I really don't have any legacy cards other than like Brainstorms, Swords to Plowshares, Counterspells, etc. I have some fetch lands, but I don't have playlets of any. I'd have the easiest time building a W/B or R/B mana base as I have 2 Marsh Flats and 3 Bloodstained Mire. I don't have any of the blue enemy fetches.
My Marvellous/Mediocre Magic Thread
- Thread starter Dom Harvey
- Start date
I really don't have any legacy cards other than like Brainstorms, Swords to Plowshares, Counterspells, etc. I have some fetch lands, but I don't have playlets of any. I'd have the easiest time building a W/B or R/B mana base as I have 2 Marsh Flats and 3 Bloodstained Mire. I don't have any of the blue enemy fetches.
The problem with legacy is that there aren't really any budget lists, as even the cheaper decks have at least a few expensive cards in them. Your best bet is looking at mono-colour decks, of which there are a few, but they tend not to have a lot of staples that you can easily transfer over to a new deck if you want to try something else. I can tell you that DnT without Vials, Stoneforges or Wastelands really won't run well at all (and even with those, it's not in a great spot at the moment - Wrenn and Six is a real beating). Unless you really want to play tournaments I'd suggest proxying up a few decks to play with friends to see what kind of deck you enjoy, and then working towards that.
When I was working overseas, I played a lot of MTGO legacy, since there was absolutely zero local scene. MTGO's probably the future of the format, in that it isn't limited by the reserved list, and duals / staples are way more affordable. If you don't mind playing the most thrilling form of Magic over the computer, you could get into BR Reanimator, any of the Storm variants, D&T (but as Aston says, whoof, W6 is a beating), Drazi Stompy, turbo depths, dredge, sneak and show, HOGAAK depths,... there's a lot more decks that are suddenly affordable for the price of, say, a single USea in paper.
Dom Harvey
Contributor
a tale of failure and redemption!
I started 10-0 at SCG Indy but the wheels came off and I punted my win-and-in on camera. There was a good chance that could have cost me my Players' Championship slot so I really needed a good finish at Regionals to stay in it:
I thought I was soft-locked before and then things fell apart so I'm not counting my chickens but if I were I would have quite a few of them right now!
I started 10-0 at SCG Indy but the wheels came off and I punted my win-and-in on camera. There was a good chance that could have cost me my Players' Championship slot so I really needed a good finish at Regionals to stay in it:
I thought I was soft-locked before and then things fell apart so I'm not counting my chickens but if I were I would have quite a few of them right now!
Dom Harvey
Contributor
Everyone else won this weekend but luckily I won something too (in Standard no less)!
Should be locked for the Players' Championship for real now so watch ya boi on the big stage
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Should be locked for the Players' Championship for real now so watch ya boi on the big stage
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Everyone else won this weekend but luckily I won something too (in Standard no less)!
Should be locked for the Players' Championship for real now so watch ya boi on the big stage
Alright, stealing this for arena.
Dom Harvey
Contributor
Dom Harvey
Contributor
Updates!
Top 4ed another Team Open in February with the best decks in each format back then (Reclamation, Inverter, Amulet)
Starting writing biweekly for SCG
Then earlier this week I won an online PTQ with my baby boy:
Not sure if/when the PT will return but it's nice to have something to look forward to!
Top 4ed another Team Open in February with the best decks in each format back then (Reclamation, Inverter, Amulet)
Starting writing biweekly for SCG
Then earlier this week I won an online PTQ with my baby boy:
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Not sure if/when the PT will return but it's nice to have something to look forward to!
Dom Harvey
Contributor
That PT happened on Arena and was a flop in every sense. However...
As can you tell by my posts I am perpetually Online and love talking about Magic so I'm thrilled to have a chance to natter away on a bigger platform!
First show was last weekend - featuring an amazing semis match between the World Champion and one of the best in the world - if you want to check it out!
As can you tell by my posts I am perpetually Online and love talking about Magic so I'm thrilled to have a chance to natter away on a bigger platform!
First show was last weekend - featuring an amazing semis match between the World Champion and one of the best in the world - if you want to check it out!
Does this mean you have to buy a shirt? 
Congrats!
Congrats!
