MTG Legacy General

Only the jews fear the dredge.

My problem is with both and the whole BUG(+red) goodstuff vs combo vs chalicemoon paradigm, Legacy looked diverse and fun before DRS and Miracles.

Is legacy a solved format or is there possible decks out there.

There isn't clear answer to that question. Yes, most good decks are already optimized. No, there isn't some tier 0 deck that always wins. (And there is statistic bias, because of course field of 30% delver decks get more results than 0.01% field of enchantress. Doesn't mean one deck is better over the other in certain meta.)

Then your problem is that you are a nostalfag.
Legacy has always been blue vs chalice vs storm

Abolish the banlist and encourage proliferation of chinamen fakes :^)

This isn't really true. In 2011, before avacyn restored, maverick, without chalice mind you, was a tier 1 deck,. Countertop decks existed and were tier 1 or 2. Rug Delver was the top Delver deck. It was actually a more varied meta.

I don't think it's solved. There is definitely a long list of established decks, but I don't think they're stifling innovation; a bigger problem, I think, is that there aren't enough strong new printings to rein in the few top-slot decks, though I don't think those decks are dominant in any way like Miracles was, or like Shops has always been in Vintage.

My current project is figuring out how to incorporate Lion's Eye Diamond into Manaless Dredge.

There's also this ():
>there is statistic bias, because of course field of 30% delver decks get more results than 0.01% field of enchantress
One thing that I think can be misleading is that when certain decks start to get a lot of top ranks, that causes people to pick up those decks, which causes a snowballing of results (the more people play a deck, the more likely it is that that deck will get a top-8). I think the example of Eldrazi is pretty illustrative: for a few months the deck was everywhere (even in my tiny metagame) because it was cheap and got byes against Storm, then it disappeared when people figured out how to fight it and its pilots either got bored, got frustrated by its inconsistency, or got clobbered by fast combo, Painter, Lands, etc.

With all that said, the Internet has caused pretty much every format to get a lot closer to "solved" than was the case in the early '00s, I think, because decks brainstormed worldwide are pretty hard to beat with a rogue brew.

I don't think those two decks caused that to happen. There's always been a tendency toward homogenization that results from people's naturally gravitating toward proven builds. The big problem causing homogeneity is that so few cards get printed that are even close to playable in the eternals. Wizards is so hellbent on not printing "bah-roken XD" cards that only the mistakes make it to Legacy, and being mistakes, those cards rarely have direct equivalents.

This is cherry picking, but I can't help it.

mtgtop8.com/event?e=1924&d=213883&f=LE
>RUG order
>Caw-Blade
>reanimator
>RUG order
>Caw-Blade
>RUG order
>RUG order
>Aggro loam

I think legacy is getting new cards to it's pool at a steady rate. Sure most of the cards getting into the format are mistakes on eternal point of view, but big portion were not an issue when talking about standard. WotC just doesn't test new cards to the eternal the same way they are trying to keep the shit together for drafting/standard. And it's not like the new cards hitting the pool are exactly breaking the format like Eldrazi did the modern.

Most recent inclusion to very good stables is fatal push I believe. Before that Leovold, Gurmag, Abrupt decay, Pyromancer, etc. None of which are exactly so broken they can't be won, but which are extremely good playable cards. Meta is developing all the time even if people like to whine things are stagnant, which it kinda is, but also isn't.

Biggest problem is that price of the decks are so high, that there is little innovation. I'm sick and tired of seeing people go "this deck is crap" even when they have never tried it or seen any good player to pilot around them. Modern is the best example; Decks like amulet bloom and lantern control were shunned for so long, until some players took the effort to actually trying to win a tournament with them. (One was accused from cheating, I know)

But the point is, that there is a lot of rogue decks in legacy that have imo had not a fair chance to compete. Even burn is probably on equal ground to lot of decks and is consistent as hell and would probably easily top8 a tournament, if played in same volumes as the most popular choices. But when you can afford a single deck, you would like to pick the best deck, which is probably the most represented deck in the format.

Just an afterthought.

Even a deck like DnT was bad for so long, until someone took the effort to build it as well as possible and piloted it enough to actually win a tournament. Of course inclusion of Thalia etc. were big reason for it to become "a deck", but for a long time it was a rogue deck not piloted enough to top8.

