Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Forcing the Will. Today I will be covering the recent Legacy Metagame as well as the recent Banned and Restricted list changes. Then to finish things off I will be covering the newest version of the Reanimator deck, but I will be doing so with a post-banning version of the deck. So let’s begin with the Legacy Metagame report.
MTGO Legacy Metagame
(4-0) Stone-Blade
(4-0) 3C Thresh
(3-1) Red Deck Wins (RDW)
(3-1) GW Haterade
(3-1) Hive Mind
(3-1) Zoo
(4-0) Stone-Blade
(3-1) Rg Goblins
(3-1) Merfolk
(3-1) Reveillark
(3-1) Goblins
(4-0) Stone-Blade
(3-1) Natural Order (NO) RUG
(3-1) Stone-Blade
(3-1) Reveillark
(3-1) Stone-Blade
(4-0) Goblins
(4-0) Natural Order (NO) RUG
(3-1) GW Haterade
(3-1) Aluren
(3-1) Stone-Blade
(4-0) Stone-Blade
(3-1) Dark Horizons
(3-1) Elves
(3-1) Landstill
(3-1) Stone-Blade
(4-0) Stone-Blade
(3-1) UBR Control
(3-1) New Horizons
(3-1) Aggro Loam
(3-1) Hive Mind
(4-0) Stone-Blade
(3-1) GW Haterade
(3-1) Stone-Blade
(3-1) Dark Horizons
(3-1) Natural Order (NO) RUG
(4-0) Stone-Blade
(3-1) Zoo
(3-1) CounterTop/Thopter
(3-1) Sneak Show
(3-1) Natural Order (NO) RUG
(4-0) New Horizons
(4-0) CounterTop/Thopter
(3-1) Dark Horizons
(3-1) Enchantress
(3-1) Aggro Loam
(3-1) Aggro Loam
(3-1) Sneak Show
(4-0) GW Haterade
(3-1) Aggro Loam
(3-1) Rg Goblins
(3-1) Dredge
(3-1) 3C Thresh
(3-1) Ad Nauseam Tendrils (ANT)
(4-0) Stone-Blade
(3-1) Stone-Blade
(3-1) Natural Order (NO) RUG
(3-1) Elves
(3-1) New Horizons
(3-1) GW Haterade
(3-1) Team America
(3-1) Stone-Blade
(4-0) GW Haterade
(3-1) Reanimator
(3-1) GW Haterade
(3-1) Red Deck Wins (RDW)
(3-1) Reanimator
(3-1) Dark Horizons
(4-0) Reanimator
(3-1) UW Control
(3-1) Natural Order (NO) Bant
(3-1) Illusions
(3-1) CounterTop/Thopter
(4-0) Stone-Blade
(3-1) Stone-Blade
(3-1) Aggro Loam
(3-1) CounterTop/Thopter
(3-1) Stone-Blade
(4-0) Stone-Blade
(3-1) GW Haterade
(3-1) CounterTop/Thopter
(3-1) Stone-Blade
(3-1) Stone-Blade
(4-0) Stone-Blade
(4-0) CounterTop/Thopter
(3-1) Sneak Show
(3-1) GW Haterade
(3-1) New Horizons
(3-1) Stone-Blade
(3-1) Ad Nauseam Tendrils (ANT)
(4-0) Aluren
(3-1) Natural Order (NO) RUG
(3-1) Stone-Blade
(3-1) Elves
(3-1) Dark Horizons
(4-0) Zoo
(3-1) Stone-Blade
(3-1) Team America
(3-1) Aggro Loam
(3-1) Natural Order (NO) RUG
(4-0) Stone-Blade
(3-1) Aggro Loam
(3-1) Natural Order (NO) RUG
(3-1) Stone-Blade
(3-1) CounterTop/Thopter
(4-0) Stone-Blade
(3-1) Dark Horizons
(3-1) Zoo
(3-1) Painter Welder
(3-1) Stone-Blade
(4-0) Stone-Blade
(4-0) CounterTop/Thopter
(3-1) UWR Control
(3-1) Aggro Loam
(3-1) Elves
(3-1) Dark Horizons
(3-1) GW Haterade
(4-0) GW Haterade
(3-1) CounterTop/Thopter
(3-1) Zoo
(3-1) Stone-Blade
(3-1) Stone-Blade
(3-0) Dark Horizons
(3-0) Merfolk
(4-0) Natural Order (NO) Bant
(3-1) Stone-Blade
(3-1) Ad Nauseam Tendrils (ANT)
(3-1) CounterTop/Thopter
(3-1) Dark Horizons
