Feb FNM

[drmarkb]

Just 7 of us in Cardiff for Legacy FNM, although some old returnees and new faces among us. This month we had a bit of change in our usual decks. Whilst the online meta is sometimes over populated with the best combo decks, paper normally brings out fairer decks. Today it was once again combo heavy though, although not much in the way of storm style decks again (unless you count last month’s Yorion enchantress winning with storm count storm crows off of Murmuration as the wincon, we haven’t seen a deck winning with storm in months, which is rather different to online). There was a time when you would always see a storm deck here, doomsday too. Maybe they haven’t heard about the bauble ban.
In no particular order, today we had Breakfast, Elves, Mono R Painter, Delver, Dimir Reanimator, Mono Red Prison and Eldrazi.
Top of the shops was Breakfast on 9. Not a huge amount to say about this- it is a very good deck, Nadu is very good, and Thoracle is still winning games.
Painter was a clear second on 7. This wasn’t an especially radical build- a few tweaks/pet cards here and there in an established shell. Mono Red prison made it to 6 (Blood Moon is still making life unhappy for those wishing too cast spells), and Eldrazi a respctable 4. The others all pulled in at 3.

[drmarkb]

Our Friday Legacy FNMs continued pre ELM qualifier on the Saturday. We had just 8 but it was nice to see people down the night before. It was not really a case of extra practice the night before, as half the people played different versions or different decks entirely the next day. It was a chance to sit around, sling some favourites and natter about the ban list.
Our decks were
UB tempo,
RUG food chain- sweet build with infinitely big druids.
“Old” elves with Glimpse of Nature and a prayer to not run into Bowmen.
Dimir reanimator
Sneak and Show
Gwx Yorion enchantress
Red stompy (karn/3ball, not moon)
Nadu Breakfast

Top was UB tempo, 9 points from 9.
Elves RUG and S n T all finished positively, the remainder on 4 or less.

[drmarkb]

Only five hardy souls turned up for Legacy, so this will be short. I guess a few might be concentrating on Modern, which is in a good place and has an RCQ season, and although there is an unwritten rule that any Modern RCQ within 50 miles of me will be on the two dates I can’t make that quarter, I can see the attraction. Legacy has suffered a little these past couple years with a ban hammer that some think is too little, too late, with control especially under-represented in the era of pushed threats and cards from yesteryear that cheat them into play or protect them becoming better as a consequence.
Our five decks were mono white stompy (Urza’s/sol lands with new Clarion Conquorer and two spicy Ravages of war/Armageddon slots), Cephalid Breakfast, UB reanimator, Sneak and Show and Burn.
Mono W ended up 3-0, not dropping a game. In a combo heavy, tempo free environment it is well-placed as it can drop a variety of first turn disruptors and has much smoother mana these days. Breakfast and UB reanimator ended on 6,- the match of UB reanimator vs Sneak and Show was a great watch, with the others on 3.
Hoping for more next month – which might hopefully mean some promo prizes.

[drmarkb]

Seven of us in Cardiff for Legacy, an improvement on the last couple of months, and enough to qualify for prizes.
The decks present, in random order

Lands- new modern build, about the only control deck viable in the format.
UR delver- steel cutter
Burn
White stompy/prison.
Mystic Forge
UB reanimator. You know the drill.
Elves/Nadu/Breakfast. It has en kor. It has Nadu. It has Elves. It hasn’t got a Cephalid. It hasn’t got an exact name.

Now this might be the last month for UB reanimator as it is, but we have said that before and each ban has been unable to take it out to reasonable levels. I was one of the naysayers last time – I thought Troll ban would do nothing. Now I won’t use a report to push my specific ban/unban wants (except, on behalf of all six remaining Enchantress players: unban Earthcraft) , but I will say that I have done a lot of 20-50 player type events at various levels, the sort of large FNM to win a dual type things, and the most common decks I have seen are blue soup decks du jour, followed by tempo. Personally I don’t like blue soup, but right now they are unplayable, people like playing them and until they can get a format where it is very reasonable to play blue based control, I think the format will bleed numbers. I think they will hit UB and UB reanimator in some way and Oops, so if this the last UB reanimator it went out on a high; due to a result entry error, both it and Lands ended on 9, whilst everyone else won one.
Till next month.