New to Legacy -- What to Get Into?

[Figurative]

Hey guys,

I previously was someone that played almost exclusively modern, and prided myself on being an expert of that format. However, after GP Seattle, I feel really inspired to pursue legacy. It seems like what modern was trying to be -- sure there are some issues, like price and blue's prevalence, but overall I fell in love with legacy. I brought burn, as it was cheap and good enough to take me 5-4 with no prior legacy experience. However, I am looking to upgrade into better and more fun to play/less linear. Some of the decks I've considered are:

MUD
Red Stompy
DnT
UR Delver
Merfolk

Each of these decks have their pluses and minuses, but I'm not sure which one outweighs the others. My budget is about $1,500 -- if I built UR Delver it would likely be with only 1-2 volcanic islands. Thanks!

[Dice_Box]

The questions are always the same:

1) What do you want to play?
2) Do you plan to extend?
3) What do you own?
4) What's your limit on future spending?

If your going to specialise in one deck (Many of us do that) then your best plan is to work out what that will be and then build off it. Build up to it. If your going to by a deck and move around, then getting Duals should be where your looking to go and Delver is the first choice for that.

Get a friend, go to metadeck.me and get started. You will work out what you like fast and what you dislike. Then build. Really asking what deck anyone should play is often a personal question. Not everyone will want to play my deck if choice so it's up to you to find our what yours is.

[Figurative]

The questions are always the same:

1) What do you want to play?
2) Do you plan to extend?
3) What do you own?
4) What's your limit on future spending?

If your going to specialise in one deck (Many of us do that) then your best plan is to work out what that will be and then build off it. Build up to it. If your going to by a deck and move around, then getting Duals should be where your looking to go and Delver is the first choice for that.

Get a friend, go to metadeck.me and get started. You will work out what you like fast and what you dislike. Then build. Really asking what deck anyone should play is often a personal question. Not everyone will want to play my deck if choice so it's up to you to find our what yours is.

1 I'm not 100% sure honestly. I don't think I want to play combo but anything else is fair game. I also want to play something that interacts and doesn't auto-die some matchups like burn does. Also I want a deck that's tier 2 or higher.
2 Hopefully...
3 Don't own much in the way of legacy playables, though I do have most khans fetches, a complete RG Tron deck (with groves, wurmcoils, ugins, karns, etc), and a Liliana of the Veil in my binder.
4 However much money I can scrounge up. Though Christmas is coming up so that helps in terms of that.


I have been testing on cockatrice and whatnot, however I'm not sure what between these decks. I was wondering if there were any I should stay away from or something.

[Echelon]

Sounds like anyDelver.dec. Playing around with a core of 8 blue fetch, 4 Delver of Secrets, 4 Ponder, 4 Brainstorm, 4 Daze and 4 FoW and mayhaps 4 Wasteland would allow you to expand relatively easy into other decks when you get bored with your current build. And there'll always be some tier 1/1.5 deck running that stuff.

Grixis Delver plays the cheapest creature suite, though the manabase is quite expensive (especially for those builds that also run DRS, you'd be talking USea's and Tropical and Volcanic Islands).

[jrsthethird]

You could build Merfolk while working towards Grixis Delver. Like they said, the creature suite is rather cheap (<$50), but you're gonna pay a ton for dual lands, plus Waste and FOW. Merfolk has Waste and FOW, so you'll have those under your belt while saving for duals.

Merfolk ~ $1300 total

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/legacy-merfolk-22035#paper

U/R Delver ~ $2100

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/legacy-u-r-delver#paper

Grixis Delver ~ $2700

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/legacy-burg-delver-20812#paper

[Dice_Box]

I like the Merfolk idea, because if your mostly a Modern player, the cards are not dead because it is a powerful deck in the format. The only creatures you will get for Legacy Fish you cant play in Modern is your set of True-Name.