Dom Harvey
Contributor
With paper events on hold, my reluctance to fully commit to Arena, and the difficulties Standard has had recently, I've had to cast a wider net for my competitive Magic fix. I've had a lot of fun exploring some one-off formats:
Vintage Rotisserie Draft
For those who have done a Rotisserie Draft with their Cube, VRD is just as it sounds: you each draft 45 cards but from the entire Vintage card pool. Predictably, the Power 9 and Sol Ring disappear quickly and Time Vault is a consensus first round pick due to the ease of assembling infinite combos with it (as showcased nicely in that second deck). Competition for even the most marginal blue cards is tough given blue's dominance in early Magic design but drafters who want to corner other colours for their own plans can usually do that. There are enough game-winning combos (Channel + so many things, Thassa's Oracle + Demonic Consultation has some redundancy as you see in my SB, Entomb + reanimation, Sneak Attack+ Eldrazi/Blightsteel, Painter's Servant + Grindstone...) that I like taking the best tutors aggressively and then taking your pick of combos after that. That strategy paid off - I didn't drop a match across those two VRDs! We have one tentatively planned in a few weeks and I might see if we can try Legacy Rotisserie Draft instead - still a ton of variety with less automatic assumptions
No Ban List Modern
Modern right now is maybe the fairest it's ever been - blue decks finally reign supreme and the children who complain whenever that's not true are finally happy(-ish). That's an exception, though - most iterations of Modern have been bare-knuckle fisticuffs between linear decks. Why not let some former prize fighters back into the ring and see what happens?
I loved Amulet Bloom back in the day and have successfully relived its glory days a few times so of course this was my starting point for No Ban List Modern. I went 8-1 in one tournament and 1-4 in another so the jury is still out on this one I suppose! The format was caricatured as an Eldrazi or Hogaak wasteland but hasn't played out that way so far - that might change if people took the format seriously but for now it's a fun way to sample the forbidden fruit of Modern in moderation
Set Roulette
The Mythic Society runs a monthly Set Roulette - two big sets, three small sets, and a Core Set to replicate a custom Standard format. Some sets are more powerful than others - one month, an ill-fated decision to include the MTGO Masters Editions as possible Core Sets led to a format defined by Mana Drain and Mind Twist alongside Skullclamp! Check out these decks I've played in previous months:
Vintage Rotisserie Draft
BUG Channel
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UB Artifacts
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For those who have done a Rotisserie Draft with their Cube, VRD is just as it sounds: you each draft 45 cards but from the entire Vintage card pool. Predictably, the Power 9 and Sol Ring disappear quickly and Time Vault is a consensus first round pick due to the ease of assembling infinite combos with it (as showcased nicely in that second deck). Competition for even the most marginal blue cards is tough given blue's dominance in early Magic design but drafters who want to corner other colours for their own plans can usually do that. There are enough game-winning combos (Channel + so many things, Thassa's Oracle + Demonic Consultation has some redundancy as you see in my SB, Entomb + reanimation, Sneak Attack+ Eldrazi/Blightsteel, Painter's Servant + Grindstone...) that I like taking the best tutors aggressively and then taking your pick of combos after that. That strategy paid off - I didn't drop a match across those two VRDs! We have one tentatively planned in a few weeks and I might see if we can try Legacy Rotisserie Draft instead - still a ton of variety with less automatic assumptions
No Ban List Modern
Modern right now is maybe the fairest it's ever been - blue decks finally reign supreme and the children who complain whenever that's not true are finally happy(-ish). That's an exception, though - most iterations of Modern have been bare-knuckle fisticuffs between linear decks. Why not let some former prize fighters back into the ring and see what happens?
GOAT Amulet Bloom
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I loved Amulet Bloom back in the day and have successfully relived its glory days a few times so of course this was my starting point for No Ban List Modern. I went 8-1 in one tournament and 1-4 in another so the jury is still out on this one I suppose! The format was caricatured as an Eldrazi or Hogaak wasteland but hasn't played out that way so far - that might change if people took the format seriously but for now it's a fun way to sample the forbidden fruit of Modern in moderation
Set Roulette
The Mythic Society runs a monthly Set Roulette - two big sets, three small sets, and a Core Set to replicate a custom Standard format. Some sets are more powerful than others - one month, an ill-fated decision to include the MTGO Masters Editions as possible Core Sets led to a format defined by Mana Drain and Mind Twist alongside Skullclamp! Check out these decks I've played in previous months:
Zombies
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WU Reanimator
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I wasn't allowed Aether Searcher when we did Vintage Rotisserie draft, and I'm still salty.
