-I play budget modern decks and have a casual legacy deck.
-I was promoted and moved to a different hospital on the other side of the city in March and due to new work schedule can't play modern anymore at my old shop.
-My new card shop and work schedule will only allow me to play legacy.
-I'm looking for advise as to what the most budget friendly way to convert any (or all) of my decks into something remotely competitive for Saturday LGS legacy tournaments (~25 people).
So I'm basically looking for some inexpensive upgrades to make any of these not auto-lose against a real deck and for input as to which ones to focus on first.
My gut feeling is saying that goblins will be the most competitive out of the gates just due to how explosive it can be, but it doesn't have much of anywhere to go.
Tokens might not be horrible if I jam some cabal therapy and StP in there, then trade for some stoneforge & equips.
As far as stompy goes ... I don't have much hope for it outside of modern.
I feel that Pox and Merfolk have the best long-term potential but are going to be slow and costly to beef up (Liliana, IoK, ensnaring bridge, FoW, vial, cavern, wasteland, etc...)
Budget Legacy is my specialty, so I'll help as much as I can.
Goblins-
Unfortunately, you don't have a lot to work with as far as cards go that port to Legacy well here. On the bright side, however, a lot of what you don't have is relatively cheap to pick up. Playing legacy goblins without the Wastelands and ports is obviously not ideal, but the deck is still a powerhouse, and can be super explosive. You just have to model it with more aggression in mind to replace the midrange/control elements that you can't afford with the mana base. The most expensive card you want to pick up (it also goes in merfolk, so you will have to get it either way) is Aether Vial. coupled with Goblin Lackey, this is the card that allows you to be as fast as you can be. Keep the Piledrivers, Rabblemasters, Goblin Chieftains, and War Marshals. Everything will probably have to go. This is a typical budget Legacy Goblins list. Take a look at how it is constructed, and try to work from there. You can try to start things off without Vial, but I wmuld get them as soon as you can, considering they were not included in Eternal Masters.
Merfolk
Merfolk is a bit tougher to crack because almost every piece is at least semi-expensive. Bright side, however, is that most lists don't run wasteland anymore. Not so bright side, is that Cavern of Souls is run nowadays, and it has a decently high price tag. You do have a ton of great merfolk already, though, so that's another plus. All of your lords can stay in, as well as Mutavault and Silvergill Adept. Take out Dismember, Trickster (some lists run him) and master of waves. Consider adding cards like Cursecatcher, True-Name Nemesis, Phantasmal Image, and, again, Aether Vial (I don't think I would play this deck without it. Goblins have Lackey, Merfolk do not). You also want to try and find some counter magic. Daze is a cheap and free Counterspell that can catch people off guard. It's no Force of Will, but its a start. A decent list for you might look like this...
Stompy
Stompy is barely viable as an archetype at all in legacy, but it does have its strong match ups. First thing you need to do is grab a play set of Green Sun's Zenith. Lose Surrak, and Dismember. Try to find room for green sun silver bullet targets, like Thrun, the Last Troll for control decks and Reclamation Sage for decks that run equipment. Speaking of, you will probably want some equipment of your own, but it will be a while before you can afford them, methinks. Dryad Militant and Yavimaya Hollow and both pretty good as well. This is a list that I threw together a while ago. Again, green aggro decks are not too good in legacy, and this is magnified by the fact that you are on a budget, but you gotta work with what you can.
Pox
Pox is a tough sell without Liliana, but you can probably make it work. I don't like running a full set of Pox, and would prefer 1-2 only, with another slot being filled by Nether Spirit. Sinkhole is getting reprinted, and should work great for you. Even more budget than that, which you might consider, is Blight. Innocent Blood should replace Wrench Mind, and you probably want to go down to 4-6 rack cards instead of the full 8. Consider a sweeper like Mutilate, or targeted removal, like Victim of Night. If you are looking to cut more cards, going down to only 2-3 copies of Pit should be fine.
There ya go! Of course you don't have to accept all of these ideas, but hopefully they at least helped. You are right in thinking that goblins is probably your best bet to start off. I would concentrate on that, and see how far it can take you. Good luck, and let me know if you have any questions!
Goblins in terrible, it can steal wins locally but at a larger tournament you lose.
Merfolk you need force and wasteland to likely make it viable, perhaps eternal masters can help. I like the old standstill builds but the chalice builds are what is popular currently.
Stompy don't bother with.
Tokens can possibly be ported to legacy but doesn't seem worth it.
Pox is difficult in legacy. Unless you have the proper tools you lose to lands and miracles which are very popular nowadays. If built correctly and piloted correctly I believe it to be a viable choice. It handles combo well, does decent against delver decks and can hold it's own against the control decks of the format if built and piloted correctly. Most of the cards are relatively budget for mono black, if you splash then you get into dual land territory which does improve a lot of match ups.