Get it guys? Cuz Dredge... is NAZIS XD roflmao! *holds up spork*

I think the effect of price on deck choice is overstated, especially when looking at the metagame from mtgo (which isn't that different from paper touraanments). Even in paper, once you have blue duals, fetches, and forces, you can build pretty much any blue deck in the format with minimal investment. As for mtgo, the prices are far less, switching decks is much easier due to bots/it being an online interface, and there are a ton of people playing leagues/tournaments. These all really help "weed out" the bias created by factors such as price, pet deck, etc. So really, how much a deck is played is very closely correlated to its strength in the meta. So no, burn is not as good as grixis delver or pile, because if it was more people would be playing it. If a rogue deck was actually good enough to compete with tier one decks, we would see it being played more and more, especially online. Recently we saw this with b/r reanimator, which spiked in popularity after the collective brutality printing, and has now fallen from "fotm" status and has settled at its place in the meta.

>make the format more interesting and lead to a healthier selection of delver decks.
>selection of delver decks
>make the format more interesting
is this some kind of joke?

>Sure most of the cards getting into the format are mistakes on eternal point of view, but big portion were not an issue when talking about standard. WotC just doesn't test new cards to the eternal the same way they are trying to keep the shit together for drafting/standard.

This. It's extremely irksome that they aren't putting much of any effort into managing how their cards will actually work in the wild except to show up a few months/years behind schedule and hammer something (sometimes the wrong card). I get that it's impossible to test every card for every possible interaction, but it feels like their mistakes are ones they should be avoiding without trouble. DRS is a one-mana pushed creature with three superb activated abilities. How they didn't notice that'd be so good is beyond me.

>Biggest problem is that price of the decks are so high, that there is little innovation.

To a point, I agree, but it's not tough to pick up most Legacy staples outside of the lands and Force, Tarmo, or walkers. So the slots open to innovation usually aren't the expensive ones.

There's definitely a problem with people's writing off builds and decks without taking the time to figure them out or optimize them. A lot of pros who stream are terrible about this; when a guy who usually goes 2–1 at the local (and often does so playing a different deck) can spot your misplays, that's not a good sign.

I'd like some critiques on this deck, I just back into it and I was building dredge at the time.

4x Golgari Grave-Troll
4x Golgari Thug
4x Ichorid
4x Narcomoeba
4x Nether Shadow
4x Phantasmagorian
4x Prized Amalgam
4x Shambling Shell
4x Stinkweed Imp
4x Street Wraith
2x Sphinx of Lost Truths
1x Serra Avatar
1x Flayer of the Hatebound

4x Bridge from Below
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Dread Return
4x Gitaxian Probe

mtgtop8.com/event?e=15180&d=292064&f=LE
450 players, burn in top8.

mtgtop8.com/event?e=12681&d=273537&f=LE
1800 players, burn at top16.

MtgTop8 doesn't include player amounts in some results and I didn't want to include 60 player tournaments, but fuck me if I'm going to take back my claims that burn has a good chance to hit top8.

And yes, deck prices are still a huge factor. Just because you think 100-200dollars or so for the cheapest decks in the format in mtgo isn't the decisive factor to buy into a format for most of the people doesn't mean it isn't. Of course I can't prove anything, because that would need a study on player behavior, but quite sure it's pretty damn huge factor. Even "bad rogue deck"s prices are out of question to most of people, and if you are going to pay for "bad rogue deck" you might as well pay for "good blue deck".

What I'm saying is that innovation takes a lot of time and work, because sometimes you might have to make a huge portion of deck to work together and then test it in xmage or cockatrice, just to see if it has any chance in practice while in theory it should work. Then you would have to actually learn to pilot that shit and actually buy the cards to enter the real deal tournaments with a "shitbrew" just to see if you can make it. It's not cheap, in time and monetarily.

Do you realize how big respect I regard on the guy who got in top8 with lantern control? Or any other person doing the same feat?

While in the meantime someone like Hoogland is testing proved lists in a shitty video and then whining how bad the deck is, is the exact opposite of what I would like to see more.

Of course, some decks just need the last push to make them very good and popular, like collective brutality, but the reanimator was in it's very many forms already a successful deck, but b/r manabase and the cards to build it were cheap to jump into.

