MTG Legacy Thread: Vintage Lite Edition

>Playing?
>Testing?
>BDIF/Favorite deck in format?
>Your opponent opens up T1 ritual, ritual, Contamination, Bitterblossom. What do you do?

RESOURCES
>Active Legacy Forums
mtgthesource.com/forums/forum.php
mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/legacy-type-1-5

>Current Legacy Metagame
mtgtop8.com/format?f=LE
mtggoldfish.com/metagame/legacy

>Find/Browse basic lands by their art (Updated through Duel Decks: Jace vs Chandra)
sites.google.com/site/mtgbasics/

READINGS
>Top 5 Breakdown (May 26, 2016)
channelfireball.com/articles/the-top-5-legacy-decks/

>Miracles: The Match-Up Everyone Should Know
channelfireball.com/articles/how-to-defeat-miracles/

>Utilizing Cabal Therapy (Old but still good)
channelfireball.com/home/legacy-weapon-therapy-session/

Common Legacy - Decks You Should Prepare to Face
>Miracles
>Delver variants (Grixis, Izzet, BUG, RUG)
>ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils)
>Death and Taxes
>Eldrazi Stompy
>Shardless BUG
>Lands

Uncommon Legacy - Decks You Should Know About
>LED Dredge
>Reanimator
>Infect
>Stoneblade
>Burn
>TES (The Epic Storm)
>Elves
>Painter
>Maverick
>4-Color Loam
>Nic Fit
>Sneak n Show

Rare Legacy - Decks You May See On Occasion
>Enchantress
>MUD
>Goblins
>Merfolk
>High Tide
>Aluren
>Food Chain
>12 Post
>Belcher
>Pox Control
>Dragon Stompy
>Tezzerator
>Sneak n Breach
>Stax (White or Black)

Mythic Legacy - Decks You'll See Once a Year
>Doomsday Fetchland Tendrils (DDFT)
>Cheerios
>Nourshing Lich
>Sea Stompy
>Spanish Inquisition
>Shitty Wannabe Defunct Sneak n ShowMonoblue Omnitell
>Parfait
>The Cure (Kavu Predator + False Cure)

People keep forgetting the spoilers so let me just post the "actual tier list".

Common Legacy - Decks You Should Prepare to Face
>Miracles
>Delver variants (Grixis, Izzet, BUG, RUG)
>ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils)
>Death and Taxes
>Eldrazi Stompy
>Shardless BUG
>Lands

Uncommon Legacy - Decks You Should Know About
>LED Dredge
>Reanimator
>Infect
>Stoneblade
>Burn
>TES (The Epic Storm)
>Elves
>Painter
>Maverick
>4-Color Loam
>Nic Fit
>Sneak n Show

Rare Legacy - Decks You May See On Occasion
>Enchantress
>MUD
>Goblins
>Merfolk
>High Tide
>Aluren
>Food Chain
>12 Post
>Belcher
>Pox Control
>Dragon Stompy
>Tezzerator
>Sneak n Breach
>Stax (White or Black)
>Deadguy Ale

Mythic Legacy - Decks You'll See Once a Year
>Doomsday Fetchland Tendrils (DDFT)
>Cheerios
>Nourshing Lich
>Sea Stompy
>Spanish Inquisition
>Monoblue Omnitell
>Parfait
>The Cure (Kavu Predator + False Cure)

>ritual
>ritual
>contamination into bitterblossom
Well, uh... LED, crack for 3 red, Dredge 2 Golgari Grave-Troll? Not going to lie, this does slow my deck by about two or three turns depending on how many times I mulligan. I'd be forced to go into the Draw-Discard-Dredge plan.

>t1 contamination and bitterblossom
>blowing your hand t1 for no clock or significant disruption vs a black based combo deck
I'm pretty sure I can get out of this one, especially if I have a Top.

>LED, LED, crack one for RRR dredge cast from grave faithless and dredge 6+ and pray for another faithless or similar

>t1 Sol Land, SSG, Seething Song, Blood Moon, Chalice on 1
Suddenly I really, really want to play Blood Moon Stompy.

>>Playing?

Monoblack Pox

>>Testing?

Blue-White Parfait

>>BDIF/Favorite deck in format?

Not counting my own, I'd say I like how Reanimator and Nic Fit play. Cephalid Breakfast will always have a special place in my heart, too.