We did a few in a row, and we did a couple mix-ups like one where you had to pick cards in ascending CMC from 0 to 6 and back down again, with 6 including all higher costs, and a mono blue plus colourless draft. A couple others that were put forward but never managed to get going were one card one set, so all first picks were Alpha, all second picks Arabian Nights, etc.; all commons (or uncommons or rares); alphabetical order draft; or modern/legacy rotisserie.
We did a few in a row, and we did a couple mix-ups like one where you had to pick cards in ascending CMC from 0 to 6 and back down again, with 6 including all higher costs, and a mono blue plus colourless draft. A couple others that were put forward but never managed to get going were one card one set, so all first picks were Alpha, all second picks Arabian Nights, etc.; all commons (or uncommons or rares); alphabetical order draft; or modern/legacy rotisserie.
Dom Harvey
Contributor
We used a Google Sheet and then played games on Cockatrice. It took most of an afternoon but you can speed it up with a shot clock for picks etc (we didn't really need one as all of us wanted to keep it snappy)
Dom Harvey
Contributor
Legacy Rotisserie Draft was great! We had an odd mix of decks (two players fighting over Wx Death & Taxes cards, Abzan, UW Control, and a RUG deck that was competing with me) but I managed to draft and go undefeated with this beauty:
Meanwhile I went back on the No Ban List Modern grind with BG Depths. I assumed it would be everywhere - it was in the SCG NBLM Open a few years ago but the format looked very different then and few people played it in the event I Top 8ed with Amulet. It turns out it's still great and a few others came to that conclusion; I Top 4ed a smaller event before losing to the pseudo-mirror. Latest list:
Regular Constructed forays have been unsuccessful for a while but no real reason to fix that atm. I really enjoy this more resilient style of Depths deck so I'll probably keep working on that for Legacy (where you get Crop Rotation!)
Amulet Depths
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Meanwhile I went back on the No Ban List Modern grind with BG Depths. I assumed it would be everywhere - it was in the SCG NBLM Open a few years ago but the format looked very different then and few people played it in the event I Top 8ed with Amulet. It turns out it's still great and a few others came to that conclusion; I Top 4ed a smaller event before losing to the pseudo-mirror. Latest list:
BG Depths
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Regular Constructed forays have been unsuccessful for a while but no real reason to fix that atm. I really enjoy this more resilient style of Depths deck so I'll probably keep working on that for Legacy (where you get Crop Rotation!)
Dom Harvey
Contributor
Finished Top 4 in a Legacy Challenge on MTGO with my new boo:
Then it was back to the lab for some Modern brews. I suddenly found a lot more motivation to play the format and it shows! Went 4-1 in a League with this:
This deck is hilarious but sadly not that good! This one, on the other hand:
Not sure how truly competitive this is but this deck is everything I want to do in Magic and is incredibly powerful. You're the best Uro deck, the best ramp deck thanks to Splendid Reclamation, you get to use Loam + cycle lands as a draw engine, you can score free wins with Ashiok, and every part of that works together neatly in a way that I think is beautiful!
I want to try a RG version too:
Splendid Reclamation is an absolute delight
Yet another 4-1 with another ramp deck, this time featuring Elvish Reclaimer:
None of these decks can beat combo in a million years but that's what you sign up for!
After losing a lot with a variety of Premodern decks, I 4-0ed a Weekly with Enchantress:
Sadly the deck is no longer competitive in Legacy but it's excellent here!
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Then it was back to the lab for some Modern brews. I suddenly found a lot more motivation to play the format and it shows! Went 4-1 in a League with this:
This deck is hilarious but sadly not that good! This one, on the other hand:
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Not sure how truly competitive this is but this deck is everything I want to do in Magic and is incredibly powerful. You're the best Uro deck, the best ramp deck thanks to Splendid Reclamation, you get to use Loam + cycle lands as a draw engine, you can score free wins with Ashiok, and every part of that works together neatly in a way that I think is beautiful!
I want to try a RG version too:
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Splendid Reclamation is an absolute delight
Yet another 4-1 with another ramp deck, this time featuring Elvish Reclaimer:
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None of these decks can beat combo in a million years but that's what you sign up for!
After losing a lot with a variety of Premodern decks, I 4-0ed a Weekly with Enchantress:
Sadly the deck is no longer competitive in Legacy but it's excellent here!
Dom Harvey
Contributor
Not much to report but:
Made Top 8 of another Set Roulette (and started doing coverage for them):
This batch of sets contained the shells for some of my favourite decks of all time - Kami Block Gifts Ungiven, Winding Constrictor - so naturally I played boring-ish UW because Teferi was even more broken in this format. The Legends subtheme was cool though
A few weeks ago I won one of the weekend Legacy Challenges on MTGO with the mighty Hogaak:
I was proud of this result because I doubted the deck for a long time, challenged my assumptions and worked on refining the deck with information I gained in testing, and was able to leverage that to win the tournament. This is basically the initial Modern lists + Cabal Therapy, which shows you just how busted that deck was in Modern.
Also Top 8ed a Standard Showcase to gain entry to the MOCS qualifier in a few months with Mono-Green Food:
This has a lot of depth for a Mono-Green deck and I enjoyed a decent amount of success with it
Made Top 8 of another Set Roulette (and started doing coverage for them):
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This batch of sets contained the shells for some of my favourite decks of all time - Kami Block Gifts Ungiven, Winding Constrictor - so naturally I played boring-ish UW because Teferi was even more broken in this format. The Legends subtheme was cool though
A few weeks ago I won one of the weekend Legacy Challenges on MTGO with the mighty Hogaak:
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I was proud of this result because I doubted the deck for a long time, challenged my assumptions and worked on refining the deck with information I gained in testing, and was able to leverage that to win the tournament. This is basically the initial Modern lists + Cabal Therapy, which shows you just how busted that deck was in Modern.
Also Top 8ed a Standard Showcase to gain entry to the MOCS qualifier in a few months with Mono-Green Food:
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This has a lot of depth for a Mono-Green deck and I enjoyed a decent amount of success with it
Dom Harvey
Contributor
Sadly that qualifier didn't go so well but I had a nice run in Standard, racking up four Top 8s in the weekend Challenges on MTGO and Top 4 in a PTQ (mine to lose I think but lost focus at the end, ah well). I started with a Naya adaptation of the Gruul Adventures deck that dominated the previous format with Showdown of the Skalds as the flashiest card from Kaldheim:
People are understandably sick of the Adventure cards in Standard but I can't get enough and am looking for any way to smuggle Edgewall Innkeeper into a Cube...
I then turned to the deck that looms large over this format, Sultimatum:
If a card on par with Genesis Ultimatum or Cruel Ultimatum wasn't brutal enough, Emergent Ultimatum forcing your opponent to make a choice that isn't going to matter because they are dead anyway is the final insult
As the competition became more refined and decks like aggro and Rogues took over, I wanted to try a fair Sultai shell that was better equipped to handle those (and is better inspiration for us around here):
This was a derivative of the 4c Doom Foretold deck, which is great if you love grinding people down:
With other stuff going on I didn't have much time to test but I Top 8ed another Set Roulette with 4c Mono-Red:
There's something about having all the different R/x hybrids side by side that really does it for me
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People are understandably sick of the Adventure cards in Standard but I can't get enough and am looking for any way to smuggle Edgewall Innkeeper into a Cube...
