrash, Dreadstill, et co.).

Survival of the Fittest could have been mentioned at some point, but the card is quite absent from the Legacy metagame, and not used in top decks, which is the reason why we left it aside (size is limited!). Regarding your other suggestion, these are more on the deck concept/skeleton side than on the engine side. We just wanted to describe some of the engines one could build a deck around, not on specific card synergies that could go into every archetype.


The Stax-part was rather meaty, almost enough to make for foundations of an article of its own; you clearly have a lot to say about the deck and its various incarnations in Legacy so that may be something to look into. I was naturally disappointed by how little screentime Tomb Aggro got, but I suppose the room for Stax had to be taken from somewhere and the decks with similarish mechanisms are the logical victim.

I wrote this section, and can understand your feelings here. Adding more content to the Tomb Aggro section would have overlapped the content of the Stax section if I really wanted to get deep into it. I also had some of the content already written (I started to write a Legacy Stax article in 2005, unfortunately never took time to finish it...), and considering our (Stephen+me) history regarding Stax, it is quite obvious that we have more to say about the deck itself than about Tomb Aggro. I have read the primer on Faerie Stompy you wrote here, and could not really write more than what you wrote already, so I just wrote the basic stuff people should know about the archetype, assuming these who are already into Legacy have read your primers already.

Aside from that, I do have tons of things to say about Stax in Legacy, since it is a deck I have been playing since the creation of the new Legacy (2004) in various incarnation, and I have pretty much tried all the available colour combinations and splashes. I do not know what is the current policy on SCG regarding user submitted articles on Legacy, when there was the Legacy weekly column they would not publish anything else. I might contact them at some point, or check with Doug if he can skip a turn once, I used to be Featured Writer on SCG so they might accept. Article was about 20 pages long when I stopped writing it, and the latest Blocks gave TONS of tools for Stax.

-
Overall, we greatly appreciate the nice feedback we received from the Legacy community. It had been 3 years already since last time I wrote an article with Stephen, and we will surely consider writing some more on Legacy in a close future if we have interesting topics to discuss :)

[Phoenix Ignition]

Survival of the Fittest could have been mentioned at some point, but the card is quite absent from the Legacy metagame, and not used in top decks, which is the reason why we left it aside (size is limited!).
But it's an Archive to watch now. It's used in the Elf Survival, top 8s frequently with random blue control versions, is seen with the use of Goblin Welder, and usually pops up in some for in more board controlling versions

[Eldariel]

Survival of the Fittest could have been mentioned at some point, but the card is quite absent from the Legacy metagame, and not used in top decks, which is the reason why we left it aside.

Yeah, I can see where you're coming from; the size issue is a very real problem when making a comprehensive listing of engines used in a format as large as Legacy. Still, Survival does seem to see a decent amount of play, being Archetype to Watch here for 3 of the last 5 months and having a total of 18 listed Top 8s this year according Deckcheck.net.

And yea, I suppose the disruption-decks don't actually fall under the definition of "engine" as they simply tend to lack one, but as the article series was otherwise so complete, it just feels weird to have such a prominent archetype omitted. But it was already long so making cuts is reasonable.


I said it before and I'll say it again, it's a fine piece.

[Anusien]

In your section about Aggro Loam, you need to be careful with that sample opening. Only ever having 1 green producing land in play is a recipe to lose, especially if Loam gets countered there.

No Raven's Crime or Wasteland (or Demigod of Revenge) in that Control Loam list?

Only 1 Pit-Dragon in the Dragon Stompy list? SoFI instead of Jitte?

Was there a reason you wanted to post your own lists rather than post ones from deckcheck.net or somewhere?

[Toad]

I am afraid you completely missed the point of the article Anusien. This article is about engines, not archetypes optimizations. The lists posted in the article are simple examples we use to illustrate our comments.

Regardless, all the decklists come from published Top 8 data or from these boards.

[AngryTroll]

I'm pleased to see another high quality article on Legacy over at SCG- keep up the good work, guys!

I'm a fan of both Survival and Painter Stone, but space is a real issue in an article trying to cover all of the engines of Legacy. Thanks for another solid article!

