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Skyl3lazer
Aug 27, 2007

[Dooting Stealthily]





Johnny Five-Jaces posted:

BORN TO PLOW
META IS A gently caress
GRIP EM ALL 1990
I am green man
410,757,864,530 DEAD TOPS

Welcome to a world of papery despair and Tarmogoyfs! This is the thread for the Eternal formats of magic, namely Legacy and Vintage. We also talk about Modern, despite the fact it’s not actually an “Eternal” format, but mainly because we’re slightly less pedantic than WotC’s marketing team. Also due to this, despite the fact Commander is “Eternal”, that thread is elsewhere.

What’s the difference between the eternal formats?

This is a 2 part answer. If you’re asking about legality, it’s easy!

Modern has a card pool of 8th Edition or later. Supplemental products are excluded, and there’s a banlist.

Legacy has a card pool going back to Alpha, but supplemental products such as Conspiracy and the Commander precon decks are legal. There’s also a banlist.

Vintage is a no holds barred land of mystery and wonder, where every card since Alpha is legal. It’s banlist only excludes cards that deal with rules magic doesn’t have anymore, but it does have a restricted list, which contains cards you may only have one of in your deck. It’s the most powerful, and expensive, format.

But really, what’s the difference? I mean, Legacy plays Delver, and that’s modern legal!

That last answer doesn’t really give you a good picture of the actual differences between the formats. Let’s look a little deeper.

Modern is the “cheapest” of the Eternal formats. Decks run from about $100 dollars for a budget deck to $1,300 for the top cost decks in the format. Modern is often characterized by its Shockland/Fastland manabase – lands that can enter untapped have limits or costs, and there’s a lot of manlands running around. This means the format can be very friendly towards aggressive creature-based strategies, and interactive fast-closing decks. You can read more about the modern format in other places. Modern is often considered a “Turn 4 format”, meaning decks must be able to interact, and can oftentimes win on turn 4.

Legacy is the poster child of Eternal formats. It’s more costly than modern, mainly due to the fact that the Reserved List exists, but we’ll get to that later. Decks run a gamut of prices, but none are very budget – the cheapest competitive decks will still run over $1,200 dollars, with the pricery options reaching nearly 3 large. There’s also Shardless BUG which is nearly Four Thousand United States Dollars. All that said, there’s a reason beyond scarcity that these decks are expensive! Legacy is often considered the deepest and most interesting format in Magic. While this is obviously subjective, no format sees such a breadth of top-tier competitive decks, and the much deeper card pool featuring cards such as Force of Will means that there’s often much more complex board states than can be found in Modern or Standard. A majority of this OP will be devoted to this format, since there’s a lot to cover between EMA and the Gauntlet. Legacy could be considered a “Turn 2 format”, again meaning that you must be able to interact by turn 2, and there are many decks that can win on their second turn with no interruption.

Vintage is again a strange beast. It’s easily the most expensive format in Magic – the Power Nine (Black Lotus, etc) were only printed in very small quantities in paper, and many decks play all 9 of them. A cheap Vintage deck will run you $3,500 (Dredge), but most ‘real’ Vintage decks are close to $20,000 at this point. Be aware that it’s a very different format from most of magic, and not everyone will enjoy it past the honeymoon period of casting Lotus. For those that endure, however, they get to sling the greatest spells from Magic’s history! Vintage is a “Turn 0” format – many decks can win on the Play, turn 1, before you get the chance to drop a land.

Wait holy f did you say twenty thousand dollars? Or, ‘What is this Reserved List?’

Back in the early days of the game, Magic ran in to trouble with reprints. You can find the details in other places, but the bottom line is that there’s a number of cards that Wizards has said they Will Never Reprint In Paper Ever For Serious. This notably includes the dual lands, which form the manabases for nearly every Legacy and Vintage deck. Beyond this point I won’t mention cost (except where I will) because unfortunately it’s not something that can be avoided – these formats are an expensive hobby.

Can I not pay that much? (Magic Online, etc)

Well, you can pay less at least. Magic Online seems to be where WotC is pushing these eternal formats. That’s fine if you can deal with the client, but be aware that for legacy especially, the online metagame is very, very different from paper. This means that if you want to play at Eternal Weekend, MtGO might not be the best practice. Deck prices on magic online for Legacy and Modern range in the 400-700 dollar range, with Vintage about 1-2 hundred dollars more than that.

The other option is playing XMage, which has rules support, or Cockatrice, which doesn't. They're marginally worse than MtGO's client, but also have the advantage of being 'free'. Many people use these to test against each other, or for the thunderdomes.


Skyl3lazer fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Apr 24, 2017

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Skyl3lazer
Aug 27, 2007

[Dooting Stealthily]



A Quick Look At Legacy

Legacy is a format I could gush about all day (pun intended). Here’s some information on the the format, then the decks you’ll see in the gauntlet.

