So, I mentioned a little while back that one of my central views on formats is to look at pillars. I'm now going to explain this construction a little bit, using it for the format where it blurs the most—Legacy. I'll also look at examples for other formats, but the major walkthrough will be Legacy.

What is the purpose of using this type of view of a format? The answer is to give you a view of the strategic space you possess. Last week, I touched on the differences between strategy and tactics, and this view of formats further expands this distinction. Understanding what strategic space your deck occupies will help you make better decisions as to card selection and game play.

The first thing to know is that there are two types of pillars: single-card pillars and strategic pillars. Let's look at these two types of pillars individually.

Single-card pillars are cards that dominate the format. These cards frequently fit into multiple strategies but lend themselves better to one or two. Decks are frequently built to maximize the advantage you gain from these single cards, and they define formats through their influence in this manner. Examples include Bitterblossom, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Bloodbraid Elf, and Primeval Titan/Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle.

Strategic pillars are cards that represent a certain fundamental strategy. They will typically be among the most commonly played cards unique to that fundamental strategy. These are rarer in formats with smaller card pools because formats with smaller card pools tend to have strategies defined by single cards. An example of a strategic pillar for Standard would be Lightning Bolt. While there are multiple aggressive decks in Type 2 (B/R Vampires, Boros, Kuldotha, mono-Red), they all play Lightning Bolt, and thus Lightning Bolt would represent all of these aggressive decks. Goblin Guide is also sort of an option here, especially if you don't think B/R Vampires is a very good deck.

In general, each pillar comes with a loose framework attached to it as well. Because each pillar represents a fundamental strategy, the best (most efficient) implementation of this strategy often doesn't vary from deck to deck. This forms the core of that strategy, or the framework for that pillar. The older the format, the more wiggle room you have inside that framework, but it still is—normally—a pretty tight ship.

Another important thing to remember is that a pillar construction will not always include every deck in the metagame. The larger your card pool, the more likely it is that this is the case. If you think of a metagame as a building, the pillars would be analogous to the walls and support structure (shocking, I know). Essentially, they serve as the constraints of the format.

Now, let's get on with viewing Legacy. We'll divide up the pillars as above—into "single-card" and "strategic."

Single-Card Pillars:

1. Show and Tell (Natural Order to a lesser extent)

2. Counterbalance

3. Standstill

Strategic Pillars:

1. Stifle

2. AEther Vial

3. Dark Ritual/Rite of Flame

4. Dread Return

Show and Tell (1b: Natural Order) – These two often show up together now, but essentially the limiting factor of these two cards is their ability to get an "I-win-the-game" permanent into play very quickly (without first dumping it into the graveyard). In the case of Show and Tell, it is normally Emrakul (although some Legacy players have been known to use a certain enchantment), while in Natural Order's case, it is Progenitus. Show and Tell decks revolve around the card, whereas Natural Order has some overlap with other strategies (Counterbalance, tempo-Bant are the main ones). However, the reason this pillar is here is because of the speed at which it forces you to deal with a "GG"-type permanent.

Counterbalance – Ahhhhh, Counterbalance . . . the reason that one-third of the players in every single Legacy round will always go to time. You and your spinning best friend deserve a spot atop the "most annoying cards in the format" wall. I will admit, though, that you do place a natural constraint on the format, forcing decks to diversify mana costs, naturally slowing the format a bit. If those combo decks get too uppity, at least you are here to knock them down a bit, although I wish you were better at that job.

Tongue-in-cheek commentary aside, Counterbalance is in sort of a weird position in Legacy. It is frequently a "control" deck, but it plays more like a Rock-style deck that just happens to be using Blue cards. I don't have a great idea of what to make of a format where Counterbalance doesn't exist, but I know that removing it would definitely shake up the format a lot. I know because of the design constraints it places on me during deck construction. Thus, I feel that it gets to be a pillar.

Standstill – Because Merfolk has moved away from this card (as I think it should have), Standstill is now basically the domain of slow, ponderous control decks. It is the last remaining bastion of Weissman-style control. Landstill will slowly grind out card advantage and then win the game with man lands or with a 12/12 Trampler. The presence of this pillar leaves traditional-style card advantage a place in the metagame.

Stifle – This represents one of the two different styles of tempo decks in Legacy. Stifle decks focus many of their resources on disrupting the opponent, often attacking mana actively (this is where Stifle itself comes in). Stifle decks tend to be far more threat-light, and operate on the principle that a very small number of threats backed by a large amount of disruption can get the job done. Examples of this pillar are Next-Level Thresh, Eva Green, and Team America.

AEther Vial – This represents the other half of the tempo decks in Legacy. AEther Vial decks focus far more on threat generation, and rely on a lighter suite of disruption, instead prioritizing a consistent external clock. AEther Vial enables this in Legacy by helping Vial decks cheat on mana and avoid counterspells. The initial tempo investment on turn one normally proves to be worth it, because Vial decks can often recover that lost tempo by their second activation of AEther Vial. Examples of decks in this pillar include Goblins, Merfolk, and Junk and Taxes.

Dark Ritual/Rite of Flame – This is the fast-combo pillar, and the one that defines the speed of Legacy. Yes, Zoo exists, but the fastest external clocks in Legacy come from two "spell" decks—Belcher and Tendrils (High Tide is slower than both). The function that aggro decks serve in Standard and Extended is served by this pillar in Legacy—if you can't interact with me early, you are just going to lose.

Dread Return – This obviously represents graveyard-based strategies. They are a relevant constraint to the format itself, and the most popular ones use this card. The graveyard is definitely a resource to be used in Legacy, and nothing demonstrates this better than Dredge, perhaps the premier Dread Return deck.

I feel that these seven pillars roughly define the limits of design space in Legacy. That's not to say decks that fall into these pillars are the only decks (they aren't), but they define the extremes of the format. So, what does having this sort of construct do for you? The answer lies in deck design.

Pillars come into play during deck design because they reduce the types of threats you need to take into account to a manageable number. Your deck needs to have a plan to handle almost every—if not every—pillar within any metagame. "Just lose" is an acceptable plan (although not one I recommend)—as long as you are not attaching it to a popular pillar, of course. You, as a deck designer, must equip your deck with the ability to handle a variety of threats, and this sort of metagame analysis will help you do so.

Of course, metagames shift, and at any given moment, each pillar possesses a different importance. This is the difficulty in predicting metagames, and you can get a great advantage here if you are correct, as you can skew your card selection toward the anticipated metagame. Dredge's performance at the last SCG Open is a great example of this. Many players were skimping on graveyard hate, so Dredge showed up and smacked the format upside the head, reminding everyone it still exists.

As a deck designer, it is important to understand the type of threats your deck is going to face, and this sort of metagame analysis will aid you in simplifying that. Once you have done this, it is easier to determine what sort of tools (slotting) your deck will need in the current metagame.

Chingsung Chang

Conelead most everywhere and on MTGO

khan32k5 at gmail dot com