[Legacy] The New Deck

Posted on August 18, 2010

In the post Grand Prix lull, most of the people in my playgroup, myself included, have started to look for a new deck to use as their primary deck. Leading up to the Grand Prix, there was only incentive to strip our decks from being metagamed for what we played against locally to metagame against the known quantities that were expected to appear at the tournament. Many of us that worked hard on our decks and kept on top of the shifts in the format were rewarded, whereas the guys in the group that did little to no testing and didn't find the time to keep up on the metagame shifts were left behind in day one. Now we can all breathe a sigh of relief as the pressure is off and we are more free to experiment.

A lot of the people who were playing decks without blue want to play a blue-based control deck of some sort, leaning toward mono-blue. My friends that played control want to play something fast and unfair, and those that played a fast and unfair deck are looking at a more well-rounded strategy. I'm personally looking toward a RecSur list or non-blue control, perhaps even a combo deck, but we're all having a hard time settling on the specifics of what new decks to pick up.

An example of this is how mono-blue control decks have seldom done well in Legacy. It falters against the aggro strategies that have always been a staple of the format as the control pieces it has are quite slow and it lacks any removal. There really hasn't been anything printed in blue that addresses the issues the deck faces. Aggro will always be an important part of Legacy, which means mono-blue control will always be difficult to play, regardless of which control suite you use or how much card advantage you are able to generate.

All of this got me thinking: What are the current design constraints in Legacy? At one time the format was defined by the question, "How many answers do you have to a turn one Goblin Lackey?" If your answer was less than eight, you had to be playing a control deck that could sweep the board on turn three or a combo deck of some sort. That was really the end of the design constraints that deck builders of Legacy had, but the fact that there was only one question actually eliminated many decks that were otherwise quite good. Now we're in a format that has many more dimensions to it, and not a single dominating strategy. However, there are still questions that any potentially competitive deck must be able to answer if they want to win games. There are Counterbalance locks, decks that want to punish non-basic lands, decks that want to deal 20 damage as fast as possible and decks that try to remove all interactivity and win regardless of what your game plan is.

In the abstract, it is possible to lay out everything that a deck must be able to answer, but it isn't as tidy as being able to have a single question that defines the format. Now the format is far too complex and deep to have a single question like that. However, I feel as though it is possible to create a list of benchmarks and common scenarios that must be met or answered in order for a deck to be at the summit of competitive decks.

Rounding Up the Usual Suspects

In and attempt to identify the questions that dominate the format, it is only reasonable to take a look at what the top decks in the format are doing. To identify what the top decks in the format likely are, I've decided to examine the decks that made day two at Grand Prix Columbus:

Wizard's Event Staff's Day Two Metagame Breakdown. (Clarifications made where reasonably possible)

Zoo 20

Aggro Bant 16

Counter-Top 12

Merfolk 10

Goblins 10

Aluren 7

Landstill 7

Lands 6

Belcher 6

ANT 5

Aggro Counter-Top 4

Burn 4

Survival 4

BUG 4

Junk/Bwg Rock 4

Enchantress 3

RUG 3

Doomsday/Show and Tell 2

Dredge 2

Faeries 1

UG Madness 1

Affinity 1

UB Thopter/Sword 1

Depths Stompy 1

Dreadstill 1

UR Servant/Grindstone 1

Wizards Event staff isn't too concerned with naming conventions, so there is a lot of oversimplification when it comes to how they categorize decks. ANT is likely associated with any storm based deck; meaning that ANT, Fetchland Tendrils and TES are all represented in this category. The heading "Counter-Top" makes no distinction between decks using Natural Order and lists sans Natural Order, which are generally considered to be different decks. The "Aggro Bant" title makes no distinction between a tempo strategy and a Bant plan that has simply foregone the Counter-Top pieces. There is a heading for two decks that is simply called "Enlightened Tutor" which is presumably the Counter-Top Thopter deck. Whatever "Aggro Counter-Top" is supposed to be is beyond me.

Now that we're past that mess, the biggest decks in the metagame were all known quantities coming into the Grand Prix. Zoo and Aggro Bant made up the largest percentage of the day two decks, followed by Counterbalance decks, Merfolk and Goblins, which is pretty close to what my predictions for the day two metagame were. Aluren was an over-represented deck that, easily disruptable and prohibitively expensive to build deck, I don't anticipate making a large splash in the format. As such I don't feel it's necessarily an important deck to keep in mind for this exercise.