(4-0) Red Deck Wins (RDW)
(3-1) Team America
(3-1) Aluren
(3-1) GW Haterade
(3-1) CounterTop/Thopter
(4-0) Ad Nauseam Tendrils (ANT)
(3-1) Team America
(3-1) Stone-Blade
(3-1) Reanimator
(3-1) Natural Order (NO) RUG
(4-0) Stone-Blade
(3-1) Merfolk
(3-1) Stone-Blade
(3-1) GW Haterade
(3-1) Natural Order (NO) RUG
(3-1) GW Haterade
(4-0) CounterTop/Thopter
(3-1) Stone-Blade
(3-1) Dark Horizons
(3-1) GW Haterade
(3-1) Aggro Loam
(4-0) Stone-Blade
(3-1) Stone-Blade
(3-1) Zoo
(3-1) GW Haterade
(3-1) Stone-Blade
(4-0) Landstill
(3-1) Stone-Blade
(3-1) Natural Order (NO) BUG
(3-1) GW Haterade
(3-1) Stone-Blade
(4-0) Stone-Blade
(3-1) Dark Horizons
(3-1) Natural Order (NO) GW
(3-1) Landstill
(3-1) Burning Tendrils
|
DECK |
WINS |
PERCENTAGE OF WINS |
|
1. Stone-Blade |
43 |
26.22% |
|
2. GW Haterade |
17 |
10.37% |
|
3. Natural Order (NO) |
14 |
8.54% |
|
4. CounterTop/Thopter |
12 |
7.32% |
|
5. Dark Horizons |
11 |
6.71% |
|
6. Aggro Loam |
9 |
5.49% |
|
7. Zoo |
5 |
3.05% |
|
8. Ad Nauseam Tendrils (ANT) |
4 |
2.44% |
|
9. Elves |
4 |
2.44% |
|
4 |
2.44% |
|
4 |
2.44% |
|
4 |
2.44% |
|
4 |
2.44% |
|
3 |
1.83% |
|
3 |
1.83% |
|
3 |
1.83% |
|
3 |
1.83% |
|
3 |
1.83% |
|
2 |
1.22% |
|
2 |
1.22% |
|
2 |
1.22% |
|
1 |
0.61% |
|
1 |
0.61% |
|
1 |
0.61% |
|
1 |
0.61% |
|
1 |
0.61% |
|
1 |
0.61% |
|
1 |
0.61% |
|
1 |
0.61% |
|
TOTAL: |
164 |
|
Looking at the MTGO Legacy Metagame report two things really stand out. First of all, Stone-Blade is once again the reigning deck in the metagame with 16% more wins than the 2nd-best performing deck in the metagame. I expect Stone-Blade to continue this trend as the top-performing deck until Stoneforge Mystic is restricted or banned in the Legacy format. The second thing to notice is that the number of MTGO Legacy events has dropped drastically, and is due to the new Modern format. Ever since Modern was released as a format online, the Legacy events started losing a ton of players. This could be just be a fad and once everyone has their taste of the new Modern format, they will return to Legacy, but I wouldn’t expect to see the same amount of players that we have been seeing the last few months in the Legacy events.
Behind Stone-Blade, we see that the rest of the Metagame has a healthy balance of control, aggro, and combo decks. Also note that there is a lack of graveyard based decks in the format. Keep an eye out for Dredge, Reanimator, and possibly even Cephalid Breakfast decks to start returning to the Legacy format. Be sure to test heavily against Stone-Blade, GW Haterade, Natural Order (NO), CounterTop/Thopter, and Dark Horizons decks, as those will more than likely be the decks you will face in the upcoming Legacy events.
Banned & Restricted List Announcement
Here are the most recent changes to the Banned and Restricted list for the Legacy metagame, and you can check out the official page by clicking here.