>>Your opponent opens up T1 ritual, ritual, Contamination, Bitterblossom. What do you do?
Play swamp, dark ritual for Hymn to Tourach to empty the rest of his hand, play Rack, watch him sweat out that clock while I try to get rid of his bitterblossom fliers. Alternatively: pray I draw a Ratchet Bomb to get rid of Blossom.

>Your opponent opens up T1 ritual, ritual, Contamination, Bitterblossom. What do you do?
if I can't counter the bitterblossom, I might concede to keep them from knowing what I'm on.

>pay to win general

Sorry friend, you seemed lost! You seem to want to be posting here Happy posting!

Go home Alice.

>>Playing?
Nothing new
>>Testing?
Nothing new
>>BDIF/Favorite deck in format?
Probably Miracles, FDIF is still Manaless, or maybe Goblins
>>Your opponent opens up T1 ritual, ritual, Contamination, Bitterblossom. What do you do?
Draw for turn, discard to handsize, ignore the contamination?

Finally, a ban update I can get behind.

"Section 3.9 (Shuffling): This change has to do with "pile shuffling." Pile shuffling alone is not a sufficiently random form of shuffling. Update states that a player may only pile shuffle once each time a deck is randomized. The one pile shuffle is allowed in order to count the number of cards in the deck."

Are there people out there that really pile shuffled more than once?

I've played against a person who does 6 pile shuffles. Every time they mulligan.

Some people do, and now you can call them out on wasting time.

Well that's good I guess. I don't think I've ever seen anyone do more than 1 or 2. But i'm all for things that speed up tournament processes. And this is coming from a guy who plays a deck with 4 Tops.

Oh fuck yeah that's sweet

Why doesn't every deck that can play Manamorphose play it?

It is basically a free draw, along with Gitaxian Probe (which, I know, is better because you get to see their hand), it would allow you basically thin your deck enough to draw into more gas.

Because it's a bad card. Gitaxian probe is slightly defensible, Manamorphose is really bad. Even in storm decks.

Because Death and Taxes exists and punishes non-essential "free spells"

You draw an opening hand. It contains Street Wraith, Manamorphose, Gitaxian probe, Gitaxian Probe, Volcanic Island, Polluted Delta, Deathrite Shaman. Do you keep it?

I posted this in legacy instead of modern.

Fuck me.

>T1 Deathrite
I mean, it seems keepable to me.

Aw dude of course you have like 3 free cards there

I like you.

I ask myself why I'm playing a bad deck. I mulligan down to 0, then concede after my opponent plays a land.

But what if your opponent never plays a land?

This is actually an interesting question because it cuts to why card advantage isn't necessarily the most important concern in deckbuilding.

I played All Spells for quite a while, and that's a deck without many permanent (read: sticks to the board) mana sources. Most people who played the deck at the time it was sort of a thing ran quads of Manamorphose for color-fixing, because you don't have that many initial black sources and you need to convert Spirit Guides into black mana.

I cut Manamorphose back to a singleton. There were a whole lot of hands in which I wouldn't have two initial sources to cast it, there were a whole lot of hands that had multiple Manamorphoses and no fourth mana to combo, and sometimes I'd have some hideous number of "free" spells, enough mana, a Pact of Negation/Cabal Therapy to protect my combo, and no business creatures.

Those are all bad spots to be. And if you're pitching Spirit Guides to Manamorphose without a certain win sealed up, you run a much greater risk of shooting yourself in the foot than you do of winning.

For decks that don't run Manamorphose at all, the question you should ask is, "what cards in this deck would I cut from the mainboard for Manamorphose?"

And the argument that Probe is either bad or mediocre is false. Running Cabal Therapy without it is a poor decision in Grix and Storm, and try cutting it from a Storm deck and watch what happens.

>play my T1 Shaman
>my opponent is the show and tell plus 56 islands guy

Anybody think there's a snowball's chance any of the vehicles will see play? My gut says no, but one wonders.

Git Probe is good in a certain type of deck. Storm getting a free peak is nice, and Delver likes getting to aim its therapies and fuel delve at no cost.

That being said, I've trimmed Git Ptobes in Grixis Delver, mostly in Decay builds with therapies postboard. I think Git Probe is a crutch for a lot of people. There are plenty of decks that want Therapy and not Probe, and some decks that just want probe. It depends entirely on what your deck is looking to do

Going to have to also go with no. They are neat, but do not have the right kind of board impact to be playable. I am okay with being wrong though.

