It was like New Year’s Eve again this past Monday night, where people gathered on the mothership, wearing out the F5 keys on their computer in anticipation for the new wave of bannings and potential unbanning. When the dust finally cleared from what I would imagine to be thousands of users simultaneously trying to log on at midnight, Wizards had decided it was for the greater good of Modern to axe the key card that were fueling degenerate strategies.
Only one change was made to Legacy, where the little menace that could was banned – [card]Mental Misstep[/card]. From my perspective, and I’m sure to many others, the single banning of [card]Mental Misstep[/card] in Legacy feels about as heavy as seeing six combo pieces banned in Modern. After all, as Patrick Chapin tweeted about moments after the banning, it felt like thousands of cards, all with converted mana cost 1, had come out of Legacy purgatory.
A Quick Look at Modern
I have very little experience in Modern besides grinding some Dailies and keeping tabs on the Pro Tour. But, I knew that the format wasn’t perfect and that after the Pro Tour, there would be some changes based on the results. I was reluctant to brew anymore Modern (as if sitting in [card]Mental Misstep[/card] infested Legacy was better). The bannings erased the turn-three, combo heavy format that Modern initially projected itself out to be.
Now that most of the combo decks have been neutered and we are looking at a relatively slower format, I think that Zoo will rise up and start to assert its dominance. There is no dedicated control deck and I don’t think control elements got much better with the bannings, so the aggressive pillar should shine, for now. It would really take an unbanning of [card]Jace, the Mind Sculptor[/card] or [card]Ancestral Vision[/card] to make control relevant once again. Just look at the top eight most popular archetypes at the Pro Tour and which ones will lose their identity from the bannings (rankings taken from here):
Twelve Post
[card]Splinter Twin[/card]
Zoo
Affinity
[card]Pyromancer Ascension[/card]
Infect Combo
Storm
Elves
Twelve Post decks take a huge hit from losing its signature card, but can rebound with the Urzatron engine. How much slower will that be? Well, [card]Ghost Quarter[/card] will probably have a lot more value in disrupting the 3-piece combo. All of the UR combo decks lose their ability to gain good card quality. Sure, you can get your [card]Sleight of Hand[/card]s and [card]Serum Visions[/card] all day, but they will not replicate what you lose in [card]Ponder[/card] and [card]Preordain[/card].
It seems like Zoo, Affinity, and Elves (which is surprisingly a sleeper, I think) are going to get a huge nod going forward. I like Zoo’s chances. It has a card called [card]Grim Lavamancer[/card], I’m sure you’ve heard of him. [card]Ancient Grudge[/card] is also a card I’d like to be playing in Modern.
The basic approach that I have been taking with my initial lists is to do my best to replicate the approach that Legacy Zoo uses, to play efficient threats and to generate card advantage to overpower the midrange and combo decks. Luckily, the Legacy zoo creature base, with M12 and [card]Grim Lavamancer[/card], can easily be ported over to Modern already. To do my best impression of [card]Sylvan Library[/card], some number of [card]Ranger of Eos[/card] and Planeswalkers will have to fill out the 4cc slots of the build, which will provide the deck with both some much needed card quantity advantage (in Ranger) and virtual card advantage (in Planeswalkers), as well as some end game.
My friend, Matthew Kranstuber, pointed out that Ranger fetches something new from Innistrad — [card]Mikaeus, the Lunarch[/card] if you wanted to get a bigger threat than just another Wild Nacatl in the end game, this is what you shoot for. Some think that the banning of [card]Green Sun’s Zenith[/card] will hinder the deck’s ability to function, but “Big Zoo,” the more control based version of Zoo, is not what I was looking for. It’s time for Fast Zoo to shine in the format. Most of its threats dodge [card]Grove of the Burnwillows[/card] and [card]Punishing Fire[/card]. Decks will adjust and begin to run more copies of [card]Engineered Explosives[/card] and [card]Firespout[/card] to try to gain card advantage against the deck, as a start, but it’s not something that is impossible to play around. In the upcoming weeks, as my LGS starts to embrace more Modern, my goal is to create a well functioning Zoo list to grind with in Modern events. The format looks very promising! But back to Legacy…
Mental Misstep’s Short Reign
With [card]Mental Misstep[/card] available in the format, a couple of new strategies were created, some were solidified, and a lot of strategies were invalidated. In the early months of New Phyrexia’s introduction into Legacy, we saw the birth and evolution of UW Control, emerging at SCG Orlando and eventually becoming hybridized to include the “[card]Batterskull[/card] Plan.” We also saw NO RUG, already a deck in the format, gain stability (and four more good answers to aggressive decks) and elevate itself to become a Deck to Beat.