Announcement Date: September 20, 2011
Effective Date: October 1, 2011
Magic Online Effective Date: October 12, 2011
Legacy
Mental Misstep is banned.
That’s right. Just a few months after its release, Mental Misstep is now banned from the Legacy format. I was a little surprised to see it at first when I was looking over the list, but after I had a moment to ponder it, I decided that it was actually a good thing for Legacy. Misstep really limited the types of decks that you could play since any deck could now effectively stop all-important 1-cost spells, and in a format where many decks rely on 1-cost spells, that’s not a good thing. Misstep ended up hindering a good number of decks, and made blue decks that much more powerful. The games became stale with players constantly passing the first few turns in fear of being countered by Misstep, and when a player did decide to cast a 1-cost spell, it came down to whoever had the most Missteps. All in all, I think it was a great decision by WotC, but let me know what you think about this banning in the comment section below. In the meantime I’m still going to hold onto my copies since they’re still viable in both Classic and Vintage, as well as Standard.
Reanimator v2
It was over a year ago when I did my first official article here, covering a Legacy deck known as Reanimator. At the time Reanimator was one of the most successful decks in the format, but its days in the spotlight were few. Shortly after Reanimator started dominating tournaments, Mystical Tutor was banned in Legacy and affected a good number of decks, but Reanimator was hindered the most. Players still played Reanimator occasionally, but it wasn’t the deck it used to be. It seemed that Reanimator was a deck of the past up until New Phyrexia was printed. With the introduction of Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur Reanimator decks slowly started to creep back into Legacy events, and eventually the deck started taking off again.
With Mental Misstep being banned in the format Reanimator will be gaining a huge boost in the format since no deck will be able to counter all of the important 1-cost spells that Reanimator relies on. Originally the version of Reanimator I was piloting ran four copies of Mental Misstep, but since it won’t be viable in a few weeks, I decided to go ahead and edit the Reanimator deck for the post-ban Legacy format. Let’s take a look at the two different versions of the deck.
Reanimator v2
It was over a year ago when I did my first official article here, covering a Legacy deck known as Reanimator. At the time Reanimator was one of the most successful decks in the format, but its days in the spotlight were few. Shortly after Reanimator started dominating tournaments, Mystical Tutor was banned in Legacy and affected a good number of decks, but Reanimator was hindered the most. Players still played Reanimator occasionally, but it wasn’t the deck it used to be. It seemed that Reanimator was a deck of the past up until New Phyrexia was printed. With the introduction of Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur Reanimator decks slowly started to creep back into Legacy events, and eventually the deck started taking off again.
With Mental Misstep being banned in the format Reanimator will be gaining a huge boost in the format since no deck will be able to counter all of the important 1-cost spells that Reanimator relies on. Originally the version of Reanimator I was piloting ran four copies of Mental Misstep, but since it won’t be viable in a few weeks, I decided to go ahead and edit the Reanimator deck for the post-ban Legacy format. Let’s take a look at the two different versions of the deck.
Reanimator v2, Pre-Ban
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And this is the post-banning version of the deck that I decided to base this article on:
Reanimator v2, Post-Ban
|
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I will now cover the deck in the videos below and show you gameplay against some post-ban decks in the Tournament Practice room. I decided to play this deck in the Tournament Practice room since I wasn’t able to join a Legacy Daily Event that fired, and I wanted to play against decks that wouldn’t be running Mental Misstep so that you could get a better understanding of the Legacy format, post-banning. So let’s not waste any more time and get right to those videos!
Reanimator v2 Deck Tech, Post-Ban
Click the arrow to download the above video in .mp4 format.Legacy TPR Round 1
Click the arrow to download the above video in .mp4 format.Legacy TPR Round 2
Click the arrow to download the above video in .mp4 format.Legacy TPR Round 3
Click the arrow to download the above video in .mp4 format.Legacy TPR Round 4
Click the arrow to download the above video in .mp4 format.Well, there you have it Reanimator v2 in action in a post-banning format. Even with a few misplays and a couple tough decks, we were still able to convincingly take the rounds. Reanimator is one of my all-time favorite Legacy decks, and I encourage other players to give it a try. It is both a fun and competitive deck. If you have any criticisms, comments, or questions about the deck or videos, feel free to post a comment below, or contact me either by email at ForcingtheWill@gmail.com or on MTGO at KillerOwen.