Getting in to Legacy

So, you’ve decided you have too much money and want to play cardboard with us. Cool! Like I’ve said repeatedly, it’s not a cheap hobby, so before you burn your Benjamins there’s some things you can do to make sure you won’t regret anything.
1) Play multiple decks before you buy anything! This can be through Magic Online’s gauntlet if you want to play online, but my favorite thing to do is to play proxy decks against friends. Find some lists that have done well recently (or that you take from here) and print them out on http://magic.bluebones.net/proxies/ - then, sleeve up some bulk, cut them babies out, and slide ‘em on in! The best part here is that Legacy decks change slowly, so after a few decks you’ll have a “Gauntlet” of your own that you can test decks against, or just jam for fun! There’s nothing worse than spending a thousand dollars on a Tabernacle to find out that you think Lands is boring.
2) Don’t pick a deck, pick an Archetype. The largest money sink in any Legacy deck is its manabase. Duals aren’t cheap, so a great way to save money but still have variety is to build into an archetype instead of a single deck. If you like Delver decks, your Topical and Volcanic Islands and Forces can change between them. Like dumb combo nonsense? Maybe it’s a pair of Underground Seas and a playset of Lion’s Eye Diamonds that you need. Prison archetypes will need Wastelands and Rishadan Ports, and Miracles needs Tundras. Find a deck you find interesting, and see if there’s other decks built off that same manabase. I’d make a venn diagram but honestly it’s a lot of work and the bottom line is that Badlands are aptly named. I give a short list of Archetype cards each deck has in the next section.
3) Condition is secondary. There’s a large drive I’ve seen in many Modern and Standard players to buy “Near Mint” cards at TCGMid. If you try that in Legacy, you’re wasting a lot of money. If a volc is sleeve playable (you’ll be double sleeving), it still taps for red and blue. Use eBay, twitter, and Grand Prix as opportunities to find duals/etc far under the TCG Mid cost of a near mint card.
4) Build into a deck via another deck. If you play Modern infect and want to transition to Legacy, you can start with Shocklands instead of Tropical Islands, for example. It’s obviously not where you’ll want to end, but many times a deck can work on a fetch/shock manabase as you spend cash on Force of Wills.

Hopefully these will make sure you get the most bang for your buck as you build.

Archetypes

When I talk about archetypes, I’m talking about decks that share cards, usually in manabases. There are a few major ones. Note that these don’t necessarily denote similar –play styles-, just similar card bases. Some decks fit multiple even!

Brainstorm Decks: These are the ‘blue decks’ that legacy is famous for. Tropical/Volcanic Islands and blue fetchlands are the hallmarks of shared cards, as are Force of Wills and Jace, The Mind Sculptor. These include most Delver variants, Miracles, Show & Tell, Infect, and Shardless BUG.
Black Decks: Anything that plays Bayou. They probably also play Liliana and Abrupt Decay. 4c Loam, Team America (BUG Delver), and Shardless BUG fit this archetype. Note that Shardless is here as well, which is one of the reasons it’s expensive!
Prison Decks: These decks have a large mana-denial plan in Rishadan Port and Wasteland. Most will also run Karakas, though that seems to be coincidence. D&T and Lands fit this archetype.
Degen Decks: Decks that combo! Underground Seas abound, as do Lion’s Eye Diamonds many times. ANT and Reanimator are the gauntlet decks that fit here.
Fast Mana Decks: The Sol Land decks. Ancient Tomb, City of Traitors, Wastelands, and Lotus Petals will show up in these. Painter, Eldrazi, and Show & Tell go in here.

This is the end of the ‘real’ OP – the next post(s) will be an overview of popular decks in Legacy, as chosen by WotC. You can use them to see what decks fit similar archetypes, and get an idea of what expensive cards you’d need to jump in to that deck.

Skyl3lazer fucked around with this message at 15:04 on Jun 2, 2016

Skyl3lazer
Aug 27, 2007

[Dooting Stealthily]



Decks

So, let’s take a peek at some of the decks you’ll see around.

Miracles
Archetype Cards: Tundra, Force of Will, Volcanic Island, JtMS, Scalding Tarn
Miracles is the main control deck of the format. It leverages the loving annoying card Sensei’s Diving Top with cards like Counterbalance to generate nearly free and infinite value, then finishes the game off with Jace or a boatload of Angels. Recently, some Miracles builds have also started to run Nahiri the Harbinger and an Emrakul as a fast clock combined with great card selection. One thing to note about Miracles is that it’s much more popular online than it is in paper, mainly because Eldrazi is a good deck and Moat is cheap online. The main skill involved with this deck is memory – between Brainstorm, Top, and Jace, you’ll almost always know at least one of the top three cards in your library, and the more you Top the less time you’ll have to win.

Example - Joe Loesset’s “Legends” build - http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/423592

Loesset is a master Miracler, and that’s reflected in his build choice. This build can be slower to win than others, but adds a powerful prison ability in the Karakas/Venser, Shaper Savant loop.
Budget Options: One Hallowed Fountain over a Tundra. More basics, and play Blood Moon.


Shardless BUG
Archetype Cards: Tarmogoyf, Force of Will, Liliana of the Veil, Bayou, Underground Sea, JtMS
Shardless is the ultimate value deck. It’s one of the few decks in legacy that plays actual card draw, in Ancestral Visions. It leverages the power of cascade on the three-mana Shardless Agent to hit a number of extremely powerful, but select, cards. Note that there are no situational cards under three mana, they’re all in the sideboard. The only counterspell is Force of Will (5 mana), and the only spell that you can’t literally always cast is Abrupt Decay. The deck packs a powerful disruption suite, and its popularity in part is due to a very positive matchup against Miracles.

Example -A fairly generic 5-0 league list - http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/423593

In this build he’s playing 3 Hymn to Tourach and only 2 Liliana, so he’s more prepared than most to face combo decks such as Storm. Overall it’s a very balanced list for nearly any meta.
Budget Options: Face Yourself And Turn To Bloodshed. This deck is expensive because it requires a very difficult mana base to actually work, and there’s not really any room for cuts.

ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils) Storm
Archetype Cards: Underground Sea, Lion’s Eye Diamond, Volcanic Island, Tropical Island
Storm is a huge bogeyman deck, and a great example of the Legacy format. It plays 0 creatures mainboard (and only 0 power creatures in the sideboard), and just looks to chain together 10 spells to kill you. There’s a ton of synergy between the cards, and it’s very skill intensive to find the exactly correct line in a given situation. It also packs some disruption so it doesn’t immediately fold to a Force of Will.

Example – 3rd place at an IQ - http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/424719

This is a pretty standard list. Another Trop in the sideboard and a second Disfigure means he might have a few more D&T players in his meta.
Budget Options: Playing another basic is acceptable, as is using a single shockland over a Sea. You –can- play a Steam Vents over the Volcanic, but this deck uses its life total as a resource, so all of these options hurt more than they might otherwise.

Sneak and Show
Archetype Cards: Show and tell, JtMS, Force of Will, City of Traitors, Scalding Tarn, Volcanic Island
S&T is a super straightforward cheaty deck. You throw Emrakul or Griselbrand at your opponent until they die or concede!
Example – Omniscience Build - http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/424729
This example is a different flavor from standard Show and Tell in that it packs two Omnisciences to let you actually cast Emrakul, which seems pretty cool. Also note the budget option in the Steam Vents over a third Volcanic Island, since it’s only actually worse if you have to fetch and shock it!
Budget Options: Steam Vents over Volcanics, Ancient Tombs over City of Traitors. You could avoid dual lands entirely in this deck and probably still have a good showing.

Reanimator
Archetype Cards: Force of Will, Underground Sea, Volcanic Island, Scalding Tarn, Show and Tell
This is a graveyard focused deck (obviously) that seeks to do mostly the same thing as Sneak and Show. You stick very costly cards in your graveyard, then bring them back with very cheap spells, exactly as Richard intended. This deck isn’t as common as it once was – Deathrite Shaman is a hell of a card – but it’s in the gauntlet so it’s on this page.
Example – “Man I hope they don’t have a DRS turn 1” - http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/420955
A good picture of current Reanimator. Some builds will run Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy in the sideboard, but this guy says gently caress it and has a Keranos and Sphinx of the Steel Wind instead.
Budget Options: Seas can be shocks pretty easily. You could also use Through the Breach instead of the Show and Tells in the sideboard if you want to play a singleton R/U shock or dual.

Lands
Archetype Cards: Um…..Wasteland? Rishadan Port. Sadness. Mox Diamond. Karakas.
Lands in my unbiased opinion is the deck for the coolest and best people. It abuses the fact that Life from the Loam, like all dredge cards, was probably Not OK To Print, and the fact that Magic has been printing lands since 1994. Previously it was convoluted and involved casting Intuition, but now the most common build is a very straightforward combo deck via Thespian’s Stage and Dark Depths. You get to play the best tutor package in Legacy in Gamble + Crop Rotation, and then get very sad when you discard your Exploration on an 8 card hand. While this deck has been popular recently, it’s a hard one to build in to since it has cards which are both very expensive and useless outside of variations of Lands.
Example – David Long’s “Dark Lands” - http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/399411
This variant splashes Black for some game against Miracles via Abrupt Decay. It also gets to play hand disruption in the sideboard, and Dark Confidant. There’s a lot of room for variation in Lands because you play such a large manabase, so you can splash to a third color very easily. There’s R/G/w builds that play Gaddock Teeg, for example.
Budget Options: Don’t play Tabernacle and just lose to elves and other poo poo randomly.

Death and Taxes
Archetype Cards: Wasteland, Rishadan Port, Æther Vial, Karakas
D&T is a strange deck – it seems almost budget, and never actually feels ‘good’. That said, it somehow still goes 50/50 with a lot of decks, so maybe I’m just bad at it. You play a lot of cheap white creatures that make your opponent have a bad day, then kill them over 20 turns with a Stoneforge Mystic (not really). This deck is a dog vs Miracles unless you’re very good at it, in which case it’s also about 50/50.
Example – How did this win? Weird - http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/424734
A more or less standard D&T list. It’s playing a Mishra’s Factory for reasons I’ll never know. Wait Spirit of the Labyrinth is a 3/1? Cool.
Budget Options: The deck, in general. Ports are expensive now but honestly they’re still very necessary. It’s also the only real expensive in the deck more or less. You could probably cut a single Karakas for a plains if you wanted to, or another Flagstones.

Infect
Archetype Cards: Tropical Island, Force of Will, Misty Rainforest
Infect is basically the modern deck, but a turn faster. It uses the same creatures but gets to cast Brainstorm and Berserk, which are cool cards. I’m actually shocked it’s in the Gauntlet, as only Tom Ross seems to be able to win with it with any regularity.
Example – Tom Ross - http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/381078
Here’s Tom Ross playing his deck, yep. I love the deck building genius here – the one of Green Sun’s Zenith in the main is moderately useful game 1, but in sideboard games it means your Viridian Corrupter is really two of them. The same goes with the Crop Rotation – One main and one side means the 1 of Wasteland, Bog, and Karakas are actually 3-ofs.
Budget Options: Trops can be Shocks super easily here. Verdant Catacombs/Misty Rainforests can also just be Windswept Heaths or Wooded Foothills.

Elves
Archetype Cards: Bayou, and Gaea’s Cradle so you can put one in your EDH deck.
Unfortunately for it, Elves has a lot in common with Lands w/r/t “cards that only go in one deck”. That said, it’s super fun. You get to twiddle a bunch of creatures for 5 minutes while your opponent waits to get ‘hoofed in the face for a billion while you have 200 million mana floating.
Example – Some Elves - http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/420956
I don’t know why this elves deck is any different than any others because they all have too many one-ofs. I assume it’s fine because it’s won a few 5-0 leagues.
Budget Options: Bayous can be shocks super easily. That is about it. Cradles are 100% necessary as a 4-of.

