Legacy Living End

[FTW]

Living End Cascade has never really been competitive in Legacy before.

But there are recent developments:
1) Grief scam is tier 1
2) The new 1-mana landcyclers
3) Bowmasters normally punishes cycling, but landcycling gets around it
4) RUG Waterfalls went from a meme deck to winning Legacy challenges because cascading into Rhinos plays well around the current meta

If cascading into 2 4/4s is enough to win games, cascading into Wrath + good creatures should be strong. Cycling also helps you draw into the combo enablers, while Waterfalls depends on already having them in hand. You don't need to Living End on turn 1, which means you don't need to run Spirit Guides (bad draws) and can take your time cycling to fix your hand. Living End also pitches to Grief. Hardcasting the creatures is also a reasonable lategame plan after heavy disruption, while Rhinos can only suspend and wait 4 turns.

4c Living End

//Combo: 11
4 Violent Outburst
4 Shardless Agent
3 Living End

//Protection: 13
4 Force of Will
4 Grief
4 Brazen Borrower
1 Force of Negation

//Cyclers: 24
4 Street Wraith
4 Striped Riverwinder
4 Architects of Will
4 Troll of Khazad-dûm
4 Generous Ent
4 Oliphaunt

//Lands: 12
2 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island
1 Taiga
1 Bayou
1 Underground Sea
1 Badlands
1 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Boseiju, Who Endures
1 Otawara, Soaring City

//Sideboard: 15
4 Faerie Macabre
3 Force of Negation
2 Foundation Breaker
2 Boseiju, Who Endures
2 Anger of the Gods
1 Brotherhood's End
1 Currency Converter


16 creatures castable at 4-mana, so you're not helpless if opponent shuts down Living End. Fair beatdown is a plan. Cascading into Currency Converter is the ultimate backup plan when all else fails.

The 4c mana is a bit greedy. 12 landcylers help fix colors and also ramp to hardcasting mana.

Another option is to forget black and use UG as the main colors. You lose Grief and casting Living End, but Green offers Endurance, Force of Vigor, Boseiju, Who Endures, and Colossal Skyturtle.

RUG Living End

//Combo: 11
4 Violent Outburst
4 Shardless Agent
3 Living End

//Protection: 15
4 Force of Will
4 Brazen Borrower
4 Endurance
3 Colossal Skyturtle

//Cyclers: 20
4 Street Wraith
4 Striped Riverwinder
4 Curator of Mysteries
4 Generous Ent
4 Oliphaunt

//Lands: 14
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island
1 Taiga
1 Forest
1 Mountain
3 Boseiju, Who Endures

//Sideboard: 15
4 Faerie Macabre
4 Foundation Breaker
3 Force of Negation
3 City of Solitude
1 Colossal Skyturtle


City of Solitude is basically Defense Grid that works with cascade, pitches to Endurance, and doesn't backfire if you let opponent play 3 lands.

Here's a link to Modern Living End: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/modern-living-end#paper
We could copy that, but Legacy is also a different format with different obstacles to play around.

[ESG]

It's an interesting deck that is likely to fit into Legacy at some point, but I don't know if now is its moment. I don't think the backup plan of playing creatures is much of a plan, since the creatures are so mopey. I don't think the Rhinos deck is that good, but what it does have going for it is that it's one turn to two turns faster because of Spirit Guides. These Living End lists don't really do much unless they have a cascade spell, so the premise is that you need a cascade spell for a hand to be keepable, or you might be able to keep a hand with multiple cyclers. So the mulligan rate is likely to be high. When I goldfished the first list, I found that to be true.

Someone did reasonably well with a list on MTGO last month. Here's that list to consider:
https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=47107&d=548111&f=LE

I think if the critical turn is Turn 3, then Mississippi River is going to play the same kind of game better. That deck has massive redundancy and doesn't get randomly hosed by graveyard hate. It also gets to ignore countermagic a lot of the time. Living End still has to beat countermagic and sometimes permanents in play that are obstacles to the plan.

I appreciate this deck from the standpoint of playing a different type of game, but I wouldn't run it myself unless it was faster. I think it has a lot of bad matchups and not a whole lot of sideboard flexibility. I think decks with The One Ring will be a problem, since this deck wants to attack. Resolving Living End is only Part 1 of winning the game. Teferi's numbers have come down due to Orcish Bowmasters, but Teferi is still a nightmare to face. Recently I've been seeing more Lavinias, which I attribute to more people gunning for Storm combo.

Now that Beseech the Mirror exists, that could be another way to cast Living End, although getting the permanents to meet the Bargain requirement would be difficult. As Foretold is still around, but that probably doesn't help.

[FTW]

Rhinos has put up impressive results lately, ignoring Bowmasters. It's faster with Spirit Guides, but even less likely to see a cascader. Cheap cycling increases the number of draws to see a cascade spell, so this should be able to cascade more often than Rhinos can. Their backup plan is to cast 4 drops or suspend Rhinos, not much better than this deck's backup plan of casting Curator and Grief (landcycling means you can hit 4 lands on time).

Although the critical turn is slower than Rhinos (0 Spirit Guides), the effect is also stronger than Rhinos: not only do you put more power onto the board but you also wipe opponent's board! It's not just Reanimate but also removal. The control aspect of Living End means it doesn't have to present the fastest threat because it also deals with opponent's threats. The goldfish turn is worse, but in real games creature-based decks will struggle to use those extra turns to race. That aspect gets missed goldfishing. This is more combo-control. It doesn't have to goldfish as fast.

Using Violent Outburst on opponent's combat step as instant Wrath is a very relevant line vs Depths, Mississippi River, SneakShow, fast aggro, etc.

Getting raced by spell-based combo is a risk, though the deck can run many maindeck answers to disrupt their clock: Force of Will, Grief, Force of Negation, Brazen Borrower.

That Living End list is very close to my first one. The main difference is less Borrowers and more Force of Negation main. That should have better game vs spell-based combo but worse vs permanent-based disruption.

Mississippi River may be a better turn 3 deck. Their engine is more resilient to disruption and more likely to win the turn it resolves Creative Technique. On the other hand, it struggles to play any relevant interaction on Turns 0-2 so it struggles vs fast combo. Living End can at least run all the Tier 1 free interaction (FoW, FoN, Grief, FoV, Leyline), so it has better mainboard and sideboard answers than Mississippi can. However Living End is vulnerable to more SB hate, so it also needs to board more to protect the engine.

There's a lot of interaction to prevent Ring from hitting the board (FoW, FoN, Grief). My list has 4 Borrowers specifically to deal with problems like Teferi, Lavinia, maindeck grave hate, Chalice @ 0, etc. Mississippi River has fewer options to interact with disruption like that. It's probably still the better deck, but at least Living End can offer a different angle.

[ESG]

Looks like a Living End player just missed the Top 8 of a 101-player MTGO Challenge:
https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=51954&d=585556&f=LE