Thev legendary 6 drop that bolts could be good in vintage, but probably not legacy

Shit welder (UR artifact "reanimation" deck based around Goblin welder and simlar effects. Includes shitloads of looting and trying to get fast big artifact thing to stomp opponent) returns after getting upgrades to deck and getting few proppa games under my belt.
So few stories when dumbass me played against "established" legacy decks.

MUD was a fun matchup because welder naturally was disruptive force turning many lightning greaves into less scary artifacts my opponent decided to sac for forgemaster. Also a beautiful blunder for saccing everything to get turn 2 Blightsteel. And then I welded blighsteel into greaves because he forgot the effect.
What was less fun was god damn chalice on 1. More that I kept forgetting that the thing was on table first throwing a faithless looting into it and then flashbacking it like a genious dumbass I am.

ANT was not actually that scary. Games relied more that I had Izzet charms/dispels to hit ad nausea or getting a fast platinum emperion/platinum angel on field. Actually it was kinda booring.

Dredge was nazi and blitzkrieged my arse like it was poland.

Then there were some wildass brews like unexpected results deck and UW control thing that had New Kozilek as the only wincondition.

Should I buy a playset of Land Tax now, or wait until the potential Masterpiece reprint?

Original border > all
New border vs newer border is up for debate though

I completely agree with you on that
However, think of the potential new artwork for Land Tax. Seeing the Masterpiece Sol Ring got me intrigued on the idea

Cool, yo. Given that you're running a reanimator build, do you play Entomb or just stick to mono-red?

> not wanting your opponent to stare the taxman in the eye

"reanimator" as in Welder, Trash for Treasure and Daretti technically "reanimate" by trading artifacts on field to artifact on grave. Perhaps I should have refrained from using word reanimation.

I run blue for Careful Study, Dispel, part cost for izzet charm and cephalid colosseum.
Also side effect of running blue and being poorfag everybody expects the force but there are no forces.

I don't think good blood moon stompy decks play seething song, user.

kek, well said

Well yes, I understood the concept, I was just thinking that entomb would help you put any card, not just creatures but artifacts as well, in the graveyard which would make it easier to target with the Welder. Plus it got reprinted so it's sub-$10 in most places.

ah sry I have long day behind me so pretty tired therefore misreadings and misunderstandings said reading happen.

I have not actually thought entomb at all. time for list tinkering if i can 1. reasonably fit black for it 2. fit the entomb in it.

That doesn' mean that a certain group don't

>certain group
He means Johnnys

Like me

Would it be a smart move to splash U in Parfait for Brainstorm and JTMS?

Fuckin null rod I have lost so many I shouldn't have by people topdecking their presumably 1-of null rod

You might be able to get away with Brainstorm and Daze but Jace will be hard because of the UU cost.

If you want more deck manipulation just play a couple Tops.

I only take issue with you saying "topdecking." the card selection in legacy is good enough that it's not unreasonable to find 1 or 2 of bullets.

Well in the past 3 games it's happened i've duressed/therapied/probed the turn before and there was no null rod. Then they draw for the turn and slam null rod.

Are you sure? If I have Lotus Petals and play a couple of Islands I should be good, no?
If not, I will probably go mono white.

JTMS seems like it's too much mana for what you are gunning for and too color heavy, but brainstorm would work. Top would be best though.

How hard is it to learn how to play burn? I've got most of a legacy burn deck lying around from just playing over the years and am tempted to give it a spin

Burn is an exercise in mulligans, sequencing and playing around soft counters. It's not hard but it isn't braindead

With Land Tax active it's easy to grab two islands for Jace, but there are times when you won't have Tax. To cast him off your drawn mana sources you'll want about 16 blue sources. 4 Mox Diamonds, 2 Islands, and 4 Tundras is only ten. If you play 4 Flooded Strands on top of that you'll only be running 10 basics.

The deck just doesn't want Jace, though. It's not set up to protect him and there are better, more efficient deck manipulators and win cons available.

You go blue for Brainstorm, Energy Field, Back to Basics, and SB counterspells, not Jace.

If you want to play White/Blue with Jace, you should probably just play miracles. It's designed to protect Jace with Counterbalance and Terminus.

Burn is Optimization: the Deck. If you want to get stupid good with a deck to the point where it flows inside, outside, and backward, Burn is the deck for you. It's always going to be my favorite deck. Also this . I could rant and rave about the deck for hours.