Eldrazi
Archetype Cards: Chalice of the Void, City of Traitors, Wasteland, Karakas
Man look at that another format ruined by Eldrazi. Not as ruined I guess, but OGW literally created its own archetype in a format that hasn’t seen such a shakeup since OmniTell got to cast Dig Through Time. Even then, that wasn’t a new deck, just a better version of an old one. This is a stompy deck, which means you’ll play chalices quickly to disrupt people while you play cool 5/5 haste trample 3 drops. It’s very, very straightforward.
Example – A bunch of people’s day got ruined because this guy came 1st in an IQ - http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/423032
Bog standard list. Cast mans, turn sideways.
Budget Options: Could play trinispheres over some a chalice, but generally this deck is cheap. It also might not need 3 Karakas.

Delver Decks (Temur, Grixis)
Archetype Card: Appropriate Dual Lands, Force of Will, Wasteland, Tarmogoyfs*, JtMS*, Snapcaster* (* is build dependent)
So I’m cheating a bit here but I’m going to combine the Delver variants, of which there are two in the gauntlet. The Grixis one isn’t actually playing delver but that’s because it is a terrible list. The goal of delver decks is generally tempo – disrupt your opponent and win with a 3/2 flyer. Delver decks are very popular because winning with them makes people feel smart. Generally they will play 40-50 bad cards, put together in a way that somehow goes 50/50 with every deck ever. These decks are harder to play than they’ll seem at first, because resource management is very important when all your cards suck. Here’s a Temur and a Grixis List. Of the delver variants, Temur is the least popular.
Temur Example – http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/410252
Grixis Example - http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/424915
I don’t have much to say about these lists individually since they’re both fairly standard. If you’re looking to play delver, you have a LOT of options in flavor.
Budget Options: Play Another Deck. You can’t use shocks because Daze makes them very bad in Temur, and in Grixis you’re only running 5-6 fetch targets. Straight R/U delver that plays Price of Progress over Wasteland could be a good starting point to getting into delver decks.

4c Loam
Archetype Cards: Chalice of the Void, Mox Diamond, Bayou, Wasteland
4c Loam (aka Aggro Loam aka WotC’s awful name “Four-Color Punishing Knight”) is a surprisingly more aggressive version of Lands, basically. You’re playing the same Stage-Depths win condition, but with a few alternates – Liliana of the Veil, Knight of the Reliquary, and Scavenging Ooze can put a fast clock on opponents as well. The deck is really interesting – it plays a billion one or two of cards, but has a lot of card advantage and tutoring.
Example – Kory Ponting - http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/399402
This was Kory’s build as of a few months ago. He plays the heck out of 4c loam, and I trust his deckbuilding. Seems like a house.
Budget Options: This one is difficult. The manabase, as could be expected with a 4c deck that also plays wasteland, can be very finicky. Your best bet is shocks over duals, but playing Bob makes that a difficult proposition still. On the plus side the cost is spread over a bunch of cards instead of just a few, so it can be easier to piece this one together.

Painted Stone
Archetype Cards: Force of Will*, City of Traitors, Painter’s Servant, Imperial Recruiter* (* is build dependent)
Painter is another weird deck for the gauntlet – it’s barely ever played, because the deck isn’t very good. It can, however, sometimes just slam a blood moon down on turn one and say “Can you beat this?”. The version WotC put in the gauntlet is a straight dog against every other deck in my opinion. That all said it’s a deck a lot of people enjoy for some strange reason. Grindstone and Painter’s Servant create an infinite mill combo, so you just really hope they don’t have an Emrakul. Which, you know, 4 of the decks do. Make sure you have a Tourmod’s Crypt out!
Example – The one 5:0 on MTG Goldfish - http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/408400
Tah dah.
Budget Options: The blue variant doesn’t need the 350$ uncommon Imperial Recruiter, so there’s that. City of Traitors can be Ancient Tombs.

Holy gently caress there were more decks in that gauntlet than I anticipated that was a lot of words

Yay! There’s an overview of all of the gauntlet decks. There’s plenty of others! Maverick / NicFit still exists, Burn is playable, Stax is great, Dredge should always be respected, and for some reason people still play Xblade decks. With the largest card pool and no incentive to ‘solve’ the tournament really, there’s also a ton of room for innovation. Go forth and brew! Play the gauntlet! Open packs of EMA only to realize it was a bad idea!

You may now return to your regularly scheduled suicidesteve hatepost.

Skyl3lazer fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Apr 24, 2017

Elyv
Jun 14, 2013



man why isn't my favorite deck in the gauntlet

mcmagic
Jul 1, 2004

If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!
Legacy rules. You should play legacy. Good OP.

Snacksmaniac
Jan 12, 2008

Is that Eldrazi deck overloaded with Karaks for Show and Tell? I've only been playing one. And I can't remember if I had diamond still. Not a fan of SSG in the deck.

Skyl3lazer
Aug 27, 2007

[Dooting Stealthily]



Snacksmaniac posted:

Is that Eldrazi deck overloaded with Karaks for Show and Tell? I've only been playing one. And I can't remember if I had diamond still. Not a fan of SSG in the deck.

I think there's two main builds of eldrazi - the fast mana disruption one that likes to play SSG, etc, and the midrangier one that plays multiple Endbringers and Jittes.

mcmagic
Jul 1, 2004

If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

Snacksmaniac posted:

Is that Eldrazi deck overloaded with Karaks for Show and Tell? I've only been playing one. And I can't remember if I had diamond still. Not a fan of SSG in the deck.

Karakas seems pretty bad here.

Johnny Landmine
Aug 2, 2004

PURE FUCKING AINOGEDDON
Thanks for making a new thread - nice OP! If anyone's on the fence about Legacy and lives in a place where they think they'd get their money's worth out of it, I definitely recommend giving it a shot. It's a real good format with some real powerful decks, but also a format where an unusual brew or fun Tier Whatever deck can still be good for taking down a small local event.

I also recommend, especially after you've been playing Legacy for a while, proxying up Vintage with your playgroup and giving that a shot too. I think I prefer the kind of games I get in Legacy more if I had to choose one, but Vintage is quickly becoming my favorite way to fill the time between rounds at Legacy night. I'm still a little ways away from having my VIntage deck finished on MODO but I'm looking forward to playing in an actual metagame.

mehall
Aug 27, 2010


I'm currently working out what I can play without much that isn't from EMA, or the last 10 years or so.
It wont necesarily be the cheapest deck, but not buying into a blue duals manabase will be a huge help.
Likely looking at Nic Fit.
Anyone interested in the lists I end up looking at?
Or does anyone have some interesting, relatively budget lists (I say budget... around $500 or so, which is pretty budget for legacy.)

mcmagic
Jul 1, 2004

If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!
You can play Combo Elves with Overgrown Tombs and Nykthos. It's probably a better deck, if you're good with it, than Nic Fit.

Skyl3lazer
Aug 27, 2007

[Dooting Stealthily]



mehall posted:

I'm currently working out what I can play without much that isn't from EMA, or the last 10 years or so.
It wont necesarily be the cheapest deck, but not buying into a blue duals manabase will be a huge help.
Likely looking at Nic Fit.
Anyone interested in the lists I end up looking at?
Or does anyone have some interesting, relatively budget lists (I say budget... around $500 or so, which is pretty budget for legacy.)

Your best bets currently for EMA and non reserved-list decks (and I should mention these in the op) are OmniTell, Death & Taxes, Burn, or Eldrazi. NicFitis a fine-ish deck but you'll still need a fair amount of duals to make it 'good' since it's often a 4-5 color deck. $500 is not a particularly large budget for paper legacy, even burn is closer to 700 now.

An interesting thing to try if your budget is pretty strict around $500 is to go into dredge. You can start with Manaless Dredge, which is a BAD DECK. However, it's very cheap. From there you can get LEDs as you have money, which lets you play actual Dredge. That is a much better deck at the very least, though still not really top tier. However, after you have the LEDs / Cabal Therapy / Petals / etc, you can start building towards ANT. You'd obviously start with shocks there instead of seas/volc, but it gives you a clear path of progression assuming you like degen decks.

mehall
Aug 27, 2010


Skyl3lazer posted:

Your best bets currently for EMA and non reserved-list decks (and I should mention these in the op) are OmniTell, Death & Taxes, Burn, or Eldrazi. NicFitis a fine-ish deck but you'll still need a fair amount of duals to make it 'good' since it's often a 4-5 color deck. $500 is not a particularly large budget for paper legacy, even burn is closer to 700 now.

An interesting thing to try if your budget is pretty strict around $500 is to go into dredge. You can start with Manaless Dredge, which is a BAD DECK. However, it's very cheap. From there you can get LEDs as you have money, which lets you play actual Dredge. That is a much better deck at the very least, though still not really top tier. However, after you have the LEDs / Cabal Therapy / Petals / etc, you can start building towards ANT. You'd obviously start with shocks there instead of seas/volc, but it gives you a clear path of progression assuming you like degen decks.

I do already have Breakfast Burrito, without LEDs for sideboard Belcher option.
I feel like I want to move into a more "fair"deck.
I have one of's of each of bayou, taiga and badlands, so a jund nic fit with plenty basics to fetch with explorer might work, and things have been fine in testing. (Not amazing, but we are talking budget.)

D&T, Burn and Eldrazi are decks friends of mine already have, and omni-tell doesn't look that interesting to me tbh.

I know this won't be the best, but it's not for the toughest competition either.

C-Euro
Mar 20, 2010

:science:
Soiled Meat
Soldier Stompy will run you $600-700 depending on whether or not you want to run Karakas, but the best I can say about it is that it's a bad deck that can steal games from other gimmicky decks. I am building it anyway so I can at least play Legacy when I find other people playing it, ideally I turn it in D&T somewhere down the line even though those decks don't really overlap outside of Thalia & Karakas.

I thought Nic Fit was usually GWB? At least when I played against it in a Thunderdome it was Junk colors. Would be curious to see some lists if people are running it.

Also I like Modern but I especially like dumb gimmicky bullshit in Modern (see: running Mill since 2014). Sue me :P

Skyl3lazer
Aug 27, 2007

[Dooting Stealthily]



^^ "Nic Fit" is just a catchall for the GBx builds - they're anywhere from 3-5 colors, have a bit of a ramp strategy, and win via creatures. It was just a joke name from the Source forums where someone said they had a deck that they thought would be "a nic fit for the current meta". The misspelling stuck.

Honestly if I was going to do a NicFit deck it would be a maverick or abzan in general version - turn 2 siege rhino, and you get to play the GB commander that has experience counters for good value. Jund in general (both "real" jund and nicfit) are a bit of a dog in the current meta, but that doesn't matter too much if your local isn't full of Miracles and Delver.

Lists similar to this : http://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/legacy-nic-fit-25716#paper

There's a lot of room to budget off that deck, especially if you have fetches or any of the duals.

Skyl3lazer fucked around with this message at 16:30 on Jun 2, 2016

Shrecknet
Jan 2, 2005


Skyl3lazer posted:

^^ "Nic Fit" is just a catchall for the GBrx builds - they're anywhere from 3-5 colors, have a bit of a ramp strategy, and win via creatures. It was just a joke name from the Source forums where someone said they had a deck that they thought would be "a nic fit for the current meta". The misspelling stuck.
That's really funny and way different than what my brain imagined the deck's origin, which is that it was a grindy BGx control deck that won recurring Punishing Flame for 1 net damage a turn off Grove of the Burnwillows and your opponent lost to time every game, and you never got to go smoke, hence the deck gives literal nicotine withdrawl fits.

empathe
Nov 9, 2003

>:|
Alright, Legacy League let's do this. Playing Legend Miracles.

Match 1 - Mentor Miracles with Predicts
1-2 Loss

Match 2 - Entreat Miracles
2-0 Win

Oh boy I hope Match 3 is Miracles!

mehall
Aug 27, 2010


Skyl3lazer posted:

^^ "Nic Fit" is just a catchall for the GBx builds - they're anywhere from 3-5 colors, have a bit of a ramp strategy, and win via creatures. It was just a joke name from the Source forums where someone said they had a deck that they thought would be "a nic fit for the current meta". The misspelling stuck.

Honestly if I was going to do a NicFit deck it would be a maverick or abzan in general version - turn 2 siege rhino, and you get to play the GB commander that has experience counters for good value. Jund in general (both "real" jund and nicfit) are a bit of a dog in the current meta, but that doesn't matter too much if your local isn't full of Miracles and Delver.

Lists similar to this : http://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/legacy-nic-fit-25716#paper

There's a lot of room to budget off that deck, especially if you have fetches or any of the duals.

Yeah, the rhino decks seem sweet, but there's a cool list floating around with birthing pod. That said, its running blue, inc. Duals...

The only bits of the linked list i should struggle with post EMA is the manabase, and as you say, if im not expecting delver/miracles, then dropping a few percentage points and running basics plus khans fetches may not be too bad.

Skyl3lazer
Aug 27, 2007

[Dooting Stealthily]



empathe posted:

Alright, Legacy League let's do this. Playing Legend Miracles.

Match 1 - Mentor Miracles with Predicts
1-2 Loss

Match 2 - Entreat Miracles
2-0 Win

Oh boy I hope Match 3 is Miracles!





It went down some, at one point Miracles was 27%

VVVV Eldrazi is easily Tier 1. It has an amazing Miracles matchup, and very good matchups against other decks that aren't Shardless. Really, Shardless and (maybe) Lands are it's only actually bad matchups.

Skyl3lazer fucked around with this message at 18:08 on Jun 2, 2016

CompeAnansi
Feb 1, 2011

I respectfully decline
the invitation to join
your hallucination
I'm about $500 from having legacy Eldrazi, which is by far the closest of any of the decks listed in the OP. Almost all of that comes from the 4x Cavern of Souls, 4x Wasteland, 3x Chalice of the Void (I already have one), and 1-2 Karakas, which are all staple cards that I should probably have if I want to play legacy anyways. I know the deck is relatively new, but how competitive is Eldrazi in the legacy metagame? Is it at least a tier two strategy?

CompeAnansi fucked around with this message at 18:07 on Jun 2, 2016

mcmagic
Jul 1, 2004

If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

CompeAnansi posted:

I'm about $500 from having legacy Eldrazi, which is by far the closest of any of the decks listed in the OP. Almost all of that comes from the 4x Cavern of Souls, 4x Wasteland, 3x Chalice of the Void (I already have one), and 1-2 Karakas, which are all staple cards that I should probably have if I want to play legacy anyways. I know the deck is relatively new, but how competitive is Eldrazi in the legacy metagame? Is it at least a tier two strategy?

Yeah it's definitely T2 at worst. You're good vs Delver/Storm and bad vs Sneak/Show and Lands. It's basically the new MUD of the meta and it's better than MUD was.

mcmagic fucked around with this message at 18:20 on Jun 2, 2016

C-Euro
Mar 20, 2010

:science:
Soiled Meat

Skyl3lazer posted:

^^ "Nic Fit" is just a catchall for the GBx builds - they're anywhere from 3-5 colors, have a bit of a ramp strategy, and win via creatures. It was just a joke name from the Source forums where someone said they had a deck that they thought would be "a nic fit for the current meta". The misspelling stuck.

Honestly if I was going to do a NicFit deck it would be a maverick or abzan in general version - turn 2 siege rhino, and you get to play the GB commander that has experience counters for good value. Jund in general (both "real" jund and nicfit) are a bit of a dog in the current meta, but that doesn't matter too much if your local isn't full of Miracles and Delver.

Lists similar to this : http://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/legacy-nic-fit-25716#paper

There's a lot of room to budget off that deck, especially if you have fetches or any of the duals.

Yeah part of my interest in Nic Fit is that I'm already working on Modern Junk, so I have most of the Modern-legal cards in that list and a couple other things like Marsh Flats I could use until I can get the priciest cards.

empathe
Nov 9, 2003

>:|

Skyl3lazer posted:





It went down some, at one point Miracles was 27%

VVVV Eldrazi is easily Tier 1. It has an amazing Miracles matchup, and very good matchups against other decks that aren't Shardless. Really, Shardless and (maybe) Lands are it's only actually bad matchups.