You Choose the Deck!
In this section I let you, the reader, choose which deck I will be covering in my next article! Here is a list of decks that you have to choose from, followed by a list of rules for voting.
What deck should KillerOwen do for his next episode?
What deck should KillerOwen cover for his next episode?
- Reveillark (23%, 26 Votes)
- Team America (18%, 20 Votes)
- Imperial Painter (12%, 13 Votes)
- Stone-Blade (10%, 11 Votes)
- GW Haterade (9%, 10 Votes)
- Elves (7%, 8 Votes)
- Ad Nauseum Tendrils (ANT) (7%, 8 Votes)
- Natural Order RUG (6%, 7 Votes)
- Thresh (6%, 7 Votes)
- New Horizons (2%, 4 Votes)
Total Voters: 113
Loading ...Make sure to get your votes in fast, as I will only allow two to three days before choosing the winning deck to cover in my next article. The more votes, the better, so get your friends to log in and cast their votes, as well.
Also note that if there is a specific version of a deck you would like to see, include a link to the list if possible.
That’s all for this installment of Forcing the Will. I hope you enjoyed this article and were able to learn something or at least be entertained by the newest version of Reanimator. Please leave any comments, questions, or requests you have (positive or negative), and I will do my best to respond to them. And until next time, may the Force of Will be with you!
–Owen Robbins
Hey, to be honest, I think Reanimator is a better choice in the Mental Misstep meta, because Mental Misstep is actually insane in Reanimator. It counters Swords to Plowshares, helps slow down opposing combo decks and just protects your Jin-Gitaxias very well. Most lists play 3 Reanimates and 4 Exhume + 4 Animate Dead to not get hit too hard by opposing missteps, while having more than enough redundant ways to get fatties in your graveyard (4 Entomb, 4 Careful Study some number of Hapless Researchers).
when you have a deck where matches last anywhere between 4-10 minutes i think you might want to add an extra rd or 2 of tpr play
obv you cant do that if you do a de(maybe throw in a bonus 2 man)
Hey,
it would be great to see some games with the Time Spiral deck your opp. in round 3 played. The deck seems really strong. Too bad I can’t vote for it, but maybe you will cover it in the near future.
@ Dzy: I will agree that Misstep definitely helps reanimator out vs Swords and Path, and there are many builds that work best for players. I can see where you are coming from, but Misstep will be banned soon weather players want it to be or not. I will say that I was very successful testing with the Reanimator deck both Pre and Post banning.
@ envy: I will definitely keep that in mind the next time I do some TP games withe a deck that is extremely fast. This time that would have been hard since I only had a day from when the banning was announced to film the videos, upload them, have them edited, and then uploaded to the site in time for the article. Many thanks to the team at MTGO Acdademy for making that possible.
@ MindTwiZt: I have given the option to play the High Tide a few times, but right now I don’t think it is a deck that would do well in the current meta. In my next article I will more than likely be adding it to the list, but ever since Misstep was printed I took High Tide off of the list of decks to be chosen. You are right though the High Tide deck can be a very strong deck given the right meta.
Belcher just isn’t very resilient…
good games, cool to see a pet deck of yours being treated well.
threshold isn’t actually a deck, is it?
Thank you for the videos
I love your articles you always put so much time
into making them the meta list and all
i just wanted to say that I appreciate them a lot XD
nice nice i enjoyed the videos and i love to hear some points why you did this move this turn/cast this spell for the nxt turn in short you explaining how the deck must go every turns which is good for all players esp. for players that are new in legacy format that are not well equipped for legacy decks.
Looking forward for more articles, thanks!
@Cock Horse
Thresh is a deck, it usually plays Stifle, Wasteland, Daze, Force and Fire//Ice. It used to run threshold creatures, namely Nimble Mongoose – I don’t know if that is still the case.
Great Article!
The videos were alot of fun, except in the decktech stop reading cards to me and get it to around 10 minutes. I can read myself ;p.
I haven’t seen team america in legacy so I’d like to see what that looks like next time.
I’m sure a lot of people have thought about it, including your opponent game 2, and i’m just gonna ask lol. How the hell do you afford these cards??? I added it up and this deck alone costs more than $2000. arent you in college lol?
