[Free Article] Legacy: It's Like Having Tiger Blood

[voltron00x]

I got to play a lot of Legacy the past few weeks, and the result was this article:

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/21314_The_Long_And_Winding_Road_Legacy_Its_Like_Having_Tiger_Blood.html

It's a bit of financial reporting/advice, some game recaps from tournaments, some deck tech and hidden gems / cards to watch... all kinds of stuff.

While my results weren't particularly strong in DC or NJ, I had a blast experimenting in the current metagame. Legacy is really in a great place right now. I hope this article reflects that.

[Tammit67]

Love the article. Will you be playing at Redcaps on Sunday? Hope to see you there.

[Meekrab]

That's a pretty sweet uh, "sandwich".

[Waikiki]

Awesome article Matt, keep up the good work !

[chinEsE girl]

Awesome article! Taking an objective look at legacy is a really important skill a lot of players don't have. They kind of assume a lot of stuff (deck a is insane, deck b is shit, etc etc), and just don't both to build correctly. I especially like the part about the duals at the end of the article (I didn't realize I was playing 75% of the blue duals in the top 8).

I also kind of wish I won the game where I managed to kill an emrakul with basilisk collar so it could be added to your "awesome ways to lose the game" segment, but sadly I ended up losing that game :(

[voltron00x]

Awesome article! Taking an objective look at legacy is a really important skill a lot of players don't have. They kind of assume a lot of stuff (deck a is insane, deck b is shit, etc etc), and just don't both to build correctly. I especially like the part about the duals at the end of the article (I didn't realize I was playing 75% of the blue duals in the top 8).

I also kind of wish I won the game where I managed to kill an emrakul with basilisk collar so it could be added to your "awesome ways to lose the game" segment, but sadly I ended up losing that game :(

I really enjoyed reading that part in your tournament report btw, and congrats on your finish. Any time a deck with Fire/Ice does well, I get excited. It's such a sweet card.

[sdematt]

Very good read. Getting more people to play Legacy would be great.

-Matt

[ivanpei]

I really enjoyed this article. Very objective and well written! Great work, I don't understand why you'd say dredge is a bad deck though. It's the bad builds. People throw too much "cool" junk into their dredge decks like Iona, DRs and all sorts of crap. This leads to plenty of mulligans and inconsistencies. If people play the 4 of everything builds with 15 lands, no DR and no fancy DR Targets, I'm sure Dredge would post better results. For the last card in the deck, I play 1 Entomb as the 13th Dredger for the extra consistency. Darkblast dredges for 3 and doesn't cut it, entomb-> Grave troll is much better.

[voltron00x]

I really enjoyed this article. Very objective and well written! Great work, I don't understand why you'd say dredge is a bad deck though. It's the bad builds. People throw too much "cool" junk into their dredge decks like Iona, DRs and all sorts of crap. This leads to plenty of mulligans and inconsistencies. If people play the 4 of everything builds with 15 lands, no DR and no fancy DR Targets, I'm sure Dredge would post better results. For the last card in the deck, I play 1 Entomb as the 13th Dredger for the extra consistency. Darkblast dredges for 3 and doesn't cut it, entomb-> Grave troll is much better.

The deck isn't bad, so much as I just don't think it is particularly good. I exaggerated in the article somewhat, for emphasis. Some friends of mine spent the day Sunday trying to convince me Dredge is the nut high.

I really would love it to be good. I have allllll the Dredge cards in foil for the day when it is tier one. I just don't think we're there, and we may never be there.

[mchainmail]

You stole all my tech, including Enlightened Tutor + Cursed Totem. Damn you Matt Elias, and Damn you Adam Barnello!

[voltron00x]

You stole all my tech, including Enlightened Tutor + Cursed Totem. Damn you Matt Elias, and Damn you Adam Barnello!

Some of my Vintage teammates floated Cursed Totem in that format in MUD vs. MUD, as a way for non-Worker decks to beat Worker decks w/out using Null Rod. It seems better in Legacy, far more valid / impactful "targets".

[mchainmail]

Some of my Vintage teammates floated Cursed Totem in that format in MUD vs. MUD, as a way for non-Worker decks to beat Worker decks w/out using Null Rod. It seems better in Legacy, far more valid / impactful "targets".