Yeah, I know. I sold my Wastelands to re-buy them when EMA drops so I took myself off a ton of my decks at the moment.

It's just crazy!

My match 2 opponent was terrible as well. He went through tons of manipulation to try to find a 3-drop to counter my Clique and then later a Venser both of which were cast via Cavern...

Cabbages and Kings
Aug 25, 2004


Shall we be trotting home again?
hey good post Skyl3lazer, one note on Elves: there are 2 diverging decks in the archtype right now, typical Natural Order elves and "Chaos" Elves ("No Order") which drops the NO for maindeck gaddock teeg, karakas, crop rotation savannah. So, it's around a couple hundred bucks to buy into Chaos Elves if you have Elves.

The Chaos build is popular right now because as a more grindy/midrange deck, it doesn't fold as hard to Force of Will or Terminus (and maindeck Teeg is good against Miracles). I don't know if it's placed in a major paper event, though.

suicidesteve
Jan 4, 2006

"Life is a maze. This is one of its dead ends.


Every viable deck in every format sucks. Ban Gitaxian Probe, Chalice of the Void, Deathrite, every delve card but the original 3 and Temporal Trespass, Griselbrand, restrict Gush, unrestrict Lodestone, ban Eidolon, Inkmoth, Mox Opal, Ensnaring Bridge, and everything with Hexproof except for Geist and Thrun in modern. Then ban modern and get rid of the reserved list.

Then quit it all and play Pauper because it's the only format WotC hasn't ruined yet.

empathe posted:

My match 2 opponent was terrible as well. He went through tons of manipulation to try to find a 3-drop to counter my Clique and then later a Venser both of which were cast via Cavern...

MTGO opponents are mostly terrible. You should come to legacy tomorrow. We started kinda late last week.

This has been a genuine suicidesteve hatepost brought to you by suicidesteve.

Fingers McLongDong
Nov 30, 2005

not eromenos
Fun Shoe

C-Euro posted:

Yeah part of my interest in Nic Fit is that I'm already working on Modern Junk, so I have most of the Modern-legal cards in that list and a couple other things like Marsh Flats I could use until I can get the priciest cards.

I know we discussed modern junk lists in the last thread, so I'll throw in my 2 cent and say I really enjoy playing dark maverick in legacy. Similar to junk in that it's a good stuffs deck but leaning more towards hatebears and extremely flexible lists. I only run 4 duals (bayou, scrub land, 2 savannah). No rhinos but you get stoneforge package and thalia, plus all star knight of the Reliquary. Lots of flex spots to play with.

But now I just goof off with enchantress when I have the time to play legacy.

Also modern is great right now.

suicidesteve
Jan 4, 2006

"Life is a maze. This is one of its dead ends.


Fingers McLongDong posted:

Also modern is great right now.

People keep saying this but I keep running into the same aggro/combo decks I airways have and find myself hoping for my sideboard cards more than I find myself hoping to have an interesting game.

mcmagic
Jul 1, 2004

If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

suicidesteve posted:

People keep saying this but I keep running into the same aggro/combo decks I airways have and find myself hoping for my sideboard cards more than I find myself hoping to have an interesting game.

This has always described modern. I guess if you like modern you like it now and if you don't you don''t.

fomo sacer
Feb 14, 2007

suicidesteve posted:

Then quit it all and play Pauper because it's the only format WotC hasn't ruined yet.

You may have to stop saying this once EMA drops because that Peregrine Drake deck someone posted in the thunder dome thread looks like the worst thing.

Skyl3lazer
Aug 27, 2007

[Dooting Stealthily]



suicidesteve posted:

Every viable deck in every format sucks. Ban Gitaxian Probe, Chalice of the Void, Deathrite, every delve card but the original 3 and Temporal Trespass, Griselbrand, restrict Gush, unrestrict Lodestone, ban Eidolon, Inkmoth, Mox Opal, Ensnaring Bridge, and everything with Hexproof except for Geist and Thrun in modern. Then ban modern and get rid of the reserved list.

Then quit it all and play Pauper because it's the only format WotC hasn't ruined yet.


MTGO opponents are mostly terrible. You should come to legacy tomorrow. We started kinda late last week.

This has been a genuine suicidesteve hatepost brought to you by suicidesteve.

Ive been waiting for this post since the OP

Fingers McLongDong
Nov 30, 2005

not eromenos
Fun Shoe

suicidesteve posted:

People keep saying this but I keep running into the same aggro/combo decks I airways have and find myself hoping for my sideboard cards more than I find myself hoping to have an interesting game.

There's more viable decks than ever before and I find people now are actually having to piece their sideboards together more carefully now than before. Complaining about aggro/combo is kinda pointless if you want to play Magic in general but control decks are actually more viable now than before as well.

This is all a moot point if you only want to play known bad deck blue tron, but you should know what you're getting into when you choose to play that anyway. This is coming from a place of love for the deck too, as I own it and enjoy playing it myself sometimes at weekly events.

suicidesteve
Jan 4, 2006

"Life is a maze. This is one of its dead ends.


Skyl3lazer posted:

Ive been waiting for this post since the OP

I know.

Fingers McLongDong posted:

There's more viable decks than ever before and I find people now are actually having to piece their sideboards together more carefully now than before. Complaining about aggro/combo is kinda pointless if you want to play Magic in general but control decks are actually more viable now than before as well.

My problem isn't that they exist, it's that they're still the majority of viable decks and there's still not really a reason to play a non-linear deck. And control is still a joke.