Give us a rant, if you please.

Just built The Cure.
It's fun as fuck, and absolutely crushes some common decks.
I mean, it's pretty fragile otherwise, but it offers both aggro and pseudo-combo lines of play and is funny as anything.
Turns out a lot of decks currently can't really handle a 14/14 2 mana trampler. And free 2/2's are nothing to sneeze at.

>LITERALLY the first post of the thread is showing that there are only 4-5 good deck possibilities and the rest is shit
>mandatory expensive cards, like force of will in every goddamn blue deck unless you're planning to lose
>Not pay to win

This'll be a little more toward Modern, but...

So I picked up Burn about 2 years ago as a way to get into Modern after toying with Standard for a few months. I had no clue what I was doing for a while, but eventually it got to the point where I took down 3 FNMs back-to-back with a 4-0 (8-0-0) record, to the point where someone literally built Soul Sisters just to counter my deck. But instead of making a different deck I just kept playing. I didn't go 4-0 as often anymore but you bet your ass I kept winning.

For me Burn became the definition of what happens when you really stick with a deck and learn it well. Unfortunately there's some bad stigma with it. Everyone knows a shitty Burn player, or a smelly one, or an arrogant one, and the same can be said of Jund and especially of Affinity. Every once in a while you'll get a stellar guy who just loves playing the deck because it suits who he is, it suits his personality and his playstyle and that's what Burn became for me. I tried taking out UW control decks but they stopped being interesting. I missed my basic Mountains and my foil Eidolons and my premium deck series Bolts. When you get hooked on a deck like that, it really does change you in a way.

It taught me how to become a better Magic player. As I ported it over to Legacy and the deck became monored, it honestly was like the clouds cleared away. It was like I had finally found the deck I had always wanted to play almost from day one. My playstyle became quick, aggressive, and optimal. I wanted to slam out every shred of value possible, I didn't want to grind it out with Rhino and Goyf. Give me Goblin Guides. Give me Bolts. Give me Fireblast.

Every time I sit down with Burn I know the difference between winning and losing is literally 1 life. I've been in countless situations where 1 life has made the difference. Burn is a deck that, for me, gets a little deeper each time I play it. That, to me, makes a deck beautiful beyond words.

Why has no one commented on how terrifying and ballin' this alter is?

What is it? Pithing Needle? Because that's not what a pithing needle is.

>Your opponent opens up T1 ritual, ritual, Contamination, Bitterblossom. What do you do?

Swamp, Mox diamond, Hymn to Tourach, proceed to lock him out of the game with LD and Discard and laugh at him for giving me an easy wincon.

I hear you brotha, I've been playing it on cockatrice a bit, its fun as hell.

Praise Kavu

I've been playing a black blue Omni-Tell variant with much success.. thoughtseize and lim-duls vault with a single emrakul and single grislebrand don't see why people dislike Omni-Tell.

Because they do mono blue usually, I like the idea of the U/B

Any good decks under $200?

Depends on how much of a baller you want to be

Manaless dredge

Any DEATHBLADE players in the house? Thinking about branching out with a more fair deck, and DEATHBLADE seems to tickle my fancy. However, I never see the deck anymore, is it that badly positioned right now? The greedy manabase probably doesn't help either.

Also, is it true you have to write DEATHBLADE in all caps to show what a baller you are, always and everywhere?

Deathblade was never very well positioned, a lot of people just played it. The manabase is total shit. Deathrite in a deck with Islands and Tundra's is terrible.

That said, it's a deck that contains a lot of powerful cards. I would debate that this does not make it a powerful deck, but I do believe that a stoneblade variant could be decent.

Very much so.

Build something that makes sense in the metagame. That takes a while, but it's doable

Shame, I love/hate DRS and wanted to use it in a more midrange/control shell.

Deadguy Ale is also an option, but I'm loathe to abandon blue...

I mean it sounds like you want to run Shardless BUG or Nic Fit or Jund.

The problem with the decks that just add Deathrite is how many of them really lean on Deathrite fixing their mana. You might be able to build it with a better manabase, but the classic lists are terrible.

Thanks for the advice. I'm used to playing Dredge, Reanimator and Sneak Show, which means that in general, I have a hard time evaluating how strong/good/consistent a 'fair' deck is. I tend to look at metas in term of raw amount of hate for my combo plan.