Combo

I feel that the first thing to examine is combo because, unlike the standards that we're accustomed to, it is new and poorly defined. Sneak Attack, Doomsday/Show and Tell, and TES all made the Top 8. Drew Levin, who was disqualified from the Top 8, was playing U/R Painter-Grindstone combo as well. That means there would have been four combo decks in the top eight of this tournament. While none of the combo decks put more than ten players into day two, Aluren, Belcher and ANT are all right next to each other in terms of how many made day two and in total 28 combo decks (although not all storm) made the cut. Considering the density and diversity that combo had at the Grand Prix, it is now reasonable to take combo decks into account on a larger scale when asking, "Can a deck survive the metagame?". Because so few of these decks operate on the same mechanics, the only disruption that is truly going to work well is in the form of counterspells and discard. I feel that this question should be framed as:

What disruption do you have to fight against [non-interactive] combo decks that aim to win around turn three or four?

The reason I've chosen to frame the question like that is so that it doesn't automatically eliminate non-blue decks, as only blue decks are really going to be able to stop a turn one kill. There are often instances where a Bwg deck or a Chalice Aggro deck are some of the roughest match-ups for a combo deck despite lacking Force of Will. Applicable answers for this problem are well aimed discard effects such as Duress or Thoughtseize; Hymn to Tourach can also work wonders against combo deck. Any counter is acceptable as an answer, although the best ones are going to be Counterspell, Force of Will, Spell Pierce and Counterbalance. Red can offer answers in the form of Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon, as most combo decks will falter under one of these cards. White cards like Silence and Orim's Chant are seldom going to see maindeck play but they are really good against storm decks; cards such as Ethersworn Canonist, Leyline of Sanctity, Abeyance, Rule of Law and Aven Mindcensor are all pretty good too. The artifact pieces that are strong are obvious: Chalice of the Void, Trinisphere, Thorn of Amethyst and Sphere of Resistance, not to mention Lodestone Golem.

The next popular question concerning combo decks can also be drawn from the same top 8 data. There were seven copies of Emrakul, the Aeons Torn in the top 8. The only creature more popular was Tarmogoyf and that is only by a single copy. Now that so many impressive creatures exist to be cheated into play and the strategies have become well defined:

What do you do about Emrakul, Progenitus and Iona, Shield of Emeria?

These are combo pieces too, but the cards that put them into play are generally a lot stronger against the combo hate pieces that are not black or blue. Fortunately, most of these cards can be dealt with via cards that are good against other decks as well. Noetic Scales, Humility and Ensnaring Bridge are fine catchalls against any of these creatures. Progenitus is the hardest creature to deal with of the lot, but will generally give you the most opportunity to kill it. Any Wrath effect as well as an Edict are quite strong against Progenitus, especially from a deck that has used Show and Tell or Hypergenesis to cheat it into play. Because Progenitus is every color, he can get a lot of splash hate from color hosers that are already good choices for the metagame such as Perish, Hibernation and even Llawan, Cephalid Empress. Being colorless, Emrakul requires a bit more work to efficiently answer, but thankfully Emrakul is susceptible to a lot of cards: Oblivion Ring, Shriekmaw, Sower of Temptation, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Karakas and Stingscourger. These are all fine solutions to beating Emrakul.

Iona, in my opinion, is the most problematic card of the three to beat, as she is the only one that immediately turns off an entire chunk of your deck. Considering that decks will most often only be in one color for removal, that is going to pose a huge problem unless you're able to race a 7/7 flier. Beating Iona requires a bit more consideration than the other two because playing additional colors for removal fundamentally weakens the deck, meaning that colorless answer to Iona are much more desirable. Right now, readily available answers look like Brittle Effigy, Karakas, AEther Spellbomb and the catchalls listed above. Thankfully, Iona is the easiest of these fatties to race, and AEther Vial will go a long way in getting there. However, even with the decline of Reanimator, it is still important to know that these strategies are gaining a lot of ground and should not be ignored.

Aggro

Unsurprisingly, Zoo was the archetype that put the most decks into day two, followed by Bant decks and then Merfolk and Gobins. The aggro decks are what define this format above all else. It may be difficult to define exactly what restraints there are for deck builders in Legacy because so much of it has become ingrained in minimum deck requirements for the format. A question such as, "What do you do about Zoo?" just isn't going to cut it because it lacks clarity. Furthermore there really isn't an answer that can satisfy the question; stating that you just have better creatures is fine, but Zoo beats decks with better creatures all day because the creatures only need to do so much work and the burn will finish the job. Similar arguments are used as for how a deck should be Goblins or Merfolk, but Goblins and Merfolk generally will just win with superior numbers. We should rather look at what the common strong threads are between the decks.

