After the first SCG weekend where Khans was legal, it was very plain to see that this new set has shaken the format up in a serious way! The winning deck in New Jersey sported a whopping EIGHT copies of Khans cards in its 75 (that’s nearly 11% of the list for those the percentage-inclined). The last time a new set had that kind of impact is when we saw the Great Black-Green Resurgence of 2012, with decks jamming four Deathrite Shamans and four Abrupt Decays, and that shell is a pillar of the format, now. We got more than just Monastery Swiftspear and Treasure Cruise in Khans, though, as I fully expect to see plenty of combo mages casting Dig Through Time, in the near future. While we don’t have a whole lot of tournament data accumulated, yet, due to the Open Series taking a few weeks off, Khans has been on MODO for more or less two weeks (by more or less, I mean that there was a very limited amount of product open before the actual prerelease events, thanks to online PTQs). I haven’t had too much of a chance, myself, to play with the new cards during week one of MODO, due to a busy personal schedule, but I got a couple Dailies in over the last few days to get my feet wet; I also played my first paper event in a long time, this past Monday, because WOOHOO, MY CAST IS OFF AND I CAN PLAY PAPER AGAIN! Sorry, got a little overexcited about that one. It feels good to be able to comfortably shuffle a Legacy deck again, though. Anyways, going back to new Legacy, let’s see what we can surmise from the early results!
UR Delver
The first archetype worth looking at is the most obvious one, the deck that Bob Huang piloted to victory during the first weekend of Khans. Here’s a slight alteration on the list by Thehamburglar, who has picked up multiple 4-0’s and 3-1’s with it. He’s running one fewer land than Bob, and instead of 1/2 split on Chain Lightning and Forked Bolt, Thehamburglar opted to go with just a full set of Chains. This approach is a bit more all-in on just throwing damage at the opponent’s face, since Chain Lightning is a bit more efficient at this.
UR Delver
| Creatures (12) 4 Delver of Secrets 4 Monastery Swiftspear 4 Young Pyromancer Spells (32) 4 Chain Lightning 4 Gitaxian Probe 4 Ponder 4 Treasure Cruise 4 Brainstorm 4 Daze 4 Force of Will 4 Lightning Bolt | Lands (16) 3 Arid Mesa 3 Flooded Strand 1 Island 1 Mountain 4 Scalding Tarn 4 Volcanic Island Sideboard (15) 2 Flusterstorm 2 Forked Bolt 2 Grafdigger’s Cage 2 Price of Progress 2 Pyroblast 2 Smash to Smithereens 1 Spell Pierce 2 Sulfuric Vortex |
The basic shell of the deck looks something like this:
4 Monastery Swiftspear (hereafter, known as Taylor Swiftspear)
4 Ponder (although I’ve seen a few lists shave a Ponder, I consider a playset to be part of a core)
4 Daze
16 Lands
That leaves four flex slots which I’ve seen various lists play any of the following:
0-2 extra land (2 if playing Wasteland)
0-4 Wasteland
0-2 Forked Bolt
0-4 Chain Lightning
As of right now, this is the deck to beat that you are probably going to see all over the place for events in the immediate future, particularly because many players don’t dig too deeply for what good decks are out there; instead, they just look to the latest SCG event. Because most of the other decks I’m going to run through did not appear at that week one tournament, this is the one that you are going to see the most of, for better or worse.
Now let’s check out a couple lists that are somewhat like cousins of the above list. Other Delver decks.
BURG Delver
BURG Delver seems like a natural direction to go from the above list, since it was already playing Young Pyromancer and making deckbuilding concessions to optimize the effectiveness of Peezy. By this, I mean that the deck already ran the full set of Gitaxian Probes to complement the typical Delver cantrip-suite of Ponders and Brainstorms. When you’re generating that kind of velocity, it’s naturally easy to go Cruising! Check out this list from Thediabetical, who took it to a 3-1.
BURG Delver
| Creatures (12) 4 Deathrite Shaman 4 Delver of Secrets 4 Young Pyromancer Spells (29) 4 Gitaxian Probe 4 Ponder 2 Treasure Cruise 4 Brainstorm 4 Daze 3 Force of Will 4 Lightning Bolt 1 Spell Pierce 3 Stifle | Lands (19) 2 Misty Rainforest 2 Polluted Delta 4 Scalding Tarn 1 Tropical Island 3 Underground Sea 3 Volcanic Island 4 Wasteland Sideboard (15) 1 Force of Will 1 Abrupt Decay 2 Ancient Grudge 4 Cabal Therapy 1 Deathmark 1 Fire Covenant 1 Null Rod 1 Pyroblast 1 Red Elemental Blast 2 Umