[Article] Eternal Europe: Getting into Legacy for $500 or Less

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mon,Goblin Chief

UR Delver seems like a solid candidate for budgetizing and is something I considered but I was honestly unsure if the deck actually works fine with two or fewer Volcanics. I've found myself fetching for Duals a hell of a lot with the deck because you want flexible mana without dropping too many lands (Brainstorm fodder). Cutting Snapcasters and Forces from the deck on the other seems like it would make the deck a lot weaker or require significant restructuring (something I don't feel I have the experience to competently do, again see the paragraph about getting to the lists above). A ton of my wins in testing have come from Price of Progress, Snapcaster it back, you're dead.
If one of you (Zilla?) has a well tuned list that actually keeps the strengths of the non-budget list, I'd be happy to include it either next time or when I write another budget article*. Cutting Forces removes one of the biggest incentives for playing UR over straight burn imo because combo-opponents don't have to attempt to play around them any more.

---

I don't play Snapcasters at all in my build, and I run Forces in the side for combo, because they feel extremely weak against everything else. Those Forces could easily become Flusterstorm or even Spell Pierce and still fulfill the role pretty well, I think.

For reference, you can find my list (and my reasoning for the lack of Snapcaster and FoW) in this post here. I'd feel comfortable dropping two Volcs from that list for two more basic Mountains, honestly. A lot of other people are already running only two, and I think you could get away with a singleton if you really had to.

It's not playing to win to play an optimized bad deck, either in the near or long term.

It's not reasonable to expect someone to start Legacy off the bat buying all the expensive staples; it's a huge investment and should be done over time (if at all), so one has to approach this rationally;

If you have $400 to spend, how do you best optimize your chances of winning both in the near and long term?

It's not Affinity, which is a bad deck that's easily hated; nor Dredge, which is a good deck but also easily hated. If you want to win tournaments you want to begin working on a deck that will enable you to adjust to the changes in the meta and maximize your overall odds of winning.

It's actually wanting to have an optimized list regardless of anything else that's not playing to win, that's exhibiting scrubby behavior. You can build an optimal list of Mono-Red Goblins (whatever that means; unlike apparently everyone else I don't think it's "optimal" to just try to apply the exact same strategies from 2005-2006 that fell out of favor for a reason), but if the meta shifts a bit what do you have? The decklist is too dependent on internal synergies to adjust very much to swings in the metagame. Your desire to play an "optimized" list and thus avoid criticism of sub-par card choices has actually cost you a net chance of winning. You can continue playing your optimized deadend deck regardless of the metagame but that's not playing to win at all. Much better to play a build of Maverick or Delver Burn or whatever that's below par but tenable and flexible enough to be changed around to suit a different meta. Ultimately you would like to have a collection versatile enough that you can build whatever given deck you think is optimal at any given time (with the help of friends in all likelihood), but you have to get there first.

So how is one going to play a viable deck without dual-lands, wastelands, and Forces? It seems like it's unavoidable if one wants to actually start playing competitive Legacy without dropping a bunch of money in a deck.

Zilla/4eak: Running four Mountains in a non-monocolor deck seems like a structural flaw to me that I wouldn't want to have to deal with. So many bad draws hands just on the mana. The reason green and blue decks can get away with that kind of basic commitment is because either cantrips or manacreatures like Birds/Hierarch help you fix your mana if you only draw the Islands/Forests.
I'll give Zilla's list with 2 Volc, no Foothills (adding Arid Mesas and, I guess an Island) and some replacement for the Fireblasts (Probably a Ponder and a Preordain as placeholders until I think of something that comes closer to being like Fireblast) a few games to impress me. If it does, I'll calculate what that list would cost and include it next time if it qualifies.

I admit I might be wrong as far as FoW&Snapcaster are concerned, though Snappy was, as mentioned, very good for me when testing the non-budget version of the deck. FoW is admittedly quite weak in a lot of matchups but very important in certain other ones. Maybe the thread of it (plus something like Flusterstorm in the board) is good enough, though.

As far as not playing budget lists myself, why would I bring a budget deck to a tournament or spend time testing it when I can bring/tune/get better with my weapon of choice?(it isn't like I have infi time to devote to Magic)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin

It's not playing to win to play an optimized bad deck, either in the near or long term.

It's not reasonable to expect someone to start Legacy off the bat buying all the expensive staples; it's a huge investment and should be done over time (if at all), so one has to approach this rationally;

If you have $400 to spend, how do you best optimize your chances of winning both in the near and long term?

It's not Affinity, which is a bad deck that's easily hated; nor Dredge, which is a good deck but also easily hated. If you want to win tournaments you want to begin working on a deck that will enable you to adjust to the changes in the meta and maximize your overall odds of winning.

It's actually wanting to have an optimized list regardless of anything else that's not playing to win, that's exhibiting scrubby behavior. You can build an optimal list of Mono-Red Goblins (whatever that means; unlike apparently everyone else I don't think it's "optimal" to just try to apply the exact same strategies from 2005-2006 that fell out of favor for a reason), but if the meta shifts a bit what do you have? The decklist is too dependent on internal synergies to adjust very much to swings in the metagame. Your desire to play an "optimized" list and thus avoid criticism of sub-par card choices has actually cost you a net chance of winning. You can continue playing your optimized deadend deck regardless of the metagame but that's not playing to win at all. Much better to play a build of Maverick or Delver Burn or whatever that's below par but tenable and flexible enough to be changed around to suit a different meta. Ultimately you would like to have a collection versatile enough that you can build whatever given deck you think is optimal at any given time (with the help of friends in all likelihood), but you have to get there first.

---

Those decks may be easy to hate out but honestly, I've yet to see that kind of thing happen in a big enough way to actually make them bad choices. Even when Survival ran rampant, people refused to bring that much hate. I doubt Affinity or even Dredge ever reach levels of play to change that behavior in the player demographic. Essentially "it can be hated" is a useless argument as far as choosing your deck for Legacy is concerned, at least about 90% of the time. People don't do that, and rightfully so, most of the time. There are just too many narrow, easy to hate decks in Legacy to prepare sufficiently to hate out even a limited number of them as long as they aren't dominating the meta you're playing in. That's why you build decks that can either compete on natural power level (with maybe one obvious flaw that you can address with hate) or build something flexible enough that it can answer just about anything reasonably well without needing to resort to obvious hate.

/edit: Sure, these decks may be badly positioned in the meta for a time. News flash - the same is true for every other deck you might build. Just because you started investing into something that will turn into a harder to hate archetype once its finished doesn't mean you suddenly have the cards to build something totally different even if there is overlap.

I also totally disagree with what you believe people should do to get into the format - though I know some people here started that way. I actually got into Vintage that way during the mid-nineties and if I hadn't been lucky enough to a) be bad enough to not realize how bad my deck was and how much more I lost because of it and b) live at my parents as a teenager so that I was able to funnel a ton of money into Vintage staples (Drains, Dual, Moats, Power, etc - luckily much cheaper back then), I'd have given up on the format and Magic due to being totally disheartened. Losing because the cards in your deck suck because you can't pay for the good ones is incredibly depressing.
What you suggest boils down to playing a mediocre deck for at least year or two (looking at staple prices possibly more) so that you can slowly work your way towards an actual optimal deck. I'd probably have quit the format three times over before the first year ended if I followed that plan now that I actually realize how much playing the suboptimal cards cost me. I'd much prefer to have an actual good deck the power of which rises and falls somewhat depending on metagame tides but which I can play for those two years knowing I have a honed weapon not a flamethrower made by combining a lighter and a spraycan.
During that time, I can save up for/work towards whichever staples I want and start building a real deck (instead of a budget version of something) while trying to crush tournaments with something that's actually built to do so.

In short, I'd much rather play a structurally sound, good version of a deck that may not be in the ideal place in the metagame for a time than play a bad version of a deck that would be good if I had the money to build it.
One is something that works and loses if opponents are prepared for it (something that can happen to just about any deck), while the other other is a mediocre concoction that loses as much to its own imperfections as it does to the opponent. Nobody said playing budget is what you want to be doing if you're playing to win, but at least you're actually favored to win a tournament - as in your deck is one of the optimal choices - some of the time (when the meta is right for your deck) instead of being unlikely to ever do so because your deck naturally sucks.

It really helps to have a network of people to borrow from when you slowly buy staples towards a higher tier deck than stick with affinity in the meantime.

The way you outlined might be the best way -today- to get in the format, since the cost is so high, but a couple years back certainly getting staples wasn't so draining. And that's where I'm coming from.

Thanks for the responses!

