Hello. I want to offer my ten cents and perspective on Legacy without dual lands.
I used to own a full playset plus of the duals. When the price began to rise to insane levels and I hit some financial hard times, I sold all of them all.
Locally, a Legacy game night is the I only Magic night that works for me, so I built my old decks without duals and have been playing successfully and competitively with a combination of basics, fetch lands, shocks, and M10 tap lands.
I will concede on the optimization argument that with duals legacy is better, but only slightly and in very specific situations. but legacy can be played competitively and successfully without duals.
Some decks will be off limits, namely Delver and Zoo (though I think Zoo is out of vogue, currently).
Decks that can be successfully built and played without duals include Merfolk, Reanimator (U and R variants), MUD, Eldrazi, Miracles, High Tide, RDW, and Stone/Death blade. I am going to begin experimenting with Maverick soon.
I write all of this to encourage current and would be legacy players to look at this as an ACCESSIBLE format (not the inaccessible format that so many believe it to be) with decks that can be built at many different price points and in many different playstyles.
sure it can, but with dual lands it just makes those decks that much better. Death and Taxes is a teir 1 mono white deck and Elves is a mono green deck. but those decks still have super priced lands, D&T has karakas, R. Port, Wasteland
You can play anything in any format, but playing the optimal decklist has always been the best choice for winning tournaments percentage wise. You *can* win a tournament with just shocklands, but doing so requires more luck than usual as against almost any deck taking 2 to have an untapped shock versus a tapped shock can be taken advantage of be it tendrils of agony to delver to even miracles as the less angels they have to make to lethal you means they win sooner. Even against lands with a 20/20 it can matter as shocking makes you die that much faster to punishing fire + grove of the burnwillows.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Yawgmoth," Freyalise whispered as she set the bomb, "now you will pay for your treachery."
Yeah it depends on your meta. If Phillip Braverman shows up at your Fnm, you're going to have a bad day.
As i keep telling people this is bad advice for my city, as i have multiple people who have top 8's in legacy gps to dodge
every friday if i decide to show up with stuff like merfolk, or high tide.
Also if everyone else is on the decks you mentioned, shocks also get way worse.
taking an extra 2-4 against burn is lethal.
taking an extra 2 in reanimator against anything with bolt gets you killed when you use reanimate.
and yeah, this makes any racing situation bad for you.
3 goblin guides = 1 mp tundra
4 badlands cost less than 2 grim monilith
4 savannah cost less than 3 city of traitors
no duals in mud, deck is super expensive, probbably build infect for the same price.
I love the decks in Legacy, I play proxied versions. It's a very fun format. That being said this insistence that it's an accessible format reeks of desperation.
It's not accessible and it never will be. Who cares? Just play it if you love it.
Loads of viable decks exist without duals. Many are no longer accessible, but they exist. And in Legacy it is all about how well you know the deck you are playing.
Sol land decks are perfectly viable.
Eldrazi
AIR/Dragon stompy or the Goblin variants
Painter
are obvious but
MUD
and controlling Stax decks are both viable in various forms, although few people wish to play prison-esque lists that are low on critters.
Any reasonable deck can be put into a moxen/chalice shell- mono w thalia/solider stompy type lists being an example of one that has gained a lot recently and has great matchups against some top tier decks like Miracles but rubbish other ones.
Other respectable decks without duals exist like
D n T
POX variants
Merfolk
Burn
High Tide variants
and many decks exist on minimal duals, like Enchantress that runs about one.
Often the size of the event is very important- smaller events where you know what players are on allow more non dual-based decks- e.g. Parfait and Enchantress get ridiculously better when you know what your opponent is on- T1 on the play tutoring for a Rest in Peace against a known reanimator opponent- or mulliganing into it for a T1 RIP- is a hell of a lot better than playing against an unknown reanimator opponent in R1 of a big event who reveals his game plan just about the time the turn 1/2 Grisselbrand hits and spanks you.