I never said burn was bad, or that it could never top 8. Obviously anything can top 8, especially in legacy where skill and matchup knowledge are more important than in other formats. But it doesn't top 8 as much as delver, because more people play delver, because delver is the "better" deck.

Again, there are enough people playing on mtgo that the power level of a deck far outweighs the effect that the price of a deck has. I can go on mtgo right now, and trade my cards to some bot so I can build a completely different deck and run it through a league. That's something you just can't do on paper, and I do agree that the paper meta is slow to adapt to new changes/cards/decks. But data online is different, just because there are so many more games being played and a lot of the outside factors (such as price of cards) are mitigated. It sounds like you are projecting a bit of your own experience with legacy decks onto how you think the format shapes up, but the fact is that plenty of people are willing to try new cards. Do you think everyone knew czech pile was the best deck in the format once top got banned? No, it actually started out as a bad rogue deck that some guy did well with. But people tried out different builds of the deck, a consensus was reached about what was optimal, and people found that they won the most when they played with that deck as opposed to something like burn. So more people play the deck than any other, because people want to win, but it didn't just happen overnight

Quite sure we agree on things a lot more than not.

How many players are in the MTGO Competitive Legacy League games per tournament? MtgTop8 apparently gathers a lot of data from that, but it doesn't show the player amount and it's always top5, which seems really confusing. Also those contain everything between Top tier decks to gems like Breya control. Honestly it's hard to say anything as counterargument against people trying different things, when there isn't really any data to pull out real numbers.

Not to mention MtgTop8 (or mtggoldfish) being notoriously bad at making metashare reflecting reality.

Where does Death and Taxes stand right now? Anyone have a good list?

It's the same shit as before but don't really see a reason for playing it vs Kolaghan's Command.dec. Elves and turn one Griselbrand: the meta.

>Breya control

What in Hell is that? Some kind of worse version of Tezzerator?

"the format is healthy but we need more delver decks"

The only gripe I have with Legacy atm is that I miss decks like Painter and Enchantress. I cant find much interesting to play. The Moon decks are Prison yes, but there was something satisfying about running Recruiter and Painter+Grindstone

> Playing Ruby Storm against a Nic Fit build
> Keep a solid T2 win hand, my dreams are crushed as he puts down a MB Leyline of the Void
> Try to assemble something to win, get just keeps ramping
> T3 He drops Helm of Obedience and mills me
> G2 he fumbles at bit with lands, he still gets leyline in opener though, I try to combo without PiF and almost do it until I whiff and don't hit a sinlge burning wish with my two Act on Impulse, manage to get 2 Guttersnipe out during the combo though and hes dropped to 4, need a single spell to win
> Dude gets land and drops some creatures to block, my next turn I draw nothing, get gets helm out and its GG

TY for reading my blog. I have to admit Helm and MB leylines is spicy.

Spicy, but at the same time soul crushing :(

A lot of the old, fun, unique legacy decks have been phased out in favor of 4c midrange mishmash decks running force. Everything is either playing that style or trying to play against it and the format feels pretty bland right now. It doesn't feel like modern, but it feels like the card pool of the top decks has drastically shrunk since I started playing Legacy in 2010

D&T is not in a good place right now. The rise of the BUGx and Grixis control running Kcommands + Snapcasters and the resurgence of Elves and faster combo decks (BR Reanimator, TES) now the SDT Miracles is gone has put the deck in a terrible spot. This also doesn't take into account that it's not all that uncommon to see Delver decks packing decent hate as a 2x in the SB for the matchup now (Dread of Night, Grim Lavamance, KCommand, Fire Covenant, etc.), making one of the most common and traditionally good D&T matchups a 50/50 at best.

>we will never go back to the days where nimble mongoose was legacy playable
so much fucking nostalgia man
DRS was the beginning of something bad

It's terribly positioned right now. Somebody on reddit did an analysis of the current meta using MTGO data; D&T had something like a ~40% game win rate over 100+ matches, which is pretty bad. It would probably do better in paper because the BUGr or UBR manabase is so expensive, but it wouldn't be my choice for a major tournament.

Czech pile is good, but it's not overburdening on the meta. If you want to ban a card real bad from it though just ban leovold.