There are only a few optimized lists for any established deck that can be played on a relative budget, to be honest. It's pretty much just Elves, Dredge, and maybe Goblins if we're trying to stay away from utter dreck and under-developed decks (I'd like to throw MWC in there but I'm not really completely happy with any given list in the current meta, and I don't think it's established enough to attract the attention of someone just getting into the format). Elves and Goblins are of questionable goodness and easy to break; Dredge will straight up lose to a metagame that's prepared for it, and pretty miserably. These aren't good decks to keep showing up to a small weekly tournament with, because people will be aware that you always play the same deck and if you start to win they'll just hate it out.

The problem is that you're acting as if running an optimized list will obviously give you a better matchup percentage than playing a suboptimal list- actually, you're acting like optimized lists just win and suboptimal lists jsut lose, and that's just not true. You could straight up run a deck like Zoo with Ravnica duals instead of regulars, and Watchwolves instead of Tarmogoyfs, and I would wager that over the course of two months at local tourneys you would win a lot more frequently than with a deck like Dredge, no matter how optimal. Would you lose games because you're running sub-optimal cards? Sure. You'd lose more games with Dredge because you're stuck in a sub-optimal position; able to run only one deck which is easily beaten by about anyone that cares enough to put 4 Crypts or 4 Leylines or 4 Ravenous Traps or Surgical Extractions in the board, even assuming you had good matchups to start with.

You seem to have an emotional investment in running optimal lists. I'm saying that new players operating on a budget can't afford such a liability. Magic cards cost money which in the real world is a limited resource. If it's not worth it to a new player to invest $1000 in an optimized decklist, and it's probably not, then they should work on building towards that decklist a step at a time, and especially picking up the staples that can be switched around if they decide they'd rather run something else after all.

I agree with Mon here. Anyone who is SERIOUS about playing Legacy but still has the need for the importance of budgeting will INVEST in the format. By investing I do not mean anticipating cards to go up and down and make monetary profit (i.e. what bulk of Modern speculation is all about), but by investing, I mean that when you know you put $50 in one card, it is going to be the card in a fairly optimal build that is going to win you more games than cost you games had you not played the card.

To truly build a budget deck, you would basically have to pick mono-colored non-blue decks and there aren't many of them out there that are tier 1.5 to tier 1. Quinn, Goblins, Elves are all great candidates that are within $250-$300 (i.e. very affordable good price for Legacy considering any other format is going to cost much more than this).

The main issue with Legacy is that people who are SERIOUS in the format and want to invest (the way I termed 'invest') would want to eventually get duals/FoWs/Wastes so they can build and play more decks, rather than the narrow decks you play. In that sense, the investment of $250-$300 into a cheap budget deck that win games is in fact a short-term investment because the true investment is a long-term one buying into duals and other staples. The overall long-term cost will be cheaper because you'll win more games with those staples/more-choices to build decks.

Note that what I've typed here is in COMPLETE disagreement with what Drago is asking. I am not stating that you need FoWs/Wastes/Duals to be successful in Legacy. I'm stating that a person investing in Legacy should acquire FoW/Waste/Duals because those build many other good decks, but are not neccesarily the key cards that win Legacy. Decks and players win Legacy, not individual cards. And sometimes decks without FoW/Waste/Duals will win tournaments depending on the meta.

Wow you guys are overly critical of Mon's article.

A lot people are scared to get into Legacy because of the cost implications and he is offering sound advice how to get into competitive Legacy at a somewhat reasonable price.

Yes, if you a hardcore Legacy player than Merfolk or U/R delver would be much better starting points. However, if someone who plays only Vintage or Standard wants to get into Legacy so they can play at a random tourney here and there or just goof off with friends then this article is for them.

You can't factor every single Magic player's situation to be just like yours.

Perhaps someone would like a Legacy deck they can port over to Vintage(one day), then dredge might be there best bet.
Or a Legacy deck they can use for Modern then affinity would be ideal.

All the decks Mon's wrote about in his article are fun decks, as well as competive at one point or another. Nice article.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin

There are only a few optimized lists for any established deck that can be played on a relative budget, to be honest. It's pretty much just Elves, Dredge, and maybe Goblins if we're trying to stay away from utter dreck and under-developed decks (I'd like to throw MWC in there but I'm not really completely happy with any given list in the current meta, and I don't think it's established enough to attract the attention of someone just getting into the format). Elves and Goblins are of questionable goodness and easy to break; Dredge will straight up lose to a metagame that's prepared for it, and pretty miserably. These aren't good decks to keep showing up to a small weekly tournament with, because people will be aware that you always play the same deck and if you start to win they'll just hate it out.

The problem is that you're acting as if running an optimized list will obviously give you a better matchup percentage than playing a suboptimal list- actually, you're acting like optimized lists just win and suboptimal lists jsut lose, and that's just not true. You could straight up run a deck like Zoo with Ravnica duals instead of regulars, and Watchwolves instead of Tarmogoyfs, and I would wager that over the course of two months at local tourneys you would win a lot more frequently than with a deck like Dredge, no matter how optimal. Would you lose games because you're running sub-optimal cards? Sure. You'd lose more games with Dredge because you're stuck in a sub-optimal position; able to run only one deck which is easily beaten by about anyone that cares enough to put 4 Crypts or 4 Leylines or 4 Ravenous Traps or Surgical Extractions in the board, even assuming you had good matchups to start with.

You seem to have an emotional investment in running optimal lists. I'm saying that new players operating on a budget can't afford such a liability. Magic cards cost money which in the real world is a limited resource. If it's not worth it to a new player to invest $1000 in an optimized decklist, and it's probably not, then they should work on building towards that decklist a step at a time, and especially picking up the staples that can be switched around if they decide they'd rather run something else after all.

---

I don't have an emotional investment in playing optimal lists, I have an emotional investment in not shooting myself in the foot before I'm competing in 100m dash.

As such I'd definitely run Dredge over Ravnica Zoo for two months straight, no question. The number of people that actually have sufficient hate to keep the deck down AND get paired against me AND draw the hate during those three turns that matter is bound to be lower than the number of people that kill me because I start the game at 14 instead of 20.
Just because a deck can be hated doesn't mean people actually do that. Dredge in particular is actually quite good at fighting through hate in the hands of a capable player and there is a significant number of games where opponents don't find one of their three or four hatecards (and that's a high estimate of actual hate judging by the decklists I see in Top 8s) through mulliganing and they just die before the hate ever turns up.

Sure Dredge can be hated out if people are ready for you. The same is true for Storm, Reanimator, or just about any other linear deck you'd care to name. Those decks still win events and top eight a lot.
It doesn't even end there. If people prepare for you specifically, you're going to lose and lose hard, independent of how much cash you've put into building your deck or which deck you've chosen to play. If you've managed to dominate the meta in your LGS to the point that people run a bunch of hate for you personally, I'd say your deck has been doing its job quite well. Probably well enough to pay for a different budget deck with a totally different focus to keep people guessing and show them that hating on you in particular is bad EV for them in the context of the whole event.
Because quite honestly, how many people actually go out of their way enough to make sure they cannot possibly lose a certain linear matchup? In my experience that number is vanishingly small, as long as the deck isn't totally dominating the field in question.
Taking the example of Dredge, the deck among the ones I suggested that is most likely to see enough hate to be in trouble because there are other gy-based decks. You're still likely winning game 1 (assuming people aren't at the point of MDing Leylines) and you still have a chance to beat people even if they draw their hate if you know your deck in and out. There's a reason the deck keeps performing at SCG Opens: people only dedicate significant hate to it if they're rather sure they'll face the matchup and if the hate isn't overwhelming, the deck can still win handily in the hands of a capable pilot (becoming that should be your goal if you're investing in the first place).

Now compare that to running a suboptimal version of a real deck. If your real deck isn't overwhelmingly powerful to begin with, you're going to lose a lot of percentages in every single matchup you face. As such, you're unlikely to be the favorite whatever opponent you're paired against. Why? Because otherwise the optimal version would be utterly crushing tournaments and dominate the format.
You have to keep in mind that by building a suboptimal version of something, you're taking that deck's matchups and making them worse across the board, be it because your mana is more fragile or because you're missing important angles of attack/defense or both.

In particular:

Quote:

---

The problem is that you're acting as if running an optimized list will obviously give you a better matchup percentage than playing a suboptimal list- actually, you're acting like optimized lists just win and suboptimal lists jsut lose, and that's just not true

---

It sure as hell does. Running with a suboptimal list means that, in addition to losing to the already existing bad matchups any deck has in Legacy, you also lose good matchups because your deck is suboptimal and doesn't do what it's supposed to do. Yeah, sure, people won't run hate specifically to deal with you. That's because you're no freaking threat to them in the first place, though.

Heck, the matchups that are supposed to be good for the optimal list might be additional bad matchups for the suboptimal list because the cards you've cut for budget reasons might be and likely are important to win the supposedly good matchups (otherwise why would the optimal version run them).
Obviously a suboptimal list will win games, even matches. It will do so with a much lower frequency than the optimal list of the same deck would. That's all fine and dandy if the optimal list is something ridiculous like Flash that just crushes the rest of the format (I'd be perfectly fine with running a budget version of flash over any optimal cheaper deck - budget Flash is likely still better than that deck even if it's worse than optimal Flash) but if even the optimal list is only one of a number of solid contenders in the metagame, the suboptimal list will be significantly behind against any optimized list of any good deck it might face throughout a tournament. Why? Because the opponent's list is probably already built in a way to have the ability to put up a fight against the optimal version of your deck. If it's able to do that, it's likely favored against your suboptimal rendition of the same deck.

By running the optimal version of a strong linear deck, you get to run a deck that operates at maximum power level. As long as that deck is a viable choice for a Legacy tournament (and just about every list I presented other than Hypergenesis has proven to be a viable choice in a tournament by, you know, doing well in tournaments) and you know how to fight through light amounts of hate, you stand a solid chance of actually crushing opponent after opponent and winning the freaking event. Sure, at some point you might run into a player or even multiple players that are ready for you and lose. Shit happens. The same thing could happen to you with your all Asian foil TES or Stoneblade list.
In truth, though, the simple fact that most of the decks I presented aren't huge metagame presences (other than Dredge and that still isn't hated enough to keep it out of top eights anyway) basically precludes problems of that nature because I doubt all that many players are ready to give up 4+ SB slots to deal with fringe strategies. People don't do that, at least not in the tournaments I play in, watch or find decklists from. Why would they, they'd weaken their decks in more common matchups.

If you want something close to proof for what I'm saying check the number of budgetized versions of staple archetypes that have made it to the top 8/16 of tournaments and compare it to the number of cheap linear strategies with builds unaffected by financial concerns (other than being already cheap linear strategies) that have made it into top 8s/16s. You'll see that numbers overwhelmingly support my point of view.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Metalwalker

Note that what I've typed here is in COMPLETE disagreement with what Drago is asking. I am not stating that you need FoWs/Wastes/Duals to be successful in Legacy. I'm stating that a person investing in Legacy should acquire FoW/Waste/Duals because those build many other good decks, but are not neccesarily the key cards that win Legacy. Decks and players win Legacy, not individual cards. And sometimes decks without FoW/Waste/Duals will win tournaments depending on the meta.

---

It seems unavoidable that in some combination, you will need FOW/Wastes/Duals. Especially duals. Not in local tournaments since rogue decks have the ability to thrive there, but larger tournaments may be more difficult. But yes, you are entirely correct about the player is the actual thing that wins and not any specific card.

Except you really don't need them per se. Wasteland is particularly useful and used in a variety of decks, but storm combo and dredge could care less about it or running it. Force of Will is needed if you want to win while playing blue, but hardly necessary to win in general. Duals while certainly useful can be worked around if you want to go budget. Take a look at Reid Duke's list from the invitational, or the various dredge decks placing top 8's and top 4's, obviously you don't NEED those to win, but they do help if those decks are not your style.

I have honestly done both of these ideas, building a meh version of a real deck and building towards it, it worked out well when i finally got the main pieces but not before then, and I have just flat built an optimized deck and gave it a go. Specifically I did an optimized version of Meandeck MUD in Legacy, Metalworker Welder shenanigans (REALLY fun deck) and Goblins. Goblins terrorized everyone and I took down a few tournaments, one through a mono white control deck with Tividar's Crusades, CoP Red's, Wraths, Swords, you name it, I still won. Having that Optimal list means that sure you punt the combo matchup, but win the matches you are supposed to win. Goblins has to be, in my opinion, one of the best decks to do this with. It is relatively cheap, can power through a lot of hate if built correctly (I ran 4 maindeck Stingscourgers and wow was that strong), and punishes weak hands of any deck in a hurry. Overall it is extremely consistent and powerful, without breaking the bank, the next I would suggest in that same vein is Zoo. Dredge is a weird example though because while it can just obliterate a tournament, if they are ready, or locally you become known as the Dredge guy and everyone boards for you, well it was fun while it lasted, but pick another deck, otherwise it smashes. Just my two cents.