The card that truly gives both Merfolk and Goblins such a huge boost is AEther Vial. Vial will allow it's controller to effectively double his mana, make the creatures uncouterable and give them flash - all for a very small investment, and because the deck itself is filled it almost entirely creatures that work with well together anyway, losing Vial doesn't actually remove a threat from the table, so the effects that are felt should generally be minimal. Still, look at the curve of a deck like Goblins, most of the business spells start at three and work their way up from there, and Merfolk us leaning on both Daze and using Mutavault so its mana is rather tight as well. Eliminating the threat that Vial produces will add multiple turns to the length a deck can expect to survive, enabling another answer.

What does your deck do against an early Vial?

There are few card specific answers that can be given to this question, Pithing Needle is one, but is rather narrow and likely only run as a one-of and, cards like Qasali Pridemage and Engineered Explosives count as answers as well. However, for this case we're looking more at how the deck's strategy can counteract the effects of an AEther Vial. Enchantress generally is able to ignore a large number of creatures, a combo deck is just going to attempt to win around it. But for decks that are playing the game a bit more fairly, it is important to identify what your deck is able to do or what can be added to it to attempt to circumvent the huge advantage that AEther Vial is granting opposing deck.

The day after the last Grand Prix Columbus had started, Future Sight was legal and a new era of efficiency started in Legacy: Tarmogoyf was now legal. Psychatog was really the first creature to just get a bonus for doing what you were already doing – playing the game, but the problem was that he was going to eat your resources and really wasn't all that fantastic in the early game. Tarmogoyf comes along and it costs rather than and he consumes no resources, but always has that bonus. Tarmogoyf made many creatures obsolete because few things were better than a 4/5 for just a couple of mana, which is easily splashable into any shell. Goyf is now the standard when it comes to creatures, but if you're playing a deck that isn't using it, there are some issues to consider:

If you're using creatures - Why aren't you playing Tarmogoyf?

If you're not using creatures – How does your deck handle Tarmogoyf [and Wild Nacatl]?

For competitive purposes, there are few creature decks that can get away with not playing Tarmogoyf, these decks are Goblins, Merfolk and Elves. Of the aggro and aggro-control decks that were not just mentioned that, only three did not play Tarmogoyf, those decks were Faeries, Affinity and U/G Madness. Any of these kinds of decks that are not using Tarmgoyf needs a very good reason for passing it up and needs to have a reasonable plan to work around opposing Tarmogoyfs. I'm not entirely convinced that the three three decks listed should not have been playing Tarmogoyf, but that is their call.

For combo decks, this is a reference to goldfish speed, can your deck win faster than Zoo can kill you? For a control deck the question is how many answers you have to opposing aggressive creatures. At the Grand Prix, I loaded up on six Swords to Plowshares effects, three Engineered Explosives and was aggressively using Force of Will and Counterspell to stop an aggro deck's early game. When the question was, "How many answers do you have to turn one Goblin Lackey?" anything less than eight cards was acceptable for a control or aggro-control deck attempting to stabilize. How much removal/permission do you think a control deck truly needs to beat Goblins now? Merfolk? Zoo? What about an Aggro-control deck? Before, we needed eight cards to deal with one threat, when that was truly the scariest card in the format, it is likely unreasonable to consider needing less now.

How do you handle the early game against an aggro deck?

Somewhat related to this, any deck that is going to try to live past the midgame with Zoo or even a burn deck is going to need to have a way to maintain a solid life total. Before the rise of Zoo this wasn't rally a huge concern, but now we're seeing a lot of focus brought to the idea of gaining some life to help stabilize in the midgame. Rhox War Monk, Umezawa's Jitte, Kitchen Finks and Lightning Helix all help enable this plan. It was a big deal when Counter-Top decks began using Rhox War Monk, as it was finally a concession that Zoo was a big force in the metagame. Even Enchantress was forced to make some modifications to better handle Zoo. The point is, if you're deck is not built to win in the early game, you need to be able to identify the ways in which you can survive against fast aggro and then stabilize at a reasonable life total.