How good could green stompy be?

Are we talking big or wide? lots of chalice running around, you dont want to try no 10 land shenanigans
going big doesn't seem that great either though, it'd basically be a modern deck

Oh, no argument from me on any of that. I have a lot of trouble watching a number of streamers because they just don't get it. For example, Hoogland said Dredge is unplayable because he didn't mulligan much in his streamed matches, in spite of the fact that Dredge mulligans better than anything in the format except for Poops. (N.B.: on the subject of Dredge variants, LSV played a league in which he didn't seem to realize that Dread Returning a Grave-Troll with Flayer on the 'board was an instakill.)

I have tons of respect for Doomsday players because it's such a hard deck to play with even a modicum of proficiency.

One thing that strikes me about decks that tend to take the top slots in the post-Top era is that they all essentially play like Modern decks. Maximize value, counter things or blow up lands as necessary, and swing with your mans. I don't think that's a bad strategy or that people who play those decks aren't good at Magic, but I think one reason those decks dominate is that they're what competitive MtG players who play many/all formats are being trained to play. There aren't any crazy builds in Modern or Standard, and Wizzerds keeps trying to cram combo into a barrel and sink it in the ocean because they don't think a lot of people are prepared to handle it psychologically. So when people who make a name playing value decks decide to stream Legacy, they either play what they're used to playing or they treat it like a jokey carnival fuckshow (which combo is, and I have no problem with that). What happened to the "I want to do that!" mentality I got when I first saw a Charbelcher decklist around 2005?

I don't even mind all of that, honestly, but it's a shame that the (allegedly) brightest minds in competitive MtG don't take Legacy seriously, yet they'll play decks full of terrible cards in a kiddie-gloves format with the determination of Daniel Plainview. And flub momentously when they burst that bubble.

I still play canadian and went second at a larger tournament recently.
Mongoose seems pretty good in the current meta with push/k command/decay/bolt being the most common removal spells right now. It's Goyf that hasn't stood the test of time and I stopped playing him for a while now in favor of better, more resilient threats.

Why would you play a shitpile like monor storm?

Honestly think this was due to the way misstep warps formats

The power to price ratio is pretty high for mono-r storm. Their simply aren't many spell based combo decks that this is true for. If you're desperate to play storm on a budget it's a good option.

Honestly Ruby Storm feels pretty good, Im having fun with it. It can't pull off T1 wins very often, but I feel it can fight through counter spells and discard much better than other storm decks because of the inclusion of Past in Flames. Wish sideboard lets me fight through DnT and artifact based strategies pretty easily, also stops having win conditions extracted or lost legacyd.
I have some bad MU that I'm trying to figure out and SB for. I've seen a bunch of people playing Infect lately and it's tough because they can win T2 easily and they pack enough counters to stop easy wishes for kill spells. Just too fast of a deck backed by counters, and I don't run MB interaction. Belcher is a tough one too, just depends who gets the nuts draw I suppose. GY exile effects are harder to fight through, DRS is grindable but RIP or Leyline is hard, But I've done it. Leovold is cancer shit and I think I'm just going to sideboard a lightning bolt or abrade for the cocksucker.
Yeah maybe Ruby Storm is a pile of shit, but it's a fun pile of shit if you like storm decks.

Can anyone tell me how TRS goes off through Teeg?
Every single wishboard I saw played no way to deal with him.

Are you talking about mono red storm? They usually have grapeshot in the board at least. I've also seen pyroclasm and cave in. If you typo' d and meant TES, they usually have grapeshot and Massacre.

The ruby storm - TRS.
They usually play Cave In but that doesn't handle Teeg at all. I guess they really only have Grapeshot as an answer.

I dropped cave in favor of Pyroclasm, I also run an Abrade aswell. Cave in is nice sometimes that you can just pitch something, but usually I find myself having enough mana to wish+Pyro so I went with Pyro. I don't mind using a ritual to cast it, getting PiF off is more important.

Oh shit forgot cave in costs 4. But grapeshot works fine. You could easily board pyroclasm as well.