Thanks for the reply. It did reinforce a lot of what I was already thinking. I'm not a complete noob when it comes to legacy. I judged it years ago, and have played with a casual group regularly back in Pennsylvania (where I went to med school). We met at a coffee shop and our prize pool was candy / snacks, so obviously not very competitive, but there were a few decent decks there and my silly pox deck wasn't half bad for that environment, but going to a real shop to play will likely be different. The shop I'm going to has 2 guys who are sponsored by the shop, both of them get invites to the pro tour and have top 8'd GPs and won SCG Opens, etc..., so I just don't want to get totally wrecked, even if it's only smaller LGS tournaments.
In my recent modern meta, I never ran vial on purpose in merfolk, it wasn't even a budget issue. I tried borrowing some for a while and they were just terrible. There was so much main deck kolaghan's command, viridian corrupter, reclamation sage, harmonic sliver, and qasali pridemage at my shop that vial was a horrible turn 1 tempo play and even worse top deck later. I ultimately cut it for more lands and a better curve with heavier tail of 3 and 4 drops rather than the extreme density of 2 drops in normal builds.
Overall, tokens might be the most budget friendly for me. It seems like I probably just need to trade for some cabal therapy. Ideally, I'll replace the ghost quarters with wasteland too. I can look into the isolated chapel also; in modern I favored the caves because they could come into play first turn untapped to throw down a nihil spellbomb or harms way a goblin guide if that was my only land ... and I actually did a lot of record keeping to find that I took less damage on average with the caves vs godless shrines so I ended up trading my playset of godless shrines for 3 abrupt decays for my wife's deck a while ago. I kinda doubt I'd keep that same sideboard for legacy, so I might not need to worry about the possible ETB tapped land on turn 1.
Tokens related question: would it be better to run enlightened tutor or stoneforge mystic given that I wouldn't be running vial in a tokens build? Would it depend on what equipment I'm actually grabbing? Should I even be running equipment in a tokens build? Is humility or worship just better?
Anyway, thanks a ton for the reply, I've got a decent bit to think about. I'll probably look to trade a few things soon and wait on the rest for after a good bit of eternal masters has been opened.
Goblins in terrible, it can steal wins locally but at a larger tournament you lose.
Merfolk you need force and wasteland to likely make it viable, perhaps eternal masters can help. I like the old standstill builds but the chalice builds are what is popular currently.
Stompy don't bother with.
Tokens can possibly be ported to legacy but doesn't seem worth it.
Pox is difficult in legacy. Unless you have the proper tools you lose to lands and miracles which are very popular nowadays. If built correctly and piloted correctly I believe it to be a viable choice. It handles combo well, does decent against delver decks and can hold it's own against the control decks of the format if built and piloted correctly. Most of the cards are relatively budget for mono black, if you splash then you get into dual land territory which does improve a lot of match ups.
Thanks for the feedback!
I totally agree that stompy doesn't seem to fit at all in legacy; it barely makes the cut in modern. BUT, it is loads of fun to drop 5/4 trample Avatars for GG and attack the next turn with aspect + vines for like 15 trample damage ... "take that you stupid goyf, you look like a pile of garbage anyway"
After spooky's comment, I'm leaning towards going with either goblins and/or tokens at the beginning (with a few upgrades). I'm well aware that neither of those are high tier decks in legacy, but I don't intend to play large events anyway. I don't have the time / inclination to travel to any of the GPs / Opens in Dallas or Houston, let alone anything farther away, and it's not like there are a ton of large legacy events anyway. So I'm mostly looking for easy upgrades to my modern decks (since I like the way those play already) that will make them at least able to win matches. As long as I'm not going 0-X all the time at my LGS, then I'm cool.
Merfolk looks like the most established / competitive, but it seems like the most expensive option to upgrade to legacy. It's probably $800-ish for caverns, vials, FoW, wastelands, chalice, and the 2 playsets of merfolk I'm missing, which is way out of my MTG budget (heck, my round-trip flight to Hawaii last year was only like $650, lol). I probably have a good $100-200 worth of meaningful trade fodder to work with + I'd be ok with buying a couple staples like wasteland while it's cheap since it can be used in all kinds of decks. Other than that, I just can't justify spending that much on a game I play a few hours a week.
Pox might be a nice middle ground. Sinkhole is being reprinted, as is Wasteland, and I already have Mishra's Factory and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. So maybe I'll try to trade for a couple Lily to replace a pox or two. If I'm already ok with buying wasteland, then trading for Lily and sinkhole might not be that crazy given my budget.
Financially Merfolk is a good investment from scratch, key cards- caverns, forces, jitte, chalices - are all usable in other decks-and you are not starting from scratch. It is never a bad deck, once fully assembled has some decent matches against popular top decks like Miracles, and won't keel over to the belchers of this world. Cavern is a likely reprint in MM3. Wastelands are as cheap as they are ever going to get. Cursecatcher/force are the number one cards to prioritise. Just having a couple of Forces in your deck will have an effect on what they play and how they play against you.
To be competitive in a bigger event goblins needs a lot of expensive tools, and you might as well build Death and Taxes- the best goblin in goblins is often Thalia....)
Goblins n Taxes (ports, wastelands, Thalia) > Goblins, and Death and Taxes is better than both. Goblins does give you Pyroblasts/REB, at least, so in the right local meta you might find a goblin shell with multiple blast effects main might be enough to get you going.
Pox is interesting - the best budget list on pox I saw was a all swamp list a couple of years back that did well in a 100 player event- it went down the aggro route with racks, funeral charms, smallpox etc, running zero wastelands. Maybe with 2 daddy pox and Bloodghasts, upgrading to fetches when you get them, and a bunch of racks, whcih deal damage to planeswalkers too. I suspect a route to try might be to think of pox as aggro discard and play it a bit like 8 rack with 1cc and 2 cc discard. Obviously lilly is better- a MM3 reprint won't reduce her price much, though.
I think a prison list with landkill et al is harder to make work- needs more practice, and works better with expensive cards. I prefer prison- landkill+some discard myself, but if budget was my concern I would go all in on aggro discard, especially with hymns being so cheap. Cards in prison versions like Nether Void are expensive for what they are.....
I would just note that Merfolk does not need Wasteland, especially if you're going the Chalice of the Void route. In fact, there are some Chalice builds that don't use Vial either. I would take that Merfolk list and get Cursecatcher, Cavern of Souls (playable with 3 I think), Force of Will and Chalice of the Void and you've got a deck. Add True-name Nemesis, Mutavault, etc as you're able.
Tokens looks tough, but you could go a little down a Deadguy Ale like route in those colors, but the better version tends to splash green for Abrupt Decay and Deathrite these days.
Goblins, and Stompy I would skip. Pox I won't address since I don't play it (I do at times play Merfolk and Deadguy Ale).
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Legacy: WRDeath and Taxes UWRMiracles UBTezzerator GTrinity GBWRLoam URLandstill
Modern: WUBValue Titan UMerfolk WGDeath and Taxes
I would just note that Merfolk does not need Wasteland, especially if you're going the Chalice of the Void route. In fact, there are some Chalice builds that don't use Vial either. I would take that Merfolk list and get Cursecatcher, Cavern of Souls (playable with 3 I think), Force of Will and Chalice of the Void and you've got a deck. Add True-name Nemesis, Mutavault, etc as you're able.
Tokens looks tough, but you could go a little down a Deadguy Ale like route in those colors, but the better version tends to splash green for Abrupt Decay and Deathrite these days.
Goblins, and Stompy I would skip. Pox I won't address since I don't play it (I do at times play Merfolk and Deadguy Ale).
Hmm, well chalice is about as expensive as vial, so that doesn't help a ton. I guess it's great against tons of decks, so I'll consider it.
Merfolk is the deck that pretty much everybody so far is saying is most worthwhile making into legacy, so I'll probably just suck it up and get to trading for that.
Without aether vial (and I don't have any spell pierce, though they should be easy to trade for), I substituted Tidal Warrior + Stifle. I figure that Harbinger, Daze, Tidal Warrior, and Stifle should help a bit with tempo.
I'll definitely pick up a playset of FoW and probably a flusterstorm or two once eternal masters has been out a bit, and I doubt I'll have trouble getting true-names or cursecatchers. Aether vial and Cavern though ... I mean vial is a $45 uncommon from not THAT long ago that has also been reprinted. Both of those cards are just a little absurd. We'll see though.
I'm still thinking of running some version of Tokens too: basically just jamming swords to plowshares and cabal therapy into my current list and see how the thing runs. If it's not horrible, I might just run that and slowly upgrade merfolk, while waiting for reprints of vial and cavern to actually dive into it.
Burn is one of the cheapest decks you can build in Legacy, especially with Chain Lightning being reprinted. Basically the entire expense is Goblin Guides at ~$40 each (and these can be substituted out for the much cheaper Monastery Swiftspears without giving up too much power) and Eidolon of the Great Revel at ~$10 each.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
My Moderator Helpdesk
Currently Playing:
Legacy: Something U/W Controlish EDH Cube
Hypercube! A New EDH Deck Every Week(ish)!
Burn is one of the cheapest decks you can build in Legacy, especially with Chain Lightning being reprinted. Basically the entire expense is Goblin Guides at ~$40 each (and these can be substituted out for the much cheaper Monastery Swiftspears without giving up too much power) and Eidolon of the Great Revel at ~$10 each.
Hey, thanks for the reply. Burn is definitely an option; I have all the cards for it. I just like goblins more than burn, so I play that in modern. Burn doesn't excite me all that much, but budget constraints may sway me. I have everything for burn except the Eidolons, and I only have 1 lavamancer, but overall, that wouldn't be bad at all to trade for.