Blue decks complimented their countermagic suite with [card]Mental Misstep[/card], and non-blue decks even played copies of the card. [card]Hive Mind[/card] broke through as a way to take advantage of so many [card]Mental Misstep[/card]s and fewer and fewer [card]Spell Pierce[/card]s running around – its combo engine costs three mana, and sometimes six. These decks would make up the face of Legacy during the past three months. If your deck wasn’t designed to beat these decks, you were probably better off staying home.
What got left in the dust? Everything else. It was much harder to resolve a first turn [card]Goblin Lackey[/card] or be aggressive with an opening turn [card]Steppe Lynx[/card]. Storm decks could fight through the hate but saw more often than not a critical [card]Dark Ritual[/card] get hit by a speed bump. [card]Hymn to Tourach[/card] based decks were having problems closing the game out against decks that could prolong the game and refill their hands with [card]Ancestral Vision[/card].
Despite a good number of prominent players having success playing these archetypes, it wasn’t carrying through to the rest of the community. According to The Council, a site that compiles results for MTG events around the world, out of the eight most successful decks of August 2011, only two were non-blue; Zoo and GW Maverick, an archetype that is more popular in Europe than in the States. The next two decks in that list were blue, by the way.
Hanging By a Moment
Now that the floodgates are open again, we definitely look for old favorites (and possibly new brews) to come back into Legacy. But, the first question to ask is what remains from the top tier decks during the [card]Mental Misstep[/card] era, or what decks can sustain themselves. In my opinion, the immediately loser of the [card]Mental Misstep[/card] banning is UW Stoneblade. That isn’t to say that you should go on eBay right now and frantically list all of your stuff, because not all is lost for the control player.
The idea of Stoneblade was only sustainable if you had a way to protect your [card]Squire[/card] with a [card]Batterskull[/card] attached. During this past episode of Crazy Talk, I mentioned that the deck would lose a considerable amount of speed but could still replicate the “Batterskull Plan” by protecting it with something like [card]Counterbalance[/card]. However, at that point, is it worth it to have Batterskull so late in the game? Maybe the UW decks would be better off evolving their strategy instead of hanging on to the last iteration.
Similarly, NO RUG takes a similar hit, but more against the aggressive decks. Mental Misstep allowed it to have more control over the game state and fend off the decks that could race its creature based trump in [card]Progenitus[/card]. Playing the deck, I can only imagine the upcoming hardships of protecting your [card]Noble Hierarch[/card]/[card]Green Sun’s Zenith[/card] for 0 from getting removed or countered while keeping opposing threats like [card]Grim Lavamancer[/card] or [card]Wild Nacatl[/card] off of the board. The good news is that NO RUG has proven to be a deck before Mental Misstep, and it will likely return to its original form, reintroducing [card]Chain Lightning[/card] to the build. It will likely not have the dominance that it did, however.
With most decks replacing their empty Mental Misstep slots with Spell Pierce, even if Hive Mind has fallen out of favor in the past month (thanks, [card]Angel’s Grace[/card]), it will have a much harder time reestablishing itself as a contender. It will no longer have its own Missteps to fight against Spell Pierce and hand disruption, and it will no longer be able to take advantage of a glaring weakness that it could exploit in opposing Mental Missteps. Reanimator, the other premiere combo deck, will likely still be a contender. It’ll be a lot harder to get [card]Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur[/card] to survive until the end step, though. That said, it’s pretty safe to say that the metagame will have a completely different make than it used to.