Also I gotta say I'm generally in favor of deck names that aren't in the + scheme, but i hate the name "the ruby storm". Name it something like "flaming hot taco bell breakfast omelette burrito"

I've heard it called Red Tide, I like that name a lot better than Ruby Storm

I gotta say though MonoR Storm has trouble vs real fast decks, Burn and Belcher kicked my ass. I need the nuts draw to win.

This post is pretty hilarious considering how this general was just having a discussion about legacy players stubbornly dismissing new builds.

>Name it something like "flaming hot taco bell breakfast omelette burrito"
Please no. Forced references/meme names like Tin Fins and the sort are awful. Ruby Storm is fitting. It summarizes the deck clearly.

They're kind of a tradition in Legacy, It's fun to have some inside jokes in your format.

Yeah I just don't like the way it feels in my mouth. I'd rather call it mono red storm even if that name is boring.

The thing is though there's nothing to analyze in it, it's a worse force check than Belcher and has worse late game than ANT with zero added resilience towards any of the usual hate cards.

Crimson Tide? Roll tide.

Fiery burnining crimson blood rage storm pebbles and tell blade

People still play painter at my store...

I might do mono blue painter if they reprint him.

I got it, call it Hotcakes, because red and the stacked spells.

Is there a way to make BG depths more interesting to play? I was thinking about combining the deck with reanimator.

That's been pretty popular lately. If you have money to burn, you could put the combo in lands. I've even seen it as an alt win con in a delver deck.

Ok someone give me a legacy deck and i just slam the combo in there.

I've tried that brew. Felt really bad. Bad enough for me to write it off as a silly idea. I kept wishing I was on legit reanimator while mulling through slow hand after awkward hand. Going all in on reanimator is more consistent and faster. I cant speak to the depths side of things.

That said, I would encourage you to try it out and report back. Having experience with depths will help inform your opinion a great deal.

Show and Tell.

Hotcakes.

barbarian tribal

Don't tempt me you bastard.

Reanimator was the first that came to mind but there has to be a differend shell than bg/lands. BG version is the most boring thing there is.

DO IT

Cephalid breakfast

I'd argue that this isn't entirely true. It definitely has added resilience towards Thalia due to the medallions. It's got a wishboard to take care of artifacts and other hatebears. Its basic heavy manabase makes it resilient to mana denial strategies. Draw7s and PiF make it resillient to discard. PiF is also good for powering through countermagic. It's big downsides are that it relies on non-deterministic kills much of the time, basically auto-loses to dredge and belcher type decks, and wheels are hot trash against force decks.

Recruiter of the guard could grab hexmage...

Anyone here want to buy my mono r storm list? Everything as is. I put it together on store credit for the memes and realized how incredibly bad it is. Seriously. I just want it out of my life.

Yeah it looks pretty bad.

Manaless players, how important is Chancellor of the Annex in this age of Gitaxian Probes?

I ask because I'm kicking around ideas for how to fit LED into the list.

I have a buddy that plays mandrills instead of goyf and I'm wondering what you've been using in place of goyf.

>mfw
Tbh your list is suboptimal as fuck senpai, no wonder you're dissing the deck.
Reforge the Soul maindeck is suicide against blue decks.
You're also running FOUR copies, what the fuck.
Hazoret is a complete gamble, it loses you the game as often as it sets you off. It's a fun card, but you shouldn't play it if you want consistent results.
Speaking of consistency, you need LEDs if you want to stand a chance at serious events. Even if you can't afford them and is aiming for a budget version, at least run more mana. Cut some shit for more rituals. A good place to start would be those 4 RtS...
Also, why 3 Medallions and 3 Helms? What's stopping you from splitting them 4-2?
Why only 3 Probes?
This is the worst list I've ever seen.

it's not manaless if you're running LED though...

>It definitely has added resilience towards Thalia due to the medallions
Okay granted, still can't beat a Canonist or Prelate on 2.
>It's got a wishboard to take care of artifacts and other hatebears.
Which is offline past turn 4 because of said Prelate and in a deck without any manipulation good luck finding the Wishes when you need them.
>Its basic heavy manabase makes it resilient to mana denial strategies.
DNT doesn't win any storm deck with waste/port and Lands is hot garbage vs combo unless it has the nuts with multiple spheres postboard so doesn't really matter. Delver just laughs all the way to the bank with force, flusterstorm and daze.
>Draw7s and PiF make it resillient to discard.
Yeah, until they discard your wheel7 and land a Leovold. Pif from monoR is terribad vs DRS, you eat their only payoff and without cantrips you can't do shit about it.

heh...