I haven't decided yet what to play / trade for. I mean it doesn't have to be really competitive, it just can't fold to every deck I play against, which is why merfolk, pox, and tokens are kinda still in the running. sigh.
Hey, thanks for the reply. Burn is definitely an option; I have all the cards for it. I just like goblins more than burn, so I play that in modern. Burn doesn't excite me all that much, but budget constraints may sway me. I have everything for burn except the Eidolons, and I only have 1 lavamancer, but overall, that wouldn't be bad at all to trade for.
I haven't decided yet what to play / trade for. I mean it doesn't have to be really competitive, it just can't fold to every deck I play against, which is why merfolk, pox, and tokens are kinda still in the running. sigh.
Goblins in Legacy looks very little like Goblins in Modern, because there's a very different set of legal cards. Legacy Goblins' key cards include Goblin Lackey, Goblin Ringleader, and Goblin Matron. The deck cheats on mana using Lackey and Aether Vial, freeing up its lands to be devoted to Wasteland and Rishadan Port. Ringleader and Matron set up card advantage chains that let the deck grind through even controlling decks like Miracles. With Lackey, Cavern, and Aether Vial providing ways to cheat things out uncounterably, the deck also makes good use of Chalice of the Void. Ultimately, it ends up playing something like a Prison deck, akin to Death and Taxes, but with the possibility of an explosive opening like Lackey into Siege-Gang Commander.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
My Moderator Helpdesk
Currently Playing:
Legacy: Something U/W Controlish EDH Cube
Hypercube! A New EDH Deck Every Week(ish)!
What I would suggest is taking your menfolk modern deck and working towards a legacy version of it (which uses a lot of the same cards).
If I were you, I would start with what you got (the deck you listed in four posts above this one) and trade/save for cards needed in time.
I would get 4 true-name nemesis first, 15ish per card, then 4 cursecatcher, 12ish per. After those two main cards, you can work towards the expensive stuff, 3-4 force of will mainly, then 4 cavern of souls and 4 Chalice of the void and all others.
Legacy is tough to get into and it's better to work hard towards one decklist that you can have fully rather than 3 semi finished / semi powerful decks. In my experience, friends who worked towards finishing one fully (rather than trying to convert 2-3+ modern decks to mediocre legacy decks) enjoyed being able to compete at a higher level with all the other players at LGS.
and I decided to throw together an abzan Pod deck with stuff I already had. It's kinda based on the one pod event deck I had a few years ago (Spiraling Doom), but I made some substitutions / upgrades:
Overall, both decks have been doing pretty well where I'm playing; I have never had a finish below 2-2 with either deck so far and have been finishing enough times at 3-1 or better to not have spent any money on tournament entry fees!
Over the past couple months, I have been able to trade for 2 caverns, the Nissa, the playsets of: vial, spell pierce, and cabal therapy. Everything else in those two lists I had in my collection. I'm currently pretty low on trade fodder for going much further though, so Force of Will and Chalice of the Void may not happen anytime soon, but True-Name Nemesis might.
The Merfolk deck still feels like I'm just playing a modern deck in legacy, even with the Daze and Counterspell. This is obviously due to not having the FoW, chalice, and TNNs. I'm a little skeptical of Cursecatcher since Cosi's Trickster is such a solid card with all the fetches everywhere and just keeping an early board presence is really important.
I'm not really sure what to prioritize first in the Pod deck. Most of the stuff I can think of is pretty expensive: Savannah, more fetches, Karakas, etc... and mostly to just improve my manabase. Are there better creatures I should be running? I only have two 3-drop creatures, should I throw in another Witness or a Finks to strengthen the pod chain? I like the 2 Hymns, but maybe those should be Thoughtseize? Should I go deeper into black to have more targetted discard? I could throw another Urborg in there or switch a forest for a swamp to up the black count a bit more.
Just found -spooky-'s budget primer v5. It looks like the pile of cards I threw together is kinda similar to the BG Nic Fit deck he has in there, so I'm just going to build that rather than worry about upgrading merfolk.
Thanks to all who commented / helped along the way.
-I was promoted and moved to a different hospital on the other side of the city in March and due to new work schedule can't play modern anymore at my old shop.
-My new card shop and work schedule will only allow me to play legacy.
-I'm looking for advise as to what the most budget friendly way to convert any (or all) of my decks into something remotely competitive for Saturday LGS legacy tournaments (~25 people).
Here's what I'm starting out with:
2 Devastating Summons
4 Foundry Street Denizen
4 Goblin Bushwhacker
4 Goblin Chieftain
4 Goblin Grenade
4 Goblin Piledriver
2 Goblin Rabblemaster
4 Legion Loyalist
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Mogg War Marshal
4 Reckless Bushwhacker
3 Guttural Response
4 Skullcrack
4 Smash to Smithereens
4 Ghost Quarter
14 Island
2 Mutavault
4 Cosi's Trickster
2 Dismember
4 Harbinger of the Tides
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Master of Waves
4 Merfolk Sovereign
2 Merrow Reejerey
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Spreading Seas
4 Sea's Claim
4 Swan Song
4 Tidebinder Mage
1 Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
4 Aspect of Hydra
4 Avatar of the Resolute
2 Dismember
4 Experiment One
4 Leatherback Baloth
4 Rancor
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Strangleroot Geist
2 Surrak, the Hunt Caller
4 Vines of Vastwood
4 Young Wolf
4 Fog
4 Nature's Claim
2 Obstinate Baloth
2 Relic of Progenitus
4 Ghost Quarter
13 Plains
1 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Dismember
4 Duress
4 Gather the Townsfolk
4 Intangible Virtue
4 Lingering Souls
2 Oblivion Ring
4 Raise the Alarm
2 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
2 Spear of Heliod
4 Spectral Procession
2 Zealous Persecution
4 Harm's Way
2 Kataki, War's Wage
4 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Rootborn Defenses
4 Bottomless Pit
4 Choking Sands
4 Dark Ritual
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Pox
4 Shrieking Affliction
4 Smallpox
4 The Rack
4 Wrench Mind
3 Diabolic Edict
1 Dread of Night
1 Drown in Sorrow
4 Pithing Needle
4 Planar Void
1 Surgical Extraction
So I'm basically looking for some inexpensive upgrades to make any of these not auto-lose against a real deck and for input as to which ones to focus on first.
My gut feeling is saying that goblins will be the most competitive out of the gates just due to how explosive it can be, but it doesn't have much of anywhere to go.
Tokens might not be horrible if I jam some cabal therapy and StP in there, then trade for some stoneforge & equips.
As far as stompy goes ... I don't have much hope for it outside of modern.
I feel that Pox and Merfolk have the best long-term potential but are going to be slow and costly to beef up (Liliana, IoK, ensnaring bridge, FoW, vial, cavern, wasteland, etc...)
Maybe eternal masters will help a bit.
Thanks for any input at all to this.
Pioneer: Spirits
EDH: Ur-Dragon + Lord Windgrace + Arixmethes + Atla Palani + Kalamax
Goblins-
Unfortunately, you don't have a lot to work with as far as cards go that port to Legacy well here. On the bright side, however, a lot of what you don't have is relatively cheap to pick up. Playing legacy goblins without the Wastelands and ports is obviously not ideal, but the deck is still a powerhouse, and can be super explosive. You just have to model it with more aggression in mind to replace the midrange/control elements that you can't afford with the mana base. The most expensive card you want to pick up (it also goes in merfolk, so you will have to get it either way) is Aether Vial. coupled with Goblin Lackey, this is the card that allows you to be as fast as you can be. Keep the Piledrivers, Rabblemasters, Goblin Chieftains, and War Marshals. Everything will probably have to go. This is a typical budget Legacy Goblins list. Take a look at how it is constructed, and try to work from there. You can try to start things off without Vial, but I wmuld get them as soon as you can, considering they were not included in Eternal Masters.
Merfolk
Merfolk is a bit tougher to crack because almost every piece is at least semi-expensive. Bright side, however, is that most lists don't run wasteland anymore. Not so bright side, is that Cavern of Souls is run nowadays, and it has a decently high price tag. You do have a ton of great merfolk already, though, so that's another plus. All of your lords can stay in, as well as Mutavault and Silvergill Adept. Take out Dismember, Trickster (some lists run him) and master of waves. Consider adding cards like Cursecatcher, True-Name Nemesis, Phantasmal Image, and, again, Aether Vial (I don't think I would play this deck without it. Goblins have Lackey, Merfolk do not). You also want to try and find some counter magic. Daze is a cheap and free Counterspell that can catch people off guard. It's no Force of Will, but its a start. A decent list for you might look like this...
Stompy
Stompy is barely viable as an archetype at all in legacy, but it does have its strong match ups. First thing you need to do is grab a play set of Green Sun's Zenith. Lose Surrak, and Dismember. Try to find room for green sun silver bullet targets, like Thrun, the Last Troll for control decks and Reclamation Sage for decks that run equipment. Speaking of, you will probably want some equipment of your own, but it will be a while before you can afford them, methinks. Dryad Militant and Yavimaya Hollow and both pretty good as well. This is a list that I threw together a while ago. Again, green aggro decks are not too good in legacy, and this is magnified by the fact that you are on a budget, but you gotta work with what you can.
Tokens
This is actually not very far from what I would actually run. Lose Dismember for Disfigure, Swords to Plowshares, and/or Go For The Throat, and try to find yourself some Cabal Therapy, which are very strong in token lists. Don't play Ghost Quarter, and try to fit in some Isolated Chapel.