Nic Fit is another deck I was considering, but again, no idea how it fits in the current metagame. I generally feel like Shardless Bug does the value plan better.

Nic fit is a toolbox deck so it''s highly customizable. You need a good read on your meta, but ifor you have that it will fit into your meta very nicely. Bit of a rough combo match up though. If I was ever going to build a fair deck, it would be Nic fit. I love the veteran explorer/therapy synergy and keep trying to jam it in doomsday.

I think you should play the Stoneforge variant. Stoneblade is much better: has a solid mana base, long-time power, and can go toe to toe with Miracles.

Deathblade IS a Stoneforge variant though, utilising the raw power of DRS, hence the name. But I get what you're saying.

The option to highly customize is what draws me to the deck, but to be fair, I felt this was also the case for Deathblade. I could go for a Bant Nic Fit list though, using Perilous Research for that sweet, juicy value.

The largest problem with those free cantrips is that they aren't free, and I'm talking about the life cost of casting Probe or cycling Streetwraith either. Sure, play four each of Probe, Streetwraith and Manamorphose and you're essentially playing a 48 card deck, but they conceal information from you. What happens when you draw your seven and see three lands, two Probes and two Street Wraiths for example? Do you keep it? What if you cycle into more lands?

What's the best game one strategy for ANT v Miracles? I played a couple games against it for the first time last weekend. The first match, they land a counter balance and I'm locked out of the game. Match 2, I pith his top early on and hold two Abrupt Decay for anything else. Eventually I built a decent threshold of spells to feel comfortable powering through his hand. I had a shakey moment when he karakased his clique and flashed it back in to bottom the tendrils in hand but I drew infernal and won anyway.
Over all, I admired the oppressive feel of the miracles from the other side of the table. My opponent seemed pretty adept too.

What's the difference between Sneak 'n' Show and Sneak 'n' Breach? They both look ridiculous and fun

>What if you cycle into more lands?
Cut lands. Obviously running too many.

I imagine the later uses through the breach in place of sneak attack. Otherwise the difference is likely null.

The former plays Show and Tell (UR), while the latter plays Through the Breach (mostly monored).

To clarify, both play Sneak Attack, but they're pretty different decks. Sneak and Breach is also sometimes called Big Red, and plays other threats besides Griselbrand and Emrakul, like Inferno Titan.

Right, what I meant was my list runs only Stoneforge and not DRS. Currently my creature package is

4 Stoneforge Mystic
2 True-Name Nemesis
2 Snapcaster Mage

It's a pretty spell-heavy list, now that I'm looking at it. I might try testing with Baleful Strix or Dark Confidant someday when I'm not trying to build literally every other deck imaginable.

Unless you're running exactly three lands in that scenario there's always the risk of cycling into more of them.

Moreover, what about the starting hand where you have two spells, three Probes and two Streetwraiths? Can you keep that hand? What if you don't cycle into any more lands at all, or a land that doesn't produce the color you need?

So Jund is beyond Mythic now?
News to me

Talking of news to me, what's this Parfait deck people are talking about?

I swear, you stop playing a format for a few months and things change like crazy.

Parfait is an older deck though, existing at its core since Buehler's Extended white weenie deck. It was later ported to type 1 (probably by Raphael Caron) and has existed since at least 2000.

It's essentialy mono-white control, and consequently, not a very popular deck. You always have some nutters playing it though.

SNS is UR combo/control, breach/Big Red is a monored fast mana prison/combo/stompy deck with Blood Moons, Trinispheres, Chalices etc that has the option of hardcasting its fatties after turns 2-3, something the former deck can't do (theoretically with 2 lotus petals you can cast Griselbrand but it never comes up).

Yeah, I just looked it up. Looks fun, but monowhite control which relies on having less lands than it's opponent in legacy? Nah, count me out.

Anybody else play 12 post?
If not, do you know what it feels to hardcast a newlamog or emrakul?
It feels amazing.

Is it a functional deck? Can I see your list?

How does it feel, shitting all over Miracles' parade?

Dont be silly. Why would I run a land that doesn't tap for the color I need? Anyway, three lands sounds perfect. All my business spells cost three anyway!

I play 12post but I built it out of shit I already had so I don't have any Emrakuls yet. I did have a funny match where I decked a person out with Sands of Delirium though.

12post please go and stay go