Okay, maybe I should step back and explain what the hell I'm doing.

I've been playing LED Dredge on and off for a few years—it's the second Legacy deck I completed. Given that I finished the deck in 2014, way after the ban of Mental Misstep, I'd not had the incentive to switch over to Manaless because I already owned the faster, more explosive deck and the major maindeck predator that brought about the manaless innovation in the first place had been banned. There are other issues with Manaless that are readily apparent (T1 Time Walk, dies to Thoughtseize, autoloss to Leyline of the Void/opposing Balustrade Spy, etc.); I don't need to get into all that.

But preterition aside, I've been having some trouble at the local with heavy countermagic over the past several months. Everyone's got me pegged as the Storm guy, so even when I show up with something else, dedicated spell hate is guaranteed. Manaless seems like it'd be an interesting option in those matchups simply because it's so tough for countermagic decks to interact with it, but the deck wears its weaknesses on its sleeve. It doesn't help that T1 Deathrite can blow out the deck completely if it doesn't open with Phantasmagorian. So I've been tinkering with LEDs in Manaless to give up to four additional chances to dump my hand and maybe to support a very light spell package. More vulnerable to countermagic, but not by that much, and more explosive than orthodox manaless lists—at least, in theory.

So does anybody have any input on this? I'd be extremely surprised if I were the only person to have tried it. Pic only marginally related.

The deck isn't competitive user. This is all the shit that I got together and haven't traded away. Sideboard and everything. I played with LEDs and big fucking surprise it wasn't any better. I'm not trading away my LEDs however because they actually see play in real decks. I'm sorry I hurt your feels for saying a shit-brew is a shit-brew. I played the "optimal" version and all the variations of it. I love storm, but this deck won't do.

No one ever said it was the second coming of storm christ that would dethrone TES and ANT... It clearly is weaker than other storm variants, but it just pisses me off when people write off a deck after only trying a few times, and with an abominable list on top of that.
It does bother me more than it should, but that's because I'm a brewer at heart. Seeing a new brew that is still being worked on and figured out being instantly shunned irks me immensely.

Look senpai I'm not saying that it is better than other storm decks. I just don't think it is entirely without merit. It's a brand new deck that has a couple mtgo 5-0s. It has some powerful draws and some stinkers. ANT also can't beat a canonist preboard or prelate on 4. So i fail to see how that's an argument. ANT can also be beaten by DRS on your only payoff spell, so again, not a great argument. This deck beats countermagic the same way vintage storm does, by throwing powerful spells into it until one sticks. Redundant business spells is the key here. The best argument you brought up is the lack of good cantrips, which I agree is a significant detriment. There may be ways around this with further tuning and development. Or maybe it will always be a limitation. I think it's too early to write the deck off completely. If nothing else it's a good starting point for dirt-poor die-hard combo players.

Not the guy you responded to, just the dude who's been playing it earlier in the thread.

> lack of good cantrips

That's what I feel needs to change with the deck. There's been a lot of times where I fizzle or get stuck with 4 rituals in hand with no wish or Impulse, and just being able to see more cards, or more accurately, the right cards. I might test out running more Gambles. I have just one right now for spiciness, but I might just run 4. Over a couple days of testing I don't really care about having my spells in the GY, as long as I can get a PiF, Wish, and some mana in the form of LEDs, Petals, a ritual or some lands.

Pic related is my current list.

What about faithless looting?

Ever tried Commune with Lava?

I think that would be too expensive, I seem to find on worst case I'm floating maybe 2-3 mana while I cycle through, I'd rather not have cards that COULD be good. Sort of the reason Hazoret's was dropped.
I like the idea of though. Faithless looting warrants testing. Its cheap and has flashback.

And the flashback plays well with the medallions

Has anyone here tried/tested that dubious challenge deck, stags and spaghetti?

Never heard of it. List?

On phone, I'll post it later tonight then

Don't mind me just posting best ritual art

why doesn't this deck run a nahiri+breach package as well? it only helps the deck if it doesn't get off its main plan and the dig is nice