Pox
Pox is a tough sell without Liliana, but you can probably make it work. I don't like running a full set of Pox, and would prefer 1-2 only, with another slot being filled by Nether Spirit. Sinkhole is getting reprinted, and should work great for you. Even more budget than that, which you might consider, is Blight. Innocent Blood should replace Wrench Mind, and you probably want to go down to 4-6 rack cards instead of the full 8. Consider a sweeper like Mutilate, or targeted removal, like Victim of Night. If you are looking to cut more cards, going down to only 2-3 copies of Pit should be fine.
There ya go! Of course you don't have to accept all of these ideas, but hopefully they at least helped. You are right in thinking that goblins is probably your best bet to start off. I would concentrate on that, and see how far it can take you. Good luck, and let me know if you have any questions!
Like Squandered Resources on Facebook for updates on article releases, deck lists, and more!
Getting Started in Legacy and Legacy Budget Primer 5!
Special thanks to Bornnover for the banner used in those articles.
Goblins in terrible, it can steal wins locally but at a larger tournament you lose.
Merfolk you need force and wasteland to likely make it viable, perhaps eternal masters can help. I like the old standstill builds but the chalice builds are what is popular currently.
Stompy don't bother with.
Tokens can possibly be ported to legacy but doesn't seem worth it.
Pox is difficult in legacy. Unless you have the proper tools you lose to lands and miracles which are very popular nowadays. If built correctly and piloted correctly I believe it to be a viable choice. It handles combo well, does decent against delver decks and can hold it's own against the control decks of the format if built and piloted correctly. Most of the cards are relatively budget for mono black, if you splash then you get into dual land territory which does improve a lot of match ups.
Thanks for the reply. It did reinforce a lot of what I was already thinking. I'm not a complete noob when it comes to legacy. I judged it years ago, and have played with a casual group regularly back in Pennsylvania (where I went to med school). We met at a coffee shop and our prize pool was candy / snacks, so obviously not very competitive, but there were a few decent decks there and my silly pox deck wasn't half bad for that environment, but going to a real shop to play will likely be different. The shop I'm going to has 2 guys who are sponsored by the shop, both of them get invites to the pro tour and have top 8'd GPs and won SCG Opens, etc..., so I just don't want to get totally wrecked, even if it's only smaller LGS tournaments.
It's nice that I already have playsets of a lot of the minor cards you mentioned (goblin lackey, phantasmal image, daze, counterspell, spell pierce, thrun, the last troll, dryad militant, green sun's zenith, reclamation sage, and swords to plowshares). So the money cards I'd need: aether vial and wasteland if I went with goblins ... or aether vial, cavern of souls, force of will, cursecatcher, true-name, and maybe wasteland if I went with merfolk. The merfolk route seems WAY more expensive, even with some reprints.
In my recent modern meta, I never ran vial on purpose in merfolk, it wasn't even a budget issue. I tried borrowing some for a while and they were just terrible. There was so much main deck kolaghan's command, viridian corrupter, reclamation sage, harmonic sliver, and qasali pridemage at my shop that vial was a horrible turn 1 tempo play and even worse top deck later. I ultimately cut it for more lands and a better curve with heavier tail of 3 and 4 drops rather than the extreme density of 2 drops in normal builds.
Overall, tokens might be the most budget friendly for me. It seems like I probably just need to trade for some cabal therapy. Ideally, I'll replace the ghost quarters with wasteland too. I can look into the isolated chapel also; in modern I favored the caves because they could come into play first turn untapped to throw down a nihil spellbomb or harms way a goblin guide if that was my only land ... and I actually did a lot of record keeping to find that I took less damage on average with the caves vs godless shrines so I ended up trading my playset of godless shrines for 3 abrupt decays for my wife's deck a while ago. I kinda doubt I'd keep that same sideboard for legacy, so I might not need to worry about the possible ETB tapped land on turn 1.
Tokens related question: would it be better to run enlightened tutor or stoneforge mystic given that I wouldn't be running vial in a tokens build? Would it depend on what equipment I'm actually grabbing? Should I even be running equipment in a tokens build? Is humility or worship just better?
Anyway, thanks a ton for the reply, I've got a decent bit to think about. I'll probably look to trade a few things soon and wait on the rest for after a good bit of eternal masters has been opened.
Pioneer: Spirits
EDH: Ur-Dragon + Lord Windgrace + Arixmethes + Atla Palani + Kalamax
Thanks for the feedback!
I totally agree that stompy doesn't seem to fit at all in legacy; it barely makes the cut in modern. BUT, it is loads of fun to drop 5/4 trample Avatars for GG and attack the next turn with aspect + vines for like 15 trample damage ... "take that you stupid goyf, you look like a pile of garbage anyway"
After spooky's comment, I'm leaning towards going with either goblins and/or tokens at the beginning (with a few upgrades). I'm well aware that neither of those are high tier decks in legacy, but I don't intend to play large events anyway. I don't have the time / inclination to travel to any of the GPs / Opens in Dallas or Houston, let alone anything farther away, and it's not like there are a ton of large legacy events anyway. So I'm mostly looking for easy upgrades to my modern decks (since I like the way those play already) that will make them at least able to win matches. As long as I'm not going 0-X all the time at my LGS, then I'm cool.
