Hey guys, thanks for coming down to Pop Culture Paradise this past weekend for the first of many AZMagicPlayers.com 2014 Legacy Series Events! It was an absolute blast and we were blown away by the turnout (57 players if you haven’t heard that enough from us). I don’t know if anyone could have predicted this turnout – we sure didn’t! The demand for Legacy in Arizona has been heard loud and clear. You can certainly look forward to more Legacy events in the horizon.
Fortunately, this turnout makes a metagame analysis much more exciting to do. With 57 players doing battle this past Sunday, I believe it’s the largest non-SCG Legacy event ever held in Arizona. From what I remember, the largest Legacy events have been as follows:
StarCityGames.com Open Series: Phoenix – 138 players
StarCityGames.com Legacy Challenge – 44 players
Time Walk Tournament at Pop Culture Paradise (in 2010!) – 34 players
Of course, feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. Either way, with 57 players, the level of competition was fierce, with players battling through six rounds of Swiss before the cut to Top 8. At around 8:30pm, the Top 8 was announced to be:
1st Place – Charles Kraver (Infect)
2nd Place – Mike Griffin (UWr Miracles)
3rd Place – Trevor Carr (Death and Taxes)
4th Place – Matt Czuzak (Junk Depths)
5th Place – Phimus Pan (BUG Delver)
6th Place – Tyler Libraro (Affinity)
7th Place – Scott Alter (Elves)
8th Place – Zach McKeown (UWR Delver)
Eight players, eight different decks. Not really a surprise in Legacy, but the Top 8 did have some gems…most notable of them, Mono Green Infect!
| Creatures (20) 4 Glistener Elf 4 Noble Hierarch 4 Necropede 4 Ichorclaw Myr 2 Xantid Swarm 2 Elvish Spirit Guide Spells (20) 4 Invigorate 4 Mutagenic Growth 4 Vines of Vastwood 4 Berserk 2 Wild Defiance 2 Umezawa's Jitte Lands (20) 11 Forest 1 Pendelhaven 4 Inkmoth Nexus 4 City of Traitors | Sideboard (15) 4 Faerie Macabre 4 Nature's Claim 4 Mindbreak Trap 3 Pithing Needle |
Yes, Infect managed to 5-0-1 the Swiss Rounds before falling in the Top 8. Still, a 5-1-1 record is nothing to scoff at. I wonder how much work Wild Defiance did in the tournament – fighting off all of the burn spells that you are likely to face seems like a solid choice. If they counter the Wild Defiance, that leaves room for your pump spells to actually resolve!
The Metagame
As you can see, I grouped together various macro archetypes and an “Other” slice, which accounts for all of the decks that were played by only one player.
For reference, the macro archetypes covered the following decks:
| Stoneblade 3 Esper Stoneblade 2 Esper Deathblade 1 UW Stoneblade 1 4-Color Stoneblade |
Show and Tell 3 OmniTell 3 Sneak and Show |
| Delver 2 BUG Delver 2 UWR Delver 1 Esper Delver |
Dark Depths 2 Junk Depths 1 Jund Depths 1 NO Junk Depths |
| Storm 2 ANT 1 Sac Land Tendrils |
Other Goblins Infect Manaless Dredge MUD Oozing Punishing Maverick UWR Grindstone Shardless BUG UW Miracles |
After grouping up the archetypes together, the metagame seems pretty standard for a Legacy tournament. I’ve always adhered to the theory of a regional metagame in Legacy – where due to card availability, certain regions may have a propensity to feature a certain archetype or a range of archetypes more frequently than another. For example, for awhile, Southern California was known for its combo-oriented metagame, whereas the Midwest would feature more of a grindier, fair deck metgame. Similarly, in Arizona, the metagame tilted more toward a burn and budget metagame, a thought further propagated by the Arizona Burn Project at SCG LA 2011, where Adam Prosak and a bunch of other guys tried to get much of the Arizona players to play Burn at the Legacy event (oddly, one of the few non-Arizona Burn players actually made Top 8).
However, when you look at it, it appears that Arizona has a pretty healthy metagame. Whether or not that has to do with the large amount of decks lent out remains to be seen, but I accept deck borrowing and lending to be a natural factor of the metagame here in Arizona.
So what to expect at our next Legacy event at Crusaders’ Retreat? Well, I wouldn’t expect Stoneblade, Show and Tell, or Delver to disappear any time soon. Dark Depths is certainly the flavor of the month, due to its dominance on the Open Series this month. What’s notable is the lack of graveyard decks – the only dedicated graveyard decks are Manaless Dredge and Oozing. You could certainly classify the Dark Depths deck as a graveyard deck (since they feature Life from the Loam) though. Dredge tends to rise up as graveyard hate disappears, so could it be a big factor at Crusaders’ Retreat? You guys are going to decide that.
Until next time,
Jason
AZMAGICPLAYERS.COM 2014 LEGACY SERIES – FEBRUARY
Preregistration is here! Reserve your spot ASAP: http://bit.ly/azmpfebreg
Date: February 16, 2014
Time: 1:00pm
Location: Crusaders’ Retreat, 3851 E Thunderbird Rd, Phoenix, AZ 85032
Entry Fee: $15
Format: Legacy
Prizes:
1st Place: 3 Windswept Heath
2nd Place: 1 Bloodstained Mire
Prizes will scale on attendance.
Decklists required. Top finishing decklists will be posted online.
There will be a cap of 64 players at this event, so be sure to preregister to get your spot!