While the Louisville Legacy sounds like an indoor hockey team — not to be confused with the MLB Louisville Eclipse that existed in the 1880s — it's an apt moniker for this week's games, as Grand Prix Louisville kicks off 2017 with some of the oldest-school (old-schoolest?) Magic around. And now that Magic Online leagues are in full swing, the Legacy metagame has far more data than the other years in which I've written this column. So this is good a look at Legacy as I've gotten to do. It is as luxurious as it sounds.

Terminus Is Tuck-y . . . Ken-tucky!

Here are the listed 5-0 decks from Legacy leagues from December 21, 2016 to January 3, 2017:

Archetypes being as fine-tuned as they are, it's clear that Delver of Secrets is having a party these days. Everyone's favorite Human Wizard who looks like he's making a tribute video to "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" would take the top spot in these rankings if its players could decide once and for all whether to keep things Sultai or more of a Grixis Young Pyromancer build that also has Green for Ancient Grudge's flashback and Deathrite Shaman's Green activation. Regardless, he's a force to be reckoned with:

Sultai Delver ? Legacy | kogomo

• Creatures (13)
• 1 Tombstalker
• 4 Deathrite Shaman
• 4 Delver of Secrets
• 4 Tarmogoyf

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 2 Liliana of the Veil

• Instants (17)
• 1 Dismember
• 4 Abrupt Decay
• 4 Brainstorm
• 4 Daze
• 4 Force of Will

• Sorceries (8)
• 4 Hymn to Tourach
• 4 Ponder

• Lands (20)
• 1 Misty Rainforest
• 1 Tropical Island
• 2 Bayou
• 4 Polluted Delta
• 4 Underground Sea
• 4 Verdant Catacombs
• 4 Wasteland

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Darkblast
• 2 Dead Weight
• 1 Dread of Night
• 1 Golgari Charm
• 1 Grafdigger's Cage
• 2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
• 1 Pithing Needle
• 2 Surgical Extraction
• 2 Thoughtseize
• 1 Vendilion Clique
• 1 Winter Orb

Buy This Deck

Still playing the tempo-counter game better than anyone, the shell, and particularly sideboard, are customizable to the metagame. There's quite a bit here to stop reanimation (Grafdigger's Cage, Surgical Extraction), some cheap removal for other Delver decks, and Dread of Night for the recent adaptations of Miracles (discussed in a moment). Some versions, apparently ones that don't have access to the more expensive cards in the sideboard, are running Diabolic Edict against reanimation decks and Invasive Surgery for all manner of sorceries. As always, when there's an low-cost instant or sorcery that answers something in Legacy, it's got a chance of showing up in a Delver 75.

Repping the high-cost instants and sorceries is the deck that, with apologies to Delver, sets the tone of the format:

Miracles ? Legacy | CREATOR, shufflerpwned

• Creatures (6)
• 1 Emrakul, the Promised End
• 2 Monastery Mentor
• 3 Snapcaster Mage

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

• Instants (16)
• 4 Brainstorm
• 4 Force of Will
• 4 Predict
• 4 Swords to Plowshares

• Sorceries (7)
• 3 Set Adrift
• 4 Terminus

• Enchantments (4)
• 4 Counterbalance

• Artifacts (4)
• 4 Sensei's Divining Top

• Lands (21)
• 3 Plains
• 5 Island
• 2 Arid Mesa
• 3 Tundra
• 4 Flooded Strand
• 4 Scalding Tarn

• Sideboard (15)
• 3 Back to Basics
• 2 Counterspell
• 1 Disenchant
• 1 Engineered Explosives
• 1 Entreat the Angels
• 2 Flusterstorm
• 3 Surgical Extraction
• 1 Tsabo's Web
• 1 Vendilion Clique

Buy This Deck

Where this particular deck goes off script — and they're enough of experiments that the same player 5-0'd with a different Miracles version in this article's timeframe — is with Emrakul, the Promised End and Set Adrift. Set Adrift is not anyone's idea of an amazing effect, but it can be cast cheaply due to delve, and in the mirror match it's an additional way to counter Terminus via Counterbalance. Just like the miracle spells that give the deck its name, the cost-reduction aspect of delve spells makes almost all of them playable just by the nature of cost-reduction effects. Keep that in mind when discussing Aether Revolt mechanics.

For that matter, keep it in mind when discussing Sneak and Show:

Sneak and Show ? Legacy | NoMoreParachute

• Creatures (8)
• 4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
• 4 Griselbrand

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

• Instants (12)
• 1 Flusterstorm
• 3 Spell Pierce
• 4 Brainstorm
• 4 Force of Will

• Sorceries (12)
• 4 Ponder
• 4 Preordain
• 4 Show and Tell

• Enchantments (4)
• 4 Sneak Attack

• Artifacts (4)
• 4 Lotus Petal

• Lands (19)
• 3 Island
• 2 City of Traitors
• 3 Ancient Tomb
• 3 Volcanic Island
• 4 Flooded Strand
• 4 Polluted Delta

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Flusterstorm
• 1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
• 1 Blood Moon
• 1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
• 1 Grafdigger's Cage
• 4 Leyline of Sanctity
• 2 Omniscience
• 1 Pyroblast
• 2 Pyroclasm
• 1 Shattering Spree

Buy This Deck

The upswing of Reanimator has been kind to Sneak and Show, in that it's much easier to hate on the former with specificity than the latter. Grafdigger's Cage and Surgical Extraction don't do anything about Sneak and Show's plans, leaving it a spot in the metagame. Figuring out what sideboard cards to bring is tough in any Eternal format, and one of the biggest decisions that could be highly rewarded this weekend is how much hate to bring versus both Reanimator and Sneak and Show. Does the hate get aimed just at Griselbrand and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, which are hard cards to hate on but at least are common to both decks? Whoever gets the best metagame read on the divide can go far in Louisville.