The Immediate Future
It’s unlikely to gauge all the possibilities of returns from previous Legacy favorites, but at a quick glance, there are some archetypes that are poised for comebacks. The first group of them that benefits is combo decks. Not of the Hive Mind variety, but those that were anchored around 1cc spells. [card]Candelabra of Tawnos[/card] went from $150 to $300 overnight… again, as pilots will be looking to create Permanent Waves once again. With [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card] coming up in Innistrad, however, [card]High Tide[/card] gets a huge power boost with a way to interact and rebuy every other card in the deck that isn’t another [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card] or land. By running an extra four virtual copies of all of its business and support spells, I think [card]High Tide[/card] will be the real deal again, and this time it’ll have a longer tenure. Decks had begun to adjust to High Tide by the time SCG Charlotte (the last open before [card]Mental Misstep[/card]), but with new weapons everyone will have to rethink their approach once again.
But High Tide is not the only combo deck to love the new additions from Innistrad; [card]Past in Flames[/card] has the ability to do a [card]Yawgmoth’s Will[/card] impression in Legacy and is looking to be the new engine for [card]Tendrils of Agony[/card] decks. By loading up with more Rituals (and even [card]Manamorphse[/card] in some lists!), the goal is to cast [card]Past in Flames[/card] and rebuy every single ritual that you have cast for the turn, ending in a tutor for a lethal Tendrils. Basically, business as usual (How many drills? Oh, ten. Tendrils. – Bryce Menard).
The reason that it can be more dangerous than traditional [card]Ad Nauseam[/card] decks is that [card]Past in Flames[/card] doesn’t have to rely on the life total of the pilot, and that it’s a card that can be found out of the sideboard with [card]Burning Wish[/card]. While graveyard hate can potentially wreck the [card]Past in Flames[/card] strategy, if this card is used in conjunction with Ad Nauseam (perhaps, say, as a part of the wishboard of The Epic Storm), the angles of attack are diversified and it gives the Tendrils players a lot more options. [card]Burning Wish[/card] already adds a lot of versatility to storm decks, already granting answers to hate bears ([card]Grapeshot[/card] [card]Deathmark[/card]), answers to enchantments and artifacts ([card]Reverent Silence[/card], [card]Shattering Spree[/card], [card]Hull Breach[/card], and another way to draw 7 ([card]Diminishing Returns[/card]). Whatever you decide to play at SCG Indianapolis and beyond, think about working in some storm hate.
While some archetypes get a facelift, others come back in old form. I was originally excited to see someone play Goblins (my friend has had the deck forever and has been cursing Legacy for the past three months) and Junk again, but the aforementioned combo decks are incredibly good at dominating these types of strategies. Still, it will not deter people from showing up with the little green men or trying to cast a Hymn to Tourach on the first turn. The success of these decks can only depend on what makes up the other parts of the metagame and how well they can dodge bad matchups. The same applies for Zoo, of course.
My personal plan is to pursue [card]Stifle[/card] based decks for now and observe how the metagame evolves, although I haven’t decided whether to go the UGr route and revive Next Level Threshold (where the potential of rebuying [card]Brainstorm[/card] and [card]Red Elemental Blast[/card] out of the sideboard with Snapcaster Mage seems pretty good) or play something I’m less experienced with, Team America. Stifle gets a huge burden lifted off of its shoulders and the tempo generating machine can go back to doing business. The common play and existence of [card]Dismember[/card] is a clear deterrent to a full creature strategy but the design place also grants a chance to play around with [card]Liliana of the Veil[/card], which I think fits perfectly into this type of shell.
Conclusions
The future of the format seems to be all over the place, and that’s just the way that it should be. Adam Barnello refers to the post-Survival, pre-Mental Misstep era as the Golden Age of Legacy, and I agree. With Mental Misstep out of Legacy, format diversity should be at a high in the upcoming months, and right back on track of the Golden Age. I’ll be attending SCG Indianapolis and SCG Nashville in eager anticipation of watching the format blossom again and try to equilibrate. There may be no best deck, but a group of best decks, and that’s what Legacy is meant to be. I agree with the decisions that Wizards made, and I look forward to what feels like completely new formats. You should too. If you have any questions, feel free to comment or email.
Thanks for reading,
–Mark Sun
@AllSunsDawn on Twitter
chbe.sun@gmail.com
Dubbed the Legacy Superstar, Mark Sun has been spending the past year trying to live up to his nickname. His biggest accomplishment to date was a top 8 finish at the 2011 Legacy Championships.