It is certainly true that a lot of the big game "safe" choices- Miracles, Delver variants, shardless BUG etc. all work off fetches/duals. But they are often "safe" because of the event size. Turn up at a 50 player event with a group of 4 team mates and you will know what most of the room is on after a round, making a lot of the less "safe" decks better.
There is also a huge difference between continents. If I may generalise Americans seem to play the best blue decks, whilst Europeans are far more about playing what they want- a lot less blue- more prepared to lose to the bad matchups than play it safe with the obligatory Brainstorm/Force lists. Many an experienced player will turn up with a safe GP winning list to a small local event in Europe only lose to a bunch of non GP winning decks that "shouldn't be played" and yet do well.
Sadly the most inaccessible cards now are Tabernacles, Moats, Nether Voids etc. Not essential cards on the whole, but stupidly expensive and required for certain decks.
I was hellbent on trying to play Legacy without duals but eventually I broke down and got a Bayou. I guess I kind of resented that people treat them like status symbols, that how 'good' of a legacy player you are has something to do with how many duals are in your deck. I don't regret buying it, it just made my BG decks a lot faster. I've won matches without duals playing Mono B Pox and Mono G Infect, but not very many. If you're playing two or more colors the only real reason to avoid them is the price, but I'd tell anybody to get fetchlands first. If you're playing a fast deck I don't think 2 life is a very steep price to pay to be able to use a shockland on the turn you play it, but every little bit does help. I don't think it's an absolute rule that you need them to win at legacy, and it's possible have a well-tuned mana base without them.
A variation on this statement is that maybe you only need a couple of duals. Playing delver entirely with shocks is insane, but with a single copy of each blue dual, it'd be very playable. A mana base of 1 of each blue dual, 1 of each blue shock, however many blue fetches, 3 or 4 of your choice of M10 "checklands" and/or "fastlands," to prevent naturally drawing too many shocks will keep your mana pretty smooth and painless. Still expensive, but 1 or 2 duals is a whole lot cheaper than 4 or 7.
Well, I don't know about you but where I live is pretty expensive, we buy much more expensive than Starcity to give you an idea. The thing is if you really want to play Legacy you need to learn to save money. You will not enter the format with a couple of bucks and buy into the tier 1 decks right away, that's not gonna happen. I always read "how to buy into legacy" threads and it's just fascinating how people is looking for some dark magic to avoid the old and only way to do it: save money.
What you can do in the meanwhile is play cheaper versions and/or ask for someone to borrow a deck.
Play burn.
Burn sets the fundamental clock in any format in my opinion.
It's never the fastest deck. But it always has the highest inevitability.
It's cheap. It absolutely punishes poor play and poor draws by your opponent, and it's a great way to learn about other decks as you face off.
Better to participate with something reasonably strong than sit around and not jump into the format as you build your deck.
Play burn.
Burn sets the fundamental clock in any format in my opinion.
It's never the fastest deck. But it always has the highest inevitability.
It's cheap. It absolutely punishes poor play and poor draws by your opponent, and it's a great way to learn about other decks as you face off.
Better to participate with something reasonably strong than sit around and not jump into the format as you build your deck.
Burn is the most boring deck in the world and its so bad against Reanimator its not even funny. Yes its relatively cheap, but it has very few lines of play which make it a snooze fest to play with in the long term.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I used to own a full playset plus of the duals. When the price began to rise to insane levels and I hit some financial hard times, I sold all of them all.
Locally, a Legacy game night is the I only Magic night that works for me, so I built my old decks without duals and have been playing successfully and competitively with a combination of basics, fetch lands, shocks, and M10 tap lands.
I will concede on the optimization argument that with duals legacy is better, but only slightly and in very specific situations. but legacy can be played competitively and successfully without duals.
Some decks will be off limits, namely Delver and Zoo (though I think Zoo is out of vogue, currently).
Decks that can be successfully built and played without duals include Merfolk, Reanimator (U and R variants), MUD, Eldrazi, Miracles, High Tide, RDW, and Stone/Death blade. I am going to begin experimenting with Maverick soon.
