This is a Great crash course for Legacy. Our podcast is aimed at doing the same thing, but at a much more deliberate pace. I dig this and plan to link to it on our next episode of Legacy Weapon.
Overall an okay article, but there's some real head-scratcher statements in there.
For example: Miracles plays some prison elements, some control elements, some game-winning creatures, and some combos. Does that mean that it is a prison-control-aggro-combo deck?
You will never ever hear "aggro" and "Miracles" uttered in the same breath, unless it was "I was playing my aggro deck against Miracles".
Borrowing from MUD, we have Painter, which uses the same mana base...
No it doesn't. They both use Sol lands, and that's where the similarities end.
Infect and Delver occupy the same space in Legacy...
I don't think that's an accurate statement at all. Infect is an aggressive combo deck that tries to win as quickly as possible with a single creature and tons of pump spells. Delver is... not that.
Also, no Nic Fit, Maverick, Dead Guy, Manaless Dredge or Oops All Spells?
Think I would have divided MUD into MUD (metal worker/Lodestone) and Stax (prison).
I may have added the names and enlarged BG-x midrange to look at some of the variants, eg Nic Fit, Shardless play very differently but have a reasonable amount of common cards.
Also, Pox. Always with us, especially in Europe.
As noted above Merfolk is a pretty strong Tribal deck.
Nice effort though, gets a lot of info into a short space.
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As a long-time Legacy player, I liked this summary. However, I think it would be very confusing for beginners / new Legacy players. You don't really describe what the archetypes do, what differentiates them, how the mechanics work, or why certain cards are pillars and are so strong. You just name them. For Legacy regulars, just saying "Thalia Guardian of Thraben" or "Ancient Tomb + Chalice of the Void" or "turn 2 Griselbrand" describes the general strategy pretty well. But for someone who has just played Standard and Modern, these are just buzzwords that carry no meaning. All the implications are lost. They are probably wondering "but wait, how do you do that?" or "why is this card good?" or even "what do people do when they cast this card?".
For example, you say Death & Taxes looks like white weenie but isn't, then just name three 1-2 cc white creatures. So far still sounds like white weenie. I would add something about Wasteland + Port + Aether Vial and how the deck focuses on disrupting the opponent's mana to slow down faster decks while it establishes a board presence. Even just a few words on why Stoneforge is so good to make up for the other lower-powered creatures, since people that weren't around for Caw Blade may not know.
There are some simple things we take for granted that beginners need to know. E.g.:
-Legacy has combo decks that can goldfish on turn 1. Therefore, Force of Will (turn 0 counterspell) has always had an important presence to police the format.
-Fetchlands + revised duals (vs shocks) make it relatively safe to have a consistent 3-color manabase without dying to burn decks
-Wasteland is good because many decks run greedy manabases (because of the above point)
-Brainstorm. Best nonland card in Legacy, and much more complex than it appears. People who have never played Legacy probably haven't used Brainstorm, or at least haven't used Brainstorm properly. It probably needs an introduction beyond simply naming the card. They may think it's just slightly better than Serum Visions (dig top 3 cards).
-The average CMC in Legacy is very low (for cards people pay mana for anyway). 1cc spells are everywhere, including Brainstorm. This is why there are archetypes built around turn 1 Chalice @ 1, Thalia taxing, etc. Otherwise people may wonder what the point of those decks is.
Anyway, these are just some ideas. I'm not claiming that I could make a better intro or that I've exhaustively listed everything a beginner would need to know. However, I do think it's important to give a proper introduction to the different archetypes and strategies, how they work, and why they're powerful - in words for a beginner, not just for regulars.
https://www.cardhoarder.com/mtgo-legacy-guide
Keep up the good work!
You will never ever hear "aggro" and "Miracles" uttered in the same breath, unless it was "I was playing my aggro deck against Miracles".
No it doesn't. They both use Sol lands, and that's where the similarities end.
I don't think that's an accurate statement at all. Infect is an aggressive combo deck that tries to win as quickly as possible with a single creature and tons of pump spells. Delver is... not that.
Also, no Nic Fit, Maverick, Dead Guy, Manaless Dredge or Oops All Spells?
I may have added the names and enlarged BG-x midrange to look at some of the variants, eg Nic Fit, Shardless play very differently but have a reasonable amount of common cards.
Also, Pox. Always with us, especially in Europe.
As noted above Merfolk is a pretty strong Tribal deck.
Nice effort though, gets a lot of info into a short space.
Lol, I play Maverick, Nic Fit, and Goblins and none of my decks were mentioned. Low Tier 2 decks for life
For example, you say Death & Taxes looks like white weenie but isn't, then just name three 1-2 cc white creatures. So far still sounds like white weenie. I would add something about Wasteland + Port + Aether Vial and how the deck focuses on disrupting the opponent's mana to slow down faster decks while it establishes a board presence. Even just a few words on why Stoneforge is so good to make up for the other lower-powered creatures, since people that weren't around for Caw Blade may not know.
There are some simple things we take for granted that beginners need to know. E.g.:
-Legacy has combo decks that can goldfish on turn 1. Therefore, Force of Will (turn 0 counterspell) has always had an important presence to police the format.
-Fetchlands + revised duals (vs shocks) make it relatively safe to have a consistent 3-color manabase without dying to burn decks
-Wasteland is good because many decks run greedy manabases (because of the above point)
-Brainstorm. Best nonland card in Legacy, and much more complex than it appears. People who have never played Legacy probably haven't used Brainstorm, or at least haven't used Brainstorm properly. It probably needs an introduction beyond simply naming the card. They may think it's just slightly better than Serum Visions (dig top 3 cards).
-The average CMC in Legacy is very low (for cards people pay mana for anyway). 1cc spells are everywhere, including Brainstorm. This is why there are archetypes built around turn 1 Chalice @ 1, Thalia taxing, etc. Otherwise people may wonder what the point of those decks is.
Anyway, these are just some ideas. I'm not claiming that I could make a better intro or that I've exhaustively listed everything a beginner would need to know. However, I do think it's important to give a proper introduction to the different archetypes and strategies, how they work, and why they're powerful - in words for a beginner, not just for regulars.
Hope that helps.