Control

Generally it is difficult to build against a control strategy in the long run, because control decks are ultimately going to end up being far more metagamed to beat the other major players in the format. However, there are some lingering control elements that have remained largely unchanged and can be taken into consideration while evaluating a deck. The best performing control decks in the format are the aggro-control Counter-Top lists that use a mix of spells from one to three mana cost and even mange to get a couple of four and five cost spells into the deck. A little over a year ago, this was the dominant strategy in the format. The metagame eventually warped around it and we see a lot of divergent costs in spells and maindeck answers to Counterbalance. As a response, the Counter-Top decks played a wider range of spells. The question in regards to Counter-Top decks is:

Are you playing a deck that is built with Counterbalance in mind?

For something like a burn deck, this question is asking, "Is your deck curved well?" that is to ask if the deck is all one and two cost spells. A Counter-Top player loves to play against burn, or Elves or combo decks because they are so easy to lock out. When the curve starts at one and for the most part ends at two, and Counter-Top deck is going to have a very easy time against the deck as soon as turn three rolls around, but playing a slightly higher curve in any of these decks can really be a beating for the Counter-Top player as is the case with the Doomsday decks which have an excellent game against Counterbalance. Take a look at this Doomsday-Storm Hybrid that recently took 4th in a 134 man tournament:

"DDFT"

Creatures (1)
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

While it isn't as fast as the other storm decks that are running around, this deck has an excellent game against most of the control decks in the format and is still fast enough to beat an aggro deck that isn't attempting to counter spells. Doomsday is a difficult card to Counterbalance and because the deck is going to play slower against a control deck, you should always have the mana for Daze. The combo is going to be immune to incoming counters through either Silence/Chant or via Doomsday into Shelldock Isle for Emrakul.

For a Rock or Zoo deck, the question is framed more as, "What answers do you have for Counterbalance?". Rock and other midrange decks can't hope to finish a game quickly enough that Counterbalance isn't an issue. Zoo would like to do it, but will often get into the mid-game when the deck isn't goldfishing. Both of them need to consider real answers for Counterbalance. Obviously a card such as Demistify isn't going to make the cut, as it is far too narrow and is the easiest cost to hit with Counterbalance. For both of these decks, Qasali Pridemage is actually a real answer because he can act as a threat and can answer problem cards. Higher on the cure we have Krosan Grip which is one of the staples, Vindicate, Malestrom Pulse and Engineered Explosives. EE certainly isn't playable in Zoo, but if anyone attempted to play Domain or Dark Zoo, I can see either Vindicate or Pulse being fine as a two-of, as they are excellent catchalls. Beyond that, nothing is really playable for a deck like this to answer Counterbalance, so everything then falls back into how well the deck is curved. Rock decks are curved toward all of the win conditions having a cost of three or greater, which is fine against Counterbalance decks but sketchier against aggro decks. Even though Zoo has had some success with defeating Counter-Top decks with hyper aggressive cards like Steppe Lynx, there has been a shift toward bigger and bigger Zoo decks. Where previously a Zoo deck would play two, maybe three Woolly Thoctar/Knight of the Reliquary, we're now seeing Zoo decks packing an Elspeth, Knight Errant or two, decks that are dropping Kird Ape and/or Grim Lavamancer in favor of cards like Gaddock Teeg in the main deck, Stoneforge Mystic [plus some equipment] or Figure of Destiny (who is deceptively cheap.) The builds that are using Burning-Tree Shaman are playing it in multiples. The curve of Zoo is going up at all parts and while some of it is to get higher card quality, it may also help against Counterbalance decks but, it is going to come at the cost of faster goldfish wins and dropping games to decks it was previously able to manhandle.

"Big Zoo"

This build came in 2nd at a 81 player tournament, losing to Goblins, a match that traditional Zoo decks struggle to lose. Obviously something was done right with this build. There is no Grim Lavamancer, Kird Ape, Steppe Lynx or Loam Lion. He plays no Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning and only a single copy of Path to Exile, playing Swords to Plowshares over it. The deck features six cards that cost four, which is unheard of for a Zoo deck. What this seems to mean is that this deck's builder understood that in Zoo mirrors and against many other decks, it just comes down to who can stick the biggest creature. Elspeth, Mystic Enforcer and a full set of Knight of the Reliquary aim to be sure that you're attacking with the biggest creature, and that it can't be favorably blocked, if at all.