Speaking of metagame reads, seemingly a million and five decks are working with Leovold, Emissary of Trest, including an old archetype:

Sultai Aluren ? Legacy | lordofthepit23

• Creatures (22)
• 2 Glint-Nest Crane
• 2 Parasitic Strix
• 3 Cavern Harpy
• 3 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
• 4 Baleful Strix
• 4 Deathrite Shaman
• 4 Shardless Agent

• Instants (11)
• 3 Abrupt Decay
• 4 Brainstorm
• 4 Force of Will

• Sorceries (3)
• 3 Ponder

• Enchantments (4)
• 4 Aluren

• Lands (20)
• 1 Forest
• 1 Island
• 1 Swamp
• 2 Bayou
• 2 Underground Sea
• 2 Verdant Catacombs
• 3 Tropical Island
• 4 Misty Rainforest
• 4 Polluted Delta

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Abrupt Decay
• 2 Carpet of Flowers
• 2 Chill
• 2 Diabolic Edict
• 1 Dread of Night
• 2 Grafdigger's Cage
• 1 Karakas
• 2 Surgical Extraction
• 2 Umezawa's Jitte

Buy This Deck

Brainstorm and Ponder are important to notice here, because Leovold, Emissary of Trest is a three-of in this deck. Leovold gives value when your creatures are targeted, but the big deal is that it shuts down opposing Brainstorms, Ponders, and other card draw. Leovold's good enough to show up here, in some Delver lists, and occasionally in Elves (had you even noticed it's an Elf? I hadn't). In Aluren, it's even trickier, since Leovold can be cast for free at instant speed with the deck namesake's enchantment out, becoming an instant-speed counter to card draw.

That buys enough time for Aluren to assemble its various combos; the final kill ideally is casting Parasitic Strix for life drain of two points, casting Cavern Harpy to bounce Parasitic Strix, then paying one life to bounce Cavern Harpy. Glint-Nest Crane helps tie the deck together, finding Baleful Strix, Parasitic Strix, and Shardless Agent to keep the combo pieces going. (From the sideboard, Glint-Nest Crane can find Grafdigger's Cage and Umezawa's Jitte; that's pretty nifty.) It's unclear how well that will work in Louisville, but it is the deck best poised to take advantage of Leovold — in a metagame increasingly filled with him — and sometimes that's enough.

Perhaps to fight Leovold — a card that asks opponents to fight fair with card draw — the archetype with the most listings in just the last week is another oldie:

Punishing Abzan ? Legacy | MatsOle

• Creatures (11)
• 1 Deathrite Shaman
• 1 Gaddock Teeg
• 1 Scavenging Ooze
• 4 Dark Confidant
• 4 Knight of the Reliquary

• Planeswalkers (3)
• 3 Liliana of the Veil

• Instants (6)
• 3 Abrupt Decay
• 3 Punishing Fire

• Sorceries (5)
• 1 Maelstrom Pulse
• 2 Green Sun's Zenith
• 2 Life from the Loam

• Enchantments (1)
• 1 Sylvan Library

• Artifacts (8)
• 4 Chalice of the Void
• 4 Mox Diamond

• Lands (26)
• 1 Forest
• 1 Badlands
• 1 Barren Moor
• 1 Cabal Pit
• 1 Dryad Arbor
• 1 Karakas
• 1 Maze of Ith
• 1 Savannah
• 1 Scrubland
• 1 Taiga
• 1 Tranquil Thicket
• 2 Bayou
• 2 Windswept Heath
• 3 Grove of the Burnwillows
• 4 Verdant Catacombs
• 4 Wasteland

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
• 2 Ethersworn Canonist
• 1 Garruk Relentless
• 1 Ghost Quarter
• 2 Golgari Charm
• 2 Leyline of the Void
• 1 Reclamation Sage
• 2 Swords to Plowshares
• 1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
• 1 Thoughtseize
• 1 Toxic Deluge

Buy This Deck

This deck's running a number of the "let's all play fair, everybody!" synergies of Legacy, like Mox Diamond into a first-turn Chalice of the Void or the Death and Taxes package of Gaddock Teeg and Ethersworn Canonist (and sometimes Thalia, Guardian of Thraben in the sideboard). The clearest game plan, however, is using Knight of the Reliquary to find Grove of the Burnwillows, enabling a Punishing Fire loop of removal and eventually burn to the opponent's face.

As with any Knight of the Reliquary deck, there are a lot of great lands to find — many of them part of the Lands deck that's also part of Legacy (as discussed previously in this column, I'm a sucker for decks with lands in the sideboard, and this one's got both Ghost Quarter and The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale). In a field of all sorts of decks, maybe it's the deck with a bunch of combos that work well against a bunch of different decks does the trick. It seems unlikely from my perspective, but its results have been so good in the last week that it might be on to something.

Conclusion

More so than I can remember in a long time — maybe it's the extra data talking — Legacy has a lot of deck types that are intriguing choices to win Louisville. Miracles, Delver of Secrets, and Leovold, Emissary of Trest are dictating a lot of what's playable right now, but within that there are a lot of ways to get the job done. Who knows what will happen this weekend? I don't. But that's what makes it fun.