Merfolk looks like the most established / competitive, but it seems like the most expensive option to upgrade to legacy. It's probably $800-ish for caverns, vials, FoW, wastelands, chalice, and the 2 playsets of merfolk I'm missing, which is way out of my MTG budget (heck, my round-trip flight to Hawaii last year was only like $650, lol). I probably have a good $100-200 worth of meaningful trade fodder to work with + I'd be ok with buying a couple staples like wasteland while it's cheap since it can be used in all kinds of decks. Other than that, I just can't justify spending that much on a game I play a few hours a week.
Pox might be a nice middle ground. Sinkhole is being reprinted, as is Wasteland, and I already have Mishra's Factory and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. So maybe I'll try to trade for a couple Lily to replace a pox or two. If I'm already ok with buying wasteland, then trading for Lily and sinkhole might not be that crazy given my budget.
Pioneer: Spirits
EDH: Ur-Dragon + Lord Windgrace + Arixmethes + Atla Palani + Kalamax
To be competitive in a bigger event goblins needs a lot of expensive tools, and you might as well build Death and Taxes- the best goblin in goblins is often Thalia....)
Goblins n Taxes (ports, wastelands, Thalia) > Goblins, and Death and Taxes is better than both. Goblins does give you Pyroblasts/REB, at least, so in the right local meta you might find a goblin shell with multiple blast effects main might be enough to get you going.
Pox is interesting - the best budget list on pox I saw was a all swamp list a couple of years back that did well in a 100 player event- it went down the aggro route with racks, funeral charms, smallpox etc, running zero wastelands. Maybe with 2 daddy pox and Bloodghasts, upgrading to fetches when you get them, and a bunch of racks, whcih deal damage to planeswalkers too. I suspect a route to try might be to think of pox as aggro discard and play it a bit like 8 rack with 1cc and 2 cc discard. Obviously lilly is better- a MM3 reprint won't reduce her price much, though.
I think a prison list with landkill et al is harder to make work- needs more practice, and works better with expensive cards. I prefer prison- landkill+some discard myself, but if budget was my concern I would go all in on aggro discard, especially with hymns being so cheap. Cards in prison versions like Nether Void are expensive for what they are.....
Tokens looks tough, but you could go a little down a Deadguy Ale like route in those colors, but the better version tends to splash green for Abrupt Decay and Deathrite these days.
Goblins, and Stompy I would skip. Pox I won't address since I don't play it (I do at times play Merfolk and Deadguy Ale).
Modern: WUBValue Titan UMerfolk WGDeath and Taxes
Hmm, well chalice is about as expensive as vial, so that doesn't help a ton. I guess it's great against tons of decks, so I'll consider it.
Merfolk is the deck that pretty much everybody so far is saying is most worthwhile making into legacy, so I'll probably just suck it up and get to trading for that.
4 Harbinger of the Tides
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
1 Master of Waves
2 Merrow Reejerey
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Tidal Warrior
4 Daze
4 Stifle
19 Island
4 Mutavault
Without aether vial (and I don't have any spell pierce, though they should be easy to trade for), I substituted Tidal Warrior + Stifle. I figure that Harbinger, Daze, Tidal Warrior, and Stifle should help a bit with tempo.
I'll definitely pick up a playset of FoW and probably a flusterstorm or two once eternal masters has been out a bit, and I doubt I'll have trouble getting true-names or cursecatchers. Aether vial and Cavern though ... I mean vial is a $45 uncommon from not THAT long ago that has also been reprinted. Both of those cards are just a little absurd. We'll see though.
I'm still thinking of running some version of Tokens too: basically just jamming swords to plowshares and cabal therapy into my current list and see how the thing runs. If it's not horrible, I might just run that and slowly upgrade merfolk, while waiting for reprints of vial and cavern to actually dive into it.
Pioneer: Spirits
EDH: Ur-Dragon + Lord Windgrace + Arixmethes + Atla Palani + Kalamax
Burn is one of the cheapest decks you can build in Legacy, especially with Chain Lightning being reprinted. Basically the entire expense is Goblin Guides at ~$40 each (and these can be substituted out for the much cheaper Monastery Swiftspears without giving up too much power) and Eidolon of the Great Revel at ~$10 each.
Currently Playing:
Legacy: Something U/W Controlish
EDH Cube
Hypercube! A New EDH Deck Every Week(ish)!
Hey, thanks for the reply. Burn is definitely an option; I have all the cards for it. I just like goblins more than burn, so I play that in modern. Burn doesn't excite me all that much, but budget constraints may sway me. I have everything for burn except the Eidolons, and I only have 1 lavamancer, but overall, that wouldn't be bad at all to trade for.