Manabase

The last point I'd like to address is about the mana base of decks. A few weeks ago Steven Birklid caused a big stir around his article, pointing out what he saw as the laws in the mana base of Legacy decks. Sadly, most of the interest in his article was from his pontificating tone and and inflammatory comments. However, the core of the issues remains and while it isn't only a control deck that is going to try to take advantage of a weak mana base. Of the decks that put more than ten copies into day two, only the Counter-Top and Zoo decks are willing to just leave an opposing mana base alone. Goblins, Merfolk, Aggro-Bant and presumably some of the Zoo decks are looking at preying on non-basics in the preboard and many more decks are going to look at it with increased ferocity post board. Looking further, of the decks that had more than five copies in day two, Lands' entire game is based around attacking opposing lands and Landstill uses Wasteland + Crucible as an endgame strategy, but Aluren, Belcher and ANT are all willing to put you into a place where if your mana stumbles, you will have literally no shot.

Is your mana base as stable as it could be?

This is likely the most difficult question to answer. The idea is to have a mix of lands to maximize your chances of casting all of your spells without faltering to incoming disruption in the form of not only Wasteland, but Vindicate, Sinkhole, Rishadan Port and even Ghost Quarter. Having a stable mana base is something that comes from experience with not only the format, archetype and metagame but also an intimate knowledge of what this deck is trying to do. It seems as though the modern Zoo decks packing a 1/1/1 mix on their basics is doing fine and obviously a deck with a single color isn't going to struggle with this. The most common culprit for weak mana bases may actually be combo decks. Take for example the Aluren deck that Cedric Phillips tweaked for the Grand Prix

"Aluren"

Being a combo deck that is based around resolving a {2}{G}{G} enchantment, [and sorcery post board] some of the choices make sense. The land choices are made for speed. I, however, struggle to understand some of the choices this deck makes; the first of which is Havenwood Battleground. The ability of this land to produce {G}{G} simply does not offset the drawback of entering the battlefield tapped. When we look at the Doomsday deck, it uses a land that enters tapped. It is one of the few lands that are acceptable to have enter tapped. However, for a combo deck, Shelldock Isle doesn't even cut it as a land, and is often boarded out along with Emrakul. For the Aluren deck, I have a hard time understanding how it seemed acceptable to use a full set of these kinds of lands. As a result, I watched a lot of people playing the deck folding to the pressure that Goblins and Rock decks were applying to them. I imagine the same thing was true of nearly any deck that was attacking Aluren's mana base.

It was shocking to me that the deck designers decided against playing a second basic Forest in the deck, especially when anticipating the level of non-basic hate that was going to be at this tournament. A real fear of mine would have been losing a game because I couldn't fetch out double basic Forest to weather a Blood Moon or Magus of the Moon. While I have reservations about this mana base it was certainly much better than the list Patrick Chapin had suggested previously.

Conclusion

What disruption do you have to fight against [non-interactive] combo decks that aim to win around turn three or four?

What do you do about Emrakul, Progenitus or Iona, the Shield of Emeria?

What does your deck do against an early Vial?

If you're using creatures - Why aren't you playing Tarmogoyf?

If you're not using creatures – How does your deck handle Tarmogoyf [and Wild Nacatl]?

How do you handle the early game against an aggro deck?

Are you playing a deck that is built with Counterbalance in mind?

Is your mana base as stable as it could be?

Even a well rounded deck may not be able to have excellent answers to all of these questions. Being able to answer all of these questions doesn't mean that a deck has beaten the format. However, I feel that knowing where your deck stands in regards to these problems and being able to adequately answer as many as possible are going to give a pilot the greatest chances of doing well in the metagame. The Saito list that won the Grand Prix seems to fit this mold, as he was able to properly identify the deck's weak points, [Combo (Despite what the SCG tournament results display) and Zoo] and then made adjustments to shore up those shortfalls. Saito's Merfolk list is an excellent example of what proper metagaming and knowledge of the format can produce. While some pilots played inferior decks and were able to do make it to day two on play skill and surprise factor of a fringe deck, the true victors are consistently going to be those who spent the time to properly analyze their deck choice and have a grasp on what is happening in the format.

~Christopher Walton

im00pi at gmail for electronic mail

Master Shake on The Source

TAGS articles, constructed

[Legacy] The New Deck

Rounding Up the Usual Suspects

Combo

Aggro

Control

"DDFT"

"Big Zoo"

Manabase

"Aluren"

Conclusion

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