@Josh
I can’t speak for Owen but I get annoyed by getting this question a lot when I play in the TP room. Just because the cards cost 2K right now doesn’t mean they always did. There are a lot of players out there who are smart enough to pick on the cards at the right prices. When ME1 came out, you could find FOWs for $10. When Tempest was released, I bought ever wasteland I could find for between $1.50 and $4.00 because I knew at some point they would be worth more. That’s how you play big cards on a limited budget. Make the right invests and later sell them for the cards you need. And repeat the process.
Not everyone buys gold when it its $1800 an ounce. Some people bought it long before.
I haven’t watched all the videos yet, but why Angel of Despair over Testadon? I understand Angel can target creatures, but Testadon gives you a 3:1 and gives you the added option of shutting down their lands (at least to a greater degree than Angel). Just wanted to get your thoughts…
@Water_Wizard
Angel of Despair is better as it gives you an out to things like opposing Blazing Archons, Peacekeepers (these will probably see more play post MM if Fish is a Deck to beat), as well as being able to kill annoying creatures as Stoneforge Mystic and Dark Confidant and all the problematic permanants that Terastodon also kill (Batterskull, Leyline of the Void if you Show and Tell it in, …). I Think the versatility makes up for the raw power of Terastodon.
@ Cock Horse: BT is correct. The deck is usually a UGR deck that runs Mongoose as the only Thresh creature, but packs other cards such as Goyf, Lightning Bolts, and Counters.
@ zac and ryn ball: Thanks for the kind words I’ll do my best in future articles.
@ bluedragon123: I’ll try not to read the cards so much in the Deck Tech videos. Sometimes it’s just a bad habit of mine
@ Josh: Yes I am a college student, and I make it a priority not to spend real money on MTGO. I have been collecting cards for over 5 years, and started off with all regular cards. I slowly upgraded the important cards to foil versions, and have been foiling out the others as I can. I also look for good deals and try to get cards when they’re first released so that I don’t end up paying a ton for them. Mitch is correct I was able to pick up many of the foil versions of cards for less than what the regular versions are going for now, and it helped that I was collecting Legacy cards way before Legacy was even announced online. I also own some bots that help pay for some of the more expensive cards, and I have been power trading for years on my personal account. I also put my credits that I earn for writing towards foils as well as my winnings from events. So to sum it up it’s basically a combination of a lot of different things.
@ Water_Wizard: hofzge is correct. It wouldn’t seem ideal until you actually lose a game vs an opponent’s Platinum Angel. After something like that happens Angel becomes a lot more appealing than Testadon just for the simple fact they you can hit creatures, but lose the ability to destroy 2 other non creature permanents. It also comes down to preference. Some people prefer one over the other, but in this deck I think Angel fits better but that’s just my personally opinion. Always do what is most comfortable to you.
Thanks everyone for the comments and voting! I will be back again soon with another article for you all.
Taking you up on your request for feedback, the only possible misplay I saw was in match 2 game two about 4:30 in, you lead with misty over island with a BS in hand. You then cracked the misty…. now things turned out okay, but if he had cracked his lands in response and cascaded there, your only out was a single FOW. Now if you had played just the island, your defense would have been contant and you could have shuffled after your BS with the misty(I know you had the entomb as well)–>this line of play would have held up 2 counters at all times (which seems smart against a combo deck).
I think you need to mulligan more aggressively. Especially when you’re playing with a list with no Ponders or Vaults. You got extremely lucky and top-decked like a champ in almost all of the games. But you can’t really count on that in the long run.
Forcing Xantid Swarm when you’re playing a deck with 0 removal is probably correct 99.999999% of the time (unless he uses it as bait becuase he can go off the same turn and decides to do so instead of safely waiting a turn. But you can’t really count on that). The only reason why FoW was relevant in that game was because he was forced to block with Swarm, but if it didn’t exist in the first place he would have died one turn earlier anyway. If you forced it, you could have entombed for Jin-Gitaxias and Exhumed it your turn, refilling your hand with new counterspells (and new creatures) and pretty much lock up the game. Instead you put yourself in a situation where you sat behind an Iona on red and prayed.