Static Equilibrium posted:

You may have to stop saying this once EMA drops because that Peregrine Drake deck someone posted in the thunder dome thread looks like the worst thing.

Hey, I said "yet!" Angler comes pretty close sometimes.

Zoness
Jul 24, 2011

Talk to the hand.
Grimey Drawer

Elyv posted:

man why isn't my favorite deck in the gauntlet

same

it's a shame dredge is so great and yet so easily hated at the same time

empathe
Nov 9, 2003

>:|

suicidesteve posted:

MTGO opponents are mostly terrible. You should come to legacy tomorrow. We started kinda late last week.

Can't for a bit. Buying a dumb house.
Also starting a new job later this month, but it's EST hours so I should be showing up more into the Fall.

PhyrexianLibrarian
Feb 21, 2004

Compleat silence, please

Skyl3lazer posted:

^^ "Nic Fit" is just a catchall for the GBx builds - they're anywhere from 3-5 colors, have a bit of a ramp strategy, and win via creatures. It was just a joke name from the Source forums where someone said they had a deck that they thought would be "a nic fit for the current meta". The misspelling stuck.

OK, I'll be that guy: Nic Fit is unique from other GBx builds as it specifically plays (and exploits) the interaction between Veteran Explorer and Cabal Therapy, as well as Pernicious Deed as the board-wipe of choice, and often Sensei's Divining Top to take advantage of all the shuffle effects. Its best matchups are decks that don't play very many basics, which allows VE to be one-sided and can ramp you at crazy speeds while your opponent gains nothing.

T1: Bayou, GSZ into Dryad Arbor.
T2: Phyrexian Tower, cast Veteran Explorer, sac VE for BB and two more basics, hard-cast a 4-drop or GSZ for a three-drop
T3: You have 6 lands in play vs. your opponent's three

What you do with all that ramp depends on what your third colour is:

Blue: Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Consecrated Sphinx (plus you get Brainstorm)
White: Siege Rhino, Sun Titan, the best sideboard options
Red: Scapeshift into Valakut :getin:

PhyrexianLibrarian fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Jun 3, 2016

mehall
Aug 27, 2010


PhyrexianLibrarian posted:

OK, I'll be that guy: Nic Fit is unique from other GBx builds as it specifically plays (and exploits) the interaction between Veteran Explorer and Cabal Therapy, as well as Pernicious Deed as the board-wipe of choice, and often Sensei's Divining Top to take advantage of all the shuffle effects. Its best matchups are decks that don't play very many duals, which allows VE to be one-sided and can ramp you at crazy speeds while your opponent gains nothing.

T1: Bayou, GSZ into Dryad Arbor.
T2: Phyrexian Tower, cast Veteran Explorer, sac VE for BB and two more basics, hard-cast a 4-drop or GSZ for a three-drop
T3: You have 6 lands in play vs. your opponent's three

What you do with all that ramp depends on what your third colour is:

Blue: Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Consecrated Sphinx (plus you get Brainstorm)
White: Siege Rhino, Sun Titan, the best sideboard options
Red: Scapeshift into Valakut :getin:

Pretty sure you mean against decks that don't run many basics.

C-Euro
Mar 20, 2010

:science:
Soiled Meat

Fingers McLongDong posted:

known bad deck blue tron

I might actually sell off my U Tron deck :( It's fun and all but my store only does Modern once a month and I'm having a lot of fun and success with Mill. I also have more decks than I could realistically play on a regular basis so I should really make some cuts if I'm going to build anything else (that's also why I'm trying to build a similar archetype for both Modern and Legacy).

Fingers McLongDong posted:

I know we discussed modern junk lists in the last thread, so I'll throw in my 2 cent and say I really enjoy playing dark maverick in legacy. Similar to junk in that it's a good stuffs deck but leaning more towards hatebears and extremely flexible lists. I only run 4 duals (bayou, scrub land, 2 savannah). No rhinos but you get stoneforge package and thalia, plus all star knight of the Reliquary. Lots of flex spots to play with.

Word, I'll check it out. There's gotta be a site or app or whatever out there where you can plug in multiple decklists and see what cards they have in common, right?

C-Euro fucked around with this message at 23:22 on Jun 2, 2016

Skyl3lazer
Aug 27, 2007

[Dooting Stealthily]



C-Euro posted:

Word, I'll check it out. There's gotta be a site or app or whatever out there where you can plug in multiple decklists and see what cards they have in common, right?

http://www.shoeboxmtg.com/login.php does it. I think MTGGoldfish and Deckbox.org also have premium features that do it?

e; Nah those just let you put in cards you have and it'll compare them. I don't think any directly compares lists.

RoflcopterPilot
Mar 17, 2004
What did the five fingers say to the face? SLAP!
Anybody know of any Legacy in NYC that starts later in the evening? I'm in the LES area and don't mind traveling anywhere in the city...but I work until 7pm during the week and every single spot I can find starts at like 6pm :( At this point I'm considering asking if I can just register by phone or something and give away a free loss round 1 just so I can get there in time to play a few rounds.

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The March Hare
Oct 15, 2006

Je rêve d'un
Wayne's World 3
Buglord

RoflcopterPilot posted:

Anybody know of any Legacy in NYC that starts later in the evening? I'm in the LES area and don't mind traveling anywhere in the city...but I work until 7pm during the week and every single spot I can find starts at like 6pm :( At this point I'm considering asking if I can just register by phone or something and give away a free loss round 1 just so I can get there in time to play a few rounds.

:-/ Geekery starts at 7 on Mondays, think that's the latest one.

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