I haven't decided yet what to play / trade for. I mean it doesn't have to be really competitive, it just can't fold to every deck I play against, which is why merfolk, pox, and tokens are kinda still in the running. sigh.
Pioneer: Spirits
EDH: Ur-Dragon + Lord Windgrace + Arixmethes + Atla Palani + Kalamax
Goblins in Legacy looks very little like Goblins in Modern, because there's a very different set of legal cards. Legacy Goblins' key cards include Goblin Lackey, Goblin Ringleader, and Goblin Matron. The deck cheats on mana using Lackey and Aether Vial, freeing up its lands to be devoted to Wasteland and Rishadan Port. Ringleader and Matron set up card advantage chains that let the deck grind through even controlling decks like Miracles. With Lackey, Cavern, and Aether Vial providing ways to cheat things out uncounterably, the deck also makes good use of Chalice of the Void. Ultimately, it ends up playing something like a Prison deck, akin to Death and Taxes, but with the possibility of an explosive opening like Lackey into Siege-Gang Commander.
Currently Playing:
Legacy: Something U/W Controlish
EDH Cube
Hypercube! A New EDH Deck Every Week(ish)!
What I would suggest is taking your menfolk modern deck and working towards a legacy version of it (which uses a lot of the same cards).
If I were you, I would start with what you got (the deck you listed in four posts above this one) and trade/save for cards needed in time.
I would get 4 true-name nemesis first, 15ish per card, then 4 cursecatcher, 12ish per. After those two main cards, you can work towards the expensive stuff, 3-4 force of will mainly, then 4 cavern of souls and 4 Chalice of the void and all others.
Legacy is tough to get into and it's better to work hard towards one decklist that you can have fully rather than 3 semi finished / semi powerful decks. In my experience, friends who worked towards finishing one fully (rather than trying to convert 2-3+ modern decks to mediocre legacy decks) enjoyed being able to compete at a higher level with all the other players at LGS.
Hope this helps in your decision making
I'm currently playing these two decks:
4 Cosi's Trickster
4 Harbinger of the Tides
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
1 Phantasmal Image
3 Merrow Reejerey
1 Master of Waves
4 Daze
3 Counterspell
3 Spell Pierce
Mana:
4 Aether Vial
2 Cavern of Souls
15 Island
4 Mutavault
and I decided to throw together an abzan Pod deck with stuff I already had. It's kinda based on the one pod event deck I had a few years ago (Spiraling Doom), but I made some substitutions / upgrades:
Young Wolf --> Veteran Explorer
Doom Blade --> Swords to Plowshares
Diabolic Tutor --> Green Sun's Zenith
A lot of the riffraff one-offs were replaced with better ones (Dragonlord Dromoka, Sun Titan, Thragtusk, etc...) and/or Siege Rhino.
2 Birds of Paradise
1 Bloodgift Demon
1 Dragonlord Dromoka
1 Eternal Witness
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Scavenging Ooze
3 Siege Rhino
2 Strangleroot Geist
1 Sun Titan
1 Thragtusk
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Beast Within
2 Birthing Pod
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Hymn to Tourach
3 Swords to Plowshares
Planeswalkers (2):
1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
1 Nissa, Vital Force
5 Forest
3 Swamp
2 Plains
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
2 Bayou
1 Scrubland
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Overall, both decks have been doing pretty well where I'm playing; I have never had a finish below 2-2 with either deck so far and have been finishing enough times at 3-1 or better to not have spent any money on tournament entry fees!
Over the past couple months, I have been able to trade for 2 caverns, the Nissa, the playsets of: vial, spell pierce, and cabal therapy. Everything else in those two lists I had in my collection. I'm currently pretty low on trade fodder for going much further though, so Force of Will and Chalice of the Void may not happen anytime soon, but True-Name Nemesis might.
The Merfolk deck still feels like I'm just playing a modern deck in legacy, even with the Daze and Counterspell. This is obviously due to not having the FoW, chalice, and TNNs. I'm a little skeptical of Cursecatcher since Cosi's Trickster is such a solid card with all the fetches everywhere and just keeping an early board presence is really important.
I'm not really sure what to prioritize first in the Pod deck. Most of the stuff I can think of is pretty expensive: Savannah, more fetches, Karakas, etc... and mostly to just improve my manabase. Are there better creatures I should be running? I only have two 3-drop creatures, should I throw in another Witness or a Finks to strengthen the pod chain? I like the 2 Hymns, but maybe those should be Thoughtseize? Should I go deeper into black to have more targetted discard? I could throw another Urborg in there or switch a forest for a swamp to up the black count a bit more.
Any suggestions are definitely appreciated!
Pioneer: Spirits
EDH: Ur-Dragon + Lord Windgrace + Arixmethes + Atla Palani + Kalamax
Thanks to all who commented / helped along the way.
Pioneer: Spirits
EDH: Ur-Dragon + Lord Windgrace + Arixmethes + Atla Palani + Kalamax