[Fossil4182]

Did a nice job of analyzing the format. It defiantly warranted the engines and explained the archetypes and interactions they have with one another which I found insightful.

I do agree that there may have been a few other engines that could have been covered. Survival would have been nice. Reasons being:
-The Natural Order/Progenitus engine which is being hyped
-While its a fringe deck, other fringe decks like Stax and Stompy variants where discussed and Survival is stronger than Tomb in most respects.
-Survival breeds a much more diverse archetype than the other fringe decks

I was also surprised that the engine of Stifle/Wasteland was not mentioned. I know its only used in a few decks like TA and Tempo based Threshold decks, but its still a very dominate and underestimated engine in the format.

Overall, great article though and appreciated the variety and depth of analysis offered.

[Bryant Cook]

That TES list was painfully old. It hurt my feelings. I'd imagine someone of your status to do some homework before throwing random decklists into an article.

[fearphage]

I'd have to agree on survival as an engine. I've seen various renditions of Full English Breakfast and StifleNought hitting the top8s. Survival has always been there and possibly will always be.

Could someone remind me how long before premium articles become public?

[Giles]

Could someone remind me how long before premium articles become public?

It is 90 days.

[Toad]

I was also surprised that the engine of Stifle/Wasteland was not mentioned.
Stifle and Wasteland does not make an engine, as in cards that fuel an archetype. These are simply nice tools decks can abuse, and the reason why we did not present them in the article. Pretty much every deck can run Stifle and Wasteland.


Id imagine someone of your status to do some homework before throwing random decklists into an article.
Once again, this article is not meant to discuss decklists, but concepts and engines. The decklists are just here to illustrate the engines and their use, and the combo list posted illustrates the Dark Ritual engine, even if it is old. To be honest it is extremely hard to find up to date decklists on these boards, and we did not feel like reading 62 pages of thread just to dig for one. You said your latest list was private anyway.


Id have to agree on survival as an engine.
We had to cut down the article size, and were forced to make cuts in the engines. We could have discussed the Survival of the Fittest engine or the Argothian Enchantress engine, but we decided to focus on the most played engines. It has been a while since Survival of the Fittest has been widely played in Legacy, and nowadays SOTF decks are moreso rogue decks than established archetypes. Furthermore, there are like infinite variations on SOTF decks, featuring all kind of color combinations and skeletons, so it would have been hard to remain concise on that part. SOTF is good, but in terms of tournament representation it is far behind Standstill, Ancient Tomb, Counterbalance, Dark Ritual and Life from the Loam.

[Fossil4182]

We had to cut down the article size, and were forced to make cuts in the engines. We could have discussed the Survival of the Fittest engine or the Argothian Enchantress engine, but we decided to focus on the most played engines. It has been a while since Survival of the Fittest has been widely played in Legacy, and nowadays SOTF decks are moreso rogue decks than established archetypes. Furthermore, there are like infinite variations on SOTF decks, featuring all kind of color combinations and skeletons, so it would have been hard to remain concise on that part. SOTF is good, but in terms of tournament representation it is far behind Standstill, Ancient Tomb, Counterbalance, Dark Ritual and Life from the Loam.

That's a fair assessment. That being said, its still a fringe deck now that I would roughly compare in potential to Stax or the Tomb variants that you discussed: not widely played, yet it could be on the brink of greatness if given the proper attention. I would also like to reiterate that I found the article insightful and well done though.

[jazzykat]

Just a general question regarding Legacy articles at SCG:
are they all going to be premium from now on?

If so, does that mean it's worth having 2 discussions 1 when it comes out and 1 when it's 3 months old? Or will the information be irrelevant/over taken by events by then?

[Arsenal]

Legacy doesn't change that much in 90 days unless a new set gives us something format changing (Goyf, Counterbalance,etc). I think it'll still be relevant in 90 days as it is now.

[Anusien]

Just a general question regarding Legacy articles at SCG:
are they all going to be premium from now on?

If so, does that mean it's worth having 2 discussions 1 when it comes out and 1 when it's 3 months old? Or will the information be irrelevant/over taken by events by then?
Only Smmenen is Premium. Legacy's Allure and Unlocking Legacy are still on the free side.