I write all of this to encourage current and would be legacy players to look at this as an ACCESSIBLE format (not the inaccessible format that so many believe it to be) with decks that can be built at many different price points and in many different playstyles.
Current decks:
Legacy: Zoo, Aggro Elves, The Gate, White Weenie, Red Deck Wins, and Merfolk. Currently building Solidarity.
Casual: Warp World Revolution and Old School Red-Green.
Standard: Ob-Nixilis Wave and Elves.
Modern Tallowisp Spirits - A Modern Tallowisp Deck UW
Eldrazi Ninjas - Summoning Octopus Jutsu YYYYAAAHHHH!
STANDARD
Naban Wizards
Currently Playing:
Retired
As i keep telling people this is bad advice for my city, as i have multiple people who have top 8's in legacy gps to dodge
every friday if i decide to show up with stuff like merfolk, or high tide.
Also if everyone else is on the decks you mentioned, shocks also get way worse.
taking an extra 2-4 against burn is lethal.
taking an extra 2 in reanimator against anything with bolt gets you killed when you use reanimate.
and yeah, this makes any racing situation bad for you.
3 goblin guides = 1 mp tundra
4 badlands cost less than 2 grim monilith
4 savannah cost less than 3 city of traitors
no duals in mud, deck is super expensive, probbably build infect for the same price.
It's not accessible and it never will be. Who cares? Just play it if you love it.
Sol land decks are perfectly viable.
Eldrazi
AIR/Dragon stompy or the Goblin variants
Painter
are obvious but
MUD
and controlling Stax decks are both viable in various forms, although few people wish to play prison-esque lists that are low on critters.
Any reasonable deck can be put into a moxen/chalice shell- mono w thalia/solider stompy type lists being an example of one that has gained a lot recently and has great matchups against some top tier decks like Miracles but rubbish other ones.
Other respectable decks without duals exist like
D n T
POX variants
Merfolk
Burn
High Tide variants
and many decks exist on minimal duals, like Enchantress that runs about one.
Often the size of the event is very important- smaller events where you know what players are on allow more non dual-based decks- e.g. Parfait and Enchantress get ridiculously better when you know what your opponent is on- T1 on the play tutoring for a Rest in Peace against a known reanimator opponent- or mulliganing into it for a T1 RIP- is a hell of a lot better than playing against an unknown reanimator opponent in R1 of a big event who reveals his game plan just about the time the turn 1/2 Grisselbrand hits and spanks you.
It is certainly true that a lot of the big game "safe" choices- Miracles, Delver variants, shardless BUG etc. all work off fetches/duals. But they are often "safe" because of the event size. Turn up at a 50 player event with a group of 4 team mates and you will know what most of the room is on after a round, making a lot of the less "safe" decks better.
There is also a huge difference between continents. If I may generalise Americans seem to play the best blue decks, whilst Europeans are far more about playing what they want- a lot less blue- more prepared to lose to the bad matchups than play it safe with the obligatory Brainstorm/Force lists. Many an experienced player will turn up with a safe GP winning list to a small local event in Europe only lose to a bunch of non GP winning decks that "shouldn't be played" and yet do well.
Sadly the most inaccessible cards now are Tabernacles, Moats, Nether Voids etc. Not essential cards on the whole, but stupidly expensive and required for certain decks.
Modern - Burn
EDH - Neheb the Eternal
What you can do in the meanwhile is play cheaper versions and/or ask for someone to borrow a deck.
Burn sets the fundamental clock in any format in my opinion.
It's never the fastest deck. But it always has the highest inevitability.
It's cheap. It absolutely punishes poor play and poor draws by your opponent, and it's a great way to learn about other decks as you face off.
Better to participate with something reasonably strong than sit around and not jump into the format as you build your deck.
Burn is the most boring deck in the world and its so bad against Reanimator its not even funny. Yes its relatively cheap, but it has very few lines of play which make it a snooze fest to play with in the long term.