Legacy Metagame: MTGO Challenge Champions (1/28 & 1/29)
Card: Cephalid Illusionist | Art: Pete Venters
Hello fellow Legacy lovers! I’m your BTB Legacy fanatic Curt, back for another review of the weekend’s MTGO Challenge matches.
Phyrexia: All Will Be One Preview
Before I jump into the weekend’s results, I wanted to touch on the upcoming release of Phyrexia: All Will Be One. WotC has officially concluded the previews for the upcoming set, so we are starting to see some chatter across the web as to what people are starting to brew into existing archetypes. I will be honest, at first, I was not that excited about the set. It took a couple of reads to start seeing some contenders that might slot into existing Legacy brews.
One of the biggest themes from the set was the introduction of a new mechanic Toxic, which plays a lot like Infect. While Legacy does not field any competitive Infect decks on a regular basis, it will be interesting to see if the arrival of Toxic changes that in the coming weeks. Some interesting cards were previewed which could make an appearance in Legacy decks such as Venerated Rotpriest, Atraxa, Grand Unifier, and Skrelv, Defector Mite.
Lest I get into a full set review here, I think these three may see some manner of play in the format. With a little effort, Rotpriest seems like it could be great in a Storm shell. Atraxa is another interesting card, notably in a Reanimator shell to gain some advantage. Whether this is better than Griselbrand remains to be seen. Finally, Skrelv looks like the type of card that would work great in an Initiative shell, or to fight back against it.
Legacy MTGO Weekend Challenges
This weekend was the tale of two different fantasy stories. On Saturday, White Stompy continued to make its presence known, placing a number of entries into the top eight and taking the trophy, squaring off against ANT in the finals. Sunday was a different story, with Blue Painter taking the trophy against Murktide in the final
Sunday featured a number of really sweet decks, including two copies of Cephalid Breakfast! Rounding out, we see the same copy of Hammertime that placed in both of last weekend’s challenges along with Reanimator, another Painter, and White Stompy.
There are a lot of cool decks to look at from the weekend, so without further ado, let’s dive in!
Legacy MTGO Saturday Challenge Results
White Stompy - HanktheObese
ANT - kobayui
Izzet Murktide - Stu909090
Painter – kanican
White Stompy – Promidnightz
White Stompy – LucasG1ggs
3c Uro Miracle – Kihara_Works
Hammertime - CrusherBotBG
Full list is here
Direct links courtesy of Reddit u/FereMiyJeenyus and their MTGO Results Scraper.
Legacy MTGO Sunday Challenge Results
Mono-Blue Painter Cast – DNSolver
Izzet Murktide – TrueFuturism
Cephalid Breakfast – Aigis
White Stompy – HanktheObese
Reanimator – snoopy-magic
Izzet Murktide – JPA93
Red Painter - _Gerwaz
Cephalid Breakfast - SAWATARIX
Full list is here
Direct links courtesy of Reddit u/FereMiyJeenyus and their MTGO Results Scraper.
Top Decks
Saturday brought a resurgence of White Stompy, with a copy taking the top spot in a showdown with ANT, and two additional copies appearing in the Top 8. Izzet Murktide was a notable absence on Saturday, placing only one copy in the Top 8. Though it did round out the rest of the semi-finalists alongside Painter. The Murktide main deck was the stock list, but there were some interesting inclusions in the sideboard, including Grafdigger’s Cage and End the Festivities.
Sunday’s trophy was earned by a SWEET Mono-Blue 8-Cast “Painter” deck! I am loving the inclusion of Painter in this deck and good to see something different taking down the field.
Notably, Cephalid Breakfast is a deck that seems to have come back into favor as of late due to its favorable matchup against White Stompy. This showed Sunday with two copies placing in the Top 8.
Reanimator also made a return to the Top 8. Murktide took second place with a fairly stock list aside from a single copy of Chain Lightning along with a couple of copies of True-Name Nemesis in the sideboard. Definitely a strong list and the Chain Lightning adds a surprise piece of removal that isn’t being played by most Murktide brews.
White Stompy
The top deck of the Saturday Challenge was comprised of most of the usual suspects from White Stompy, with a few curves. The same deck also placed in the Top 8 on Sunday, although did not win the trophy.
The notable absence of Chalice of the Void or Swords to Plowshares in the main deck was a real surprise. Showing up to a Legacy match with this deck without either of these cards portends some real curiosity in the approach to deck building. To that end, the curious addition of four copies of Chancellor of the Annex and three copies of March of Otherworldly Light throws a different element of surprise at the opponent who may have been primed for the regular prison or removal elements.
March is your mono-white Prismatic Ending of sorts, opening up a few avenues of removal against cards such as Touch the Spirit Realm (in the mirror) or Sigarda’s Aid which may have been a smart play since Hammertime has made a splash in this meta recently.
Mono-Blue Painter Cast
This fantastic brew took down the Sunday challenge with a spin on 8-cast, including Painter’s Servant and Grindstone. This two-pronged attack does not seem intuitive at first and maybe that is what makes it such a great brew to take down the challenge.
The usual eight copies of Thoughtcast and Thought Monitor are present as are the supporting members of the typical Affinity build. Absent are some of the other inclusions like Sai, Master Thopterist, and Kappa Cannoneer (although two did make the sideboard).
There isn’t much else to say about this deck. Just an impressive combination of two current great decks.
3C Uro Miracle
Interesting Uro Miracle brew here that looks to control the board and then swing in with Uro or some big Angels for the win. What I like about this deck is the heavy creature control slant with tons of creature removal backed up by plenty of creatures to quickly sway the board state. This seems to fit with the current creature-heavy meta of Legacy right now.
This deck looks to take advantage of the traditional Miracle spells Terminus and Entreat the Angels to surprise the opponent. With Brainstorm and Ponder on hand to help fix the top of the library, it looks relatively easy to set up a combination if needed.
I can see some instances where you might not even need the miracle spells. Between four copies of Swords to Plowshares and Prismatic Ending, the opponent’s creatures will be falling to the wayside quickly.
Cephalid Breakfast
Last week I mentioned the shifting landscape of Legacy right now and this is no more apparent than with the appearance of this deck near the top of the Sunday challenge. While there is nothing new about the tech in this copy, I like the inclusion of Orim’s Chant. Nothing like a white card doing its best blue control impression to throw off an unsuspecting opponent.
Everything else here is pretty stock Breakfast over the last few years. Between Force of Will, Daze, and Orim’s Chant, there is plenty of counter-magic to protect the combo.
Legacy Challenge Takeaways
Last week I discussed the shifting demographics of the Legacy meta. This week it showed with Breakfast coming out near the top and a Mono-Blue Painter Cast deck. While Murktide did make an appearance, the archetype didn’t run away with the trophy.
It won’t be long until we start to see folks cracking Phyrexia: All Will Be One packs and maybe we will see some of those cards creep into the Legacy format.
That’s all the space I have this week. Hope you all enjoyed the read and are as impressed with the weekend’s decks as I was.
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