[apple713]

Hey guys,

I previously was someone that played almost exclusively modern, and prided myself on being an expert of that format. However, after GP Seattle, I feel really inspired to pursue legacy. It seems like what modern was trying to be -- sure there are some issues, like price and blue's prevalence, but overall I fell in love with legacy. I brought burn, as it was cheap and good enough to take me 5-4 with no prior legacy experience. However, I am looking to upgrade into better and more fun to play/less linear. Some of the decks I've considered are:

MUD
Red Stompy
DnT
UR Delver
Merfolk

Each of these decks have their pluses and minuses, but I'm not sure which one outweighs the others. My budget is about $1,500 -- if I built UR Delver it would likely be with only 1-2 volcanic islands. Thanks!


dark depths is probably the cheapest deck you;ll be able to build by several hundred dollars and its very competitive. You can check out the primer in my signature

[Paul7926]

You will get as many answers as there are Legacy players but just in case it helps this is what I did (or rather am still doing).

Proxy up decks to play with friends (or do it online) until you find one that you like. I mean really like. For a lot of people I think the deck picks them rather than the other way around and Legacy is a format where learning one deck well has it's rewards.

Then I was going to research the deck and plot a path from nothing to the deck I wanted. The Merfolk -> UR Delver -> Grixis Delver post above is the perfect example of that.

As it turned out Legacy has decided that I'm a goblin player and there really isn't a path from nothing to goblins. There are however different builds (especially the splash colour) so I looked at all the core cards across the builds and started picking up the ones that are in all of them. The first goal was pure mono red (no need for duals) and even now I'm using shock lands instead of duals for splashes.

Don't be afraid to play a non perfect list either. I've attended a couple of local Legacy Sundays with nothing like my final list and still had fun playing (back to the part where just loving your deck is important).

Now I'm getting close to having the goblin list finished I'm seriously thinking about picking up the bits (slowly) to port my Grixis Control modern deck into something Legacy playable as well.

This format is addictive as well as being a lot of fun.

[Tylert]

D&T has pretty much no overlap with any deck around (Except maybe for the wasteland and ports), but it's the most powerfull deck of what you listed (No, i'm not biased).
Red stompy and mud have some elements in common but with I guess no other decks (except if you red stompy is a goblin list with moggcatcher, then it has common elements with goblins).
Merfolk should have some common elements with goblins (Cavern / vial), and some with blue shell decks (FoW / daze?) but not enough to port it easily.

If you want your deck to evolve, then i'd pick UR delver within the list you proposed. It's the one that has the most common part with some other decks (all other delver decks) and is somehow what could become the most competitive list except D&T.

[H]

I would just go right to UR Delver. While you work your way to enough Volcanic Islands, just run some Steam Vents. Once you have that done, you can get some Underground Seas and play Grixis Delver, or get Tropical Islands and play RUG (although then you'd need Goyfs).

[JPoJohnson]

You could build Merfolk while working towards Grixis Delver. Like they said, the creature suite is rather cheap (<$50), but you're gonna pay a ton for dual lands, plus Waste and FOW. Merfolk has Waste and FOW, so you'll have those under your belt while saving for duals.

Merfolk ~ $1300 total

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/legacy-merfolk-22035#paper

U/R Delver ~ $2100

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/legacy-u-r-delver#paper

Grixis Delver ~ $2700

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/legacy-burg-delver-20812#paper

This is a fantastic path to take. A lot of the cards that you pick up along the way and eventually sell off are always in demand. At some point you either enjoy what you're playing and stop, or continue to progress towards what your end goal is.

I think regardless of what you decide, you can have a pathway that the deck evolves into what you want in the end. After reviewing options and doing some play testing, feel free to post your end goal deck and we can decide some budget substitutes on your way to developing the end goal. (:

[BeardTron]

Definitely proxy a few and see what you enjoy the most. Look through the Decks to Beat and Established Decks thread to get some ideas. There are some really cool options.

My personal opinion...is that there are so many cool things you can do in Legacy...why waste it on playing Delver. It's so boring and plain. Sure, it's good, and competitive...but I couldn't imagine playing it over the long term as a main deck.