[Nihil Credo]

Other Premium writers are likely to be writing about Legacy in light of GP: Chicago, right? If so, I think five whole dollars are worth getting it for this month.

[Bryant Cook]

Once again, this article is not meant to discuss decklists, but concepts and engines. The decklists are just here to illustrate the engines and their use, and the combo list posted illustrates the Dark Ritual engine, even if it is old. To be honest it is extremely hard to find up to date decklists on these boards, and we did not feel like reading 62 pages of thread just to dig for one. You said your latest list was private anyway.

This is a piss poor excuse. Even if the article wasn't list based, it shouldn't contain outdated material. I'm one of the few people on the forum who keeps the first page updated, even if it isn't the newest decklist I have it's still current.

[Jujuhawk]

This is a piss poor excuse. Even if the article wasn't list based, it shouldn't contain outdated material. I'm one of the few people on the forum who keeps the first page updated, even if it isn't the newest decklist I have it's still current.

Agreed. My post was deleted, as it was harsh (rightfully so), but I think posting awful lists in your articles isn't sending a good message to newcomers to legacy.

The decklists in the article are abysmal at best, and if you're going to post decklists that represent engines, then at least post ones that do it well. The 04 tech of Meddling Mage is not strong, and it might make some people think it's good. The lack of basics is apparent, and any deck playing wasteland gets a bye VS. your lists :\.

[Toad]

I'm one of the few people on the forum who keeps the first page updated

Well I must admit I did not check the first pages of these threads, since one would assume the most recent content is found in the last pages.


I think posting awful lists in your articles isn't sending a good message to newcomers to legacy. [...] The decklists in the article are abysmal at best, and if you're going to post decklists that represent engines, then at least post ones that do it well.
Once again, because it seems that you did not read what I wrote earlier, almost all the decklists presented in the article come from Top8 data (usually found on deckcheck.net) or these boards (IIRC the Intuition Control one is from a thread here).

4C UGwr Threshold list - Won GP Lille
4C UGbw Threshold list - #1 Swiss in a 70 players tournament 3 weeks ago.

Aggro Loam list - Multiple Top8 / wins in Germany.

Blue Stax - Multiple Top8 / wins in France since September 2008, and #9 place at the largest non GP Legacy tournament (BOM2).

Dreadstill - Placed #6 in a 54 players tournament, #2 after Swiss.

Control Loam - List posted by "Deep3er" on these boards.

Landstill UWg - #3 at 30 players tourney.

Landstill Ugbw - #8 at same tourney.

Too lazy to dig for where we found the other lists. For awful or abysmal lists, they have performed very well, no?


The 04 tech of Meddling Mage is not strong, and it might make some people think it's good.
I am going to be honest with you on this one, the guy who played the list told me he had been bashing people all day long with Meddling Mage and its synergies with Thoughtseize and Counterbalance. The field for which the deck was designed is a high-power field, with lots of Combo and Control, and Meddling Mage dominates there. Regardless, how can you say a card is not strong without knowing the field? Counterbalance is bad in a field of Stax and Goblins, does this mean Threshold should not run it? Nope.


The lack of basics is apparent, and any deck playing wasteland gets a bye VS. your lists :\.
Threshold loses to mana denial decks such as Stax or Dragon Stompy regardless, so why care? May I remind you that GP Lille was won by a 4C Threshold with 0 basics after beating Goblins all day long? The difference between 3C and 4C is minimal, and fetching Tropical Island to play Tarmogoyf opens you to Wasteland in all cases. It's not as if Threshold could win a game with basic Islands only, all their relevant cards when it comes down to winning the game are splash cards. You could run Green fetchlands and grab Forest, but then you are going to have problems on turn two Counterbalance when it matters, or when you need Underground Sea.

Going 4C is a simple trade-off. It gives you a huge superiority in the mirror and against combo, at the mere cost of making atrocious matchups worse. A pretty good bargain if you ask me.

[Smmenen]

This article is now free! Enjoy!

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Standstill is one of the most efficient draw engines in Legacy.

I concur.