Yeah, the card is insane, every creature in Legacy has a relevant activated ability, is named Tarmogoyf, Vendilion Clique, or is freaking huge.

[ivanpei]

The deck isn't bad, so much as I just don't think it is particularly good. I exaggerated in the article somewhat, for emphasis. Some friends of mine spent the day Sunday trying to convince me Dredge is the nut high.

I really would love it to be good. I have allllll the Dredge cards in foil for the day when it is tier one. I just don't think we're there, and we may never be there.

No worries, I also have the whole deck in Foil including SB (Need Wizards to print foil Undiscovered Paradises and Firestorms). Dredge is not well positioned right now, but if all the tempo-blue strategies stop being so popular and if combo wanes, it could be a good choice. I'd love to bring Dredge to a meta full of countertop. I wish dredge players will start realising that the most efficient way of winning is guaranteeing T1 Discard dredger, T2 the nuts with a draw spell/coliseum into therapies and Narcs FTW. DRs, Ionas, LEDs all just add to inconsistency. Cheers!

[mishima_kazuya]

Needs a little sub section about borrowing cards...
Cuz some of us are broke students who can't possibly get non-foil Mox Diamonds and revised duals for a tournament. :P

[Philipp2293]

Hi Matt, I only had time to quick-read it, but I bet it's a nice read and I always like articles with lots of decklists ( I'm even assembling elf-combo atm.) Two issues: Why no Sword of the Meek in Thopter Affinity? Second: When talking about the duals in top 8, one thing you should have mentioned is that one dual-free deck was running 4 candelabras, which are even more expensive (maybe you mentioned that, I just flew over the article).

Cheers

[Cthuloo]

Great article, as usual. For the "The Awesome Ways That People (Several of Which Are Me) Lose the Game! " series, this one happened to me.

I'm playing a B/g hexmage-depths homebrew in a local tournament. I'm in the play and start, swamp, Top. My opponent goes Tomb, Chalice@1. My brain thinks:"If it's stax it will have wasteland, if it's dragon stompy it will have blood moon", and I go Mox Diamond, Hexmage, Depths, make the token in my turn. He goes Chrome Mox, Chrome Mox, Control Magic (Pepole still play Faerie Stompy and with control magic maindeck trap!).

[Nightmare]

Yeah, the card is insane, every creature in Legacy has a relevant activated ability, is named Tarmogoyf, Vendilion Clique, or is freaking huge.

There's no such thing as new tech, just old tech revisited.

Colin Chilbert and I ran Cursed Totem in our boards in our oooooold Turboland decks, until we realized that Damping Matrix was just better. I was running Thop/Sword, so Matrix is out, but no creatures (and Moat/EBridge) so Cursed Totem is basically infinity Pithing Needles in one card.

[Sims]

There's no such thing as new tech, just old tech revisited.

Colin Chilbert and I ran Cursed Totem in our boards in our oooooold Turboland decks, until we realized that Damping Matrix was just better. I was running Thop/Sword, so Matrix is out, but no creatures (and Moat/EBridge) so Cursed Totem is basically infinity Pithing Needles in one card.

I approve of this flashback to a time when Legacy wasn't Legacy.

Thank you, Adam, for reminding me of the good ol' days.

on topic: Great article, Matt. You're the reason I wish Star City Games wasn't on my companies blocked sites list... I hate having to wait til I get home or read them on my blackberry.

[Finn]

Matt, your enthusiasm really makes itself known here. You seem to be having so much fun that I kinda wish that I were living the Magic life for awhile. It's contagious.

[GGoober]

Thanks for two things:

1) Cursed Totem (this is what I was looking for to find an answer against Lavamancer/Knight/Pridemage/Hierarch aka Zoo)
2) That's a freaking HUGE sammich!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[dahcmai]

Really old tech, I used Cursed Totem vs Morphling in Vintage.


Heh, good article, I enjoyed it though I hate it when people point out my favorite "trade for" card, Enlightened tutor.

[Jason]

This article is full of #winning and will teach you how to #planbetter and #earnyourself, even if you don't have #tigerblood

10/10!

(keep up the good work)