I then turned to the deck that looms large over this format, Sultimatum:
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If a card on par with Genesis Ultimatum or Cruel Ultimatum wasn't brutal enough, Emergent Ultimatum forcing your opponent to make a choice that isn't going to matter because they are dead anyway is the final insult
As the competition became more refined and decks like aggro and Rogues took over, I wanted to try a fair Sultai shell that was better equipped to handle those (and is better inspiration for us around here):
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This was a derivative of the 4c Doom Foretold deck, which is great if you love grinding people down:
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With other stuff going on I didn't have much time to test but I Top 8ed another Set Roulette with 4c Mono-Red:
There's something about having all the different R/x hybrids side by side that really does it for me
Dom Harvey
Contributor
Another Set Roulette Top 8! There's usually one deck that's much more popular and successful than the rest and it's funny that it wasn't Valakut or Flash + Worldspine Wurm this time but good old Merfolk:
As someone who writes (and now podcasts weekly) about Modern I was keen to see what did well in the first weekend of tournaments with Modern Horizons 2. The answer was... me!
Full video walkthrough of the Challenge here:
As someone who writes (and now podcasts weekly) about Modern I was keen to see what did well in the first weekend of tournaments with Modern Horizons 2. The answer was... me!
Full video walkthrough of the Challenge here:
Dom Harvey
Contributor
Some more variant format action - first, Australian 7 Point Highlander
Then a deck tech + matches with Cephalid Breakfast in a Pre-Innistrad Legacy League:
Then a deck tech + matches with Cephalid Breakfast in a Pre-Innistrad Legacy League:
Dom Harvey
Contributor
Racked up some more Top 8s - first, another Set Roulette:
This was a sweet organic example of the aggro-combo hybrid graveyard decks I love supporting in Cube!
Then to Modern, where we I tried to restore Urza to its former glory in the Modern Challenge:
The deck felt quite average but it's nice to have the option if that's your thing.
Going into this recent batch of more competitive events on MTGO I found myself lost in most of the formats. With just an hour to go before the Pioneer PTQ, I picked up Jund Citadel with an innocuous but crucial new pickup in Prosperous Innkeeper:
Going off with this deck is incredibly fun - I love sacrifice decks that play towards a big finish with Living Death/Bolas's Citadel etc rather than just shuffling cards between zones.
I made Top 8 of the PTQ and the deck took off like wildfire again - my exact list went 9-0 to win the Challenge the next day, then three different lists made Top 8 of the Showcase on Sunday (with my friend winning it and Yuuki Ichikawa, a pro/streamer who innovated the Standard/Historic lists, coming back to the fold).
Finally, I joined the Vintage Showcase with a brew despite hating the format because the points you use to enter them were about to expire anyway and Top 8ed that!
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This was a sweet organic example of the aggro-combo hybrid graveyard decks I love supporting in Cube!
Then to Modern, where we I tried to restore Urza to its former glory in the Modern Challenge:
The deck felt quite average but it's nice to have the option if that's your thing.
Going into this recent batch of more competitive events on MTGO I found myself lost in most of the formats. With just an hour to go before the Pioneer PTQ, I picked up Jund Citadel with an innocuous but crucial new pickup in Prosperous Innkeeper:
Going off with this deck is incredibly fun - I love sacrifice decks that play towards a big finish with Living Death/Bolas's Citadel etc rather than just shuffling cards between zones.
I made Top 8 of the PTQ and the deck took off like wildfire again - my exact list went 9-0 to win the Challenge the next day, then three different lists made Top 8 of the Showcase on Sunday (with my friend winning it and Yuuki Ichikawa, a pro/streamer who innovated the Standard/Historic lists, coming back to the fold).
Finally, I joined the Vintage Showcase with a brew despite hating the format because the points you use to enter them were about to expire anyway and Top 8ed that!
Chris Taylor
Contributor
This is probably worth looking into.
Dom Harvey
Contributor
So after that Showcase, I Top 8ed the Showcase playoff, the Vintage Challenge in between, and then got 2nd in the ManaTraders Vintage event so I guess I'm a Vintage #expert now? Wrote about all of that and the preparation process here (featuring video reviews!)
Made Top 8 of another, control-infested Set Roulette to clinch a spot in their end of year Invitational (Premodern Cube + Innistrad Plane Constructed!):
Also got to do a really fun longform piece on Pro Tour history (+ accompanying podcast episodes) if that's up your alley!
Made Top 8 of another, control-infested Set Roulette to clinch a spot in their end of year Invitational (Premodern Cube + Innistrad Plane Constructed!):
Also got to do a really fun longform piece on Pro Tour history (+ accompanying podcast episodes) if that's up your alley!