Legacy Metagame: MTGO Challenge Champions (2/25 & 2/26)
Welcome back to the latest installment of BTB’s coverage of the weekend Legacy Challenge! I am your host, Curtis Ailes, working my hardest to unearth some nuggets of excitement from the weekend.
This week I want to talk about Murktide, Brother’s War, and how Sneak & Show has managed to work its way back to the top of the Weekend Challenges.
Without further ado, onto the controversy!
What is Going on with Izzet Murktide?
Last week I touched on what appears to be a slight evolution of Delver in Legacy, at least in the online realm. When White Stompy broke onto the scene, a subset of Murktide players splashed black to take advantage of Snuff Out, which as it turns out is a great piece of creature removal even when you aren’t facing off against White Stompy. With the advent of Phyrexia: All Will Be One, we also saw the introduction of Mercurial Spelldancer and Minor Misstep, providing some other tech to mess with opponents.
This past weekend we witnessed more evolution with Third Path Iconoclast entering the chat, with Saturday’s top deck containing four of them. And they weren’t the only deck in the Top 8 running four copies of the token-spawning two-drop.
There seems to be a lot of tinkering going on with what most would refer to as the “stock” Murktide list. I suppose it is nice to see a bit of innovation at the top of the format.
There are also slight indications that the Blue Painter deck that has been running over the Challenge in recent weekends may be catching on. There were two Blue Painter decks in Sunday’s Top 8 which tells me people are starting to pick up what DNSolver has been putting down.
Legacy MTGO Saturday Challenge 32 Results
Grixis Tempo - Ecobaronen
White Stompy – Mattsoree
Reanimator – XxShuicunexX
Red Painter – ganesh_69
Grixis Tempo – TueBo
Reanimator – Martin_Dominguez
Reanimator – satu2112
White Stompy - almostomniscient
Full list is here
Direct links courtesy of Reddit u/FereMiyJeenyus and their MTGO Results Scraper.
Legacy MTGO Sunday Challenge Results
Sneak & Show – JPA93
Riddlesmith Combo – Killabee
Blue Painter - _IlNano_
Izzet Delver – Secretaznman
EPIC Storm – karatedom
Selesnya Stompy – HeyNongMan
Izzet Delver – Supercazzola
Blue Painter - Ark4n
Full list is here
Direct links courtesy of Reddit u/FereMiyJeenyus and their MTGO Results Scraper.
Weekend Challenge Results
Saturday
Taking down Saturday’s Challenge was Ecobaronen with Izzet Murktide vs. Mattsoree and White Stompy! It’s sort of poetic to see these two decks duking it out at the top of the ladder.
There was a lot of Reanimator this weekend too. Third place was a Reanimator deck and fourth place was Red Painter. Fifth place was Grixis Tempo (the other Iconoclast deck) with sixth place seeing another Reanimator deck.
Filling out the last two spots were Reanimator and White Stompy. Talk about some homogonous archetypes!
Sunday
Sunday’s challenge was taken down by none other than Sneak & Show by weekend Challenge regular, JPA93 facing off against Killabee and their Riddlesmith Combo; the same deck that placed a couple of weekends ago.
In third place, we had a Blue Painter deck while fourth place was Izzet Delver. Fifth place was EPIC storm while sixth place was a Selesnya Stompy deck. Rounding out the last two spots were Izzet Delver and another Blue Painter deck.
Top Legacy MTGO Challenge Decks
What I like seeing is the constant fiddling with Delver that is going on. That Third Path Iconoclast spearheading the top deck on Saturday is remarkable. Just thinking about the number of non-creature spells in the stock Delver list, Iconoclast is a natural fit and I am surprised it's taken this long to see it at the top.
Killabee was back with their Riddlesmith Combo deck. A couple of weeks ago we wrote about the impact new cards like Vindictive Flamestoker had on this archetype, and it appears they cut two copies of Flamestoker and added a copy of Ovalchase Devil to maintain an advantage in the current meta.
We’ve also written about Blue Painter a lot recently due in part to DNSolver who has been riding high with this combination of 8-Cast and Painter’s Servant combo. It was only a matter of time before more people picked it up and looking through the rest of the field, there were certainly more than just the two that placed in the Top 8 Sunday.
Finally, Sunday’s Sneak & Show deck included a couple of copies of Atraxa. I will be curious to see if others go this route to try and bring back the winning results Sneak & Show has historically been capable of posting.
Izzet Iconoclast
Taking down Saturday’s Challenge was Ecobaronen with Izzet Murktide and the aforementioned Third Path Iconoclast. Interestingly, their game plan centered on small creatures in Delver, Iconoclast, and Dragon’s Rage Channeler, with only two copies of Murktide making the cut. They weren’t even in the sideboard, where instead there were two copies of Gurmag Angler.
Some strange innovation at work here, but I like the mix of low-casting cost creatures designed to overwhelm the opponent. In a time of creature-heavy strategies, this represents an opportunity for Murktide decks to increase their board presence.
With the number of non-creature spells deployed in the deck, this strategy reminds me of the Monastery Mentor approach at a cheaper mana value.
I will be watching to see if more Murktide players take up this strategy.
Red Painter
Stemming a long absence from the weekend Top 8, Red Painter is back. With the exception of Phyrexian Dragon Engine, there isn’t much difference from the stock Red Painter list here.
The tools here to go and get the combo are wide-ranging and effective. Between Goblin Welder, Goblin Engineer, Urza’s Saga, and Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, there are many ways to avoid a mulligan to get what you need in hand to seal the match.
Sneak & Show
It has been a while since we saw Sneak & Show at the top of a weekend Challenge. While the major bones of the stock list are in place, the introduction of Atraxa here provides another great threat that on its own may not finish the game but does provide more ways to find the pieces that do.
In the sideboard, again thanks to Brother’s War, we have another relative newcomer in Brotherhood’s End. The ability to wipe the board of small, annoying creatures or all artifacts is becoming a rather useful tool when you are trying to put together your combo.
Corner of Intrigue – 4c Depths
If you have read my writing, it should come as no surprise that I am a Depths fan. Last week I was pontificating on the absence of Depths in the weekend Challenge Top 8.
While the dry streak continues, at least one copy placed 13th in the Sunday challenge and I want to break it down just a little.
The decklist contains a fairly stock Depths list but includes Life from the Loam, a card that doesn’t always make the cut in this list. It appears the 4th Mox Diamond was cut to make room for Loam. As a Depths player, I can attest to being forced to decide how to salvage the game plan when an opponent has disposed of Depths or Marit Lage. Loam gives the Depths operator at least one way to bring this plan back from the graveyard.
In the sideboard, there are a couple of copies of Unchained Berserker and Virtue’s Ruin, undoubtedly to deal with White Stompy.
While not a Top 8 contender, it is nice to see Depths back near the top.
Final Thoughts
Phyrexia is starting to mature and while Atraxa may have cooled off a little, it's clear that everyone's favorite Phyrexian angel hasn’t disappeared as an option in Legacy. Similarly, Brother’s War cards being back in the mix tells me that the perceived strength of recent set releases was not short-lived.
Legacy can struggle at times from stagnation but the past few months have been really healthy for the format. Whether that has been eternal-legal only sets or new rotations, having a fresh supply of cards has managed to shoe-horn Legacy out of the rut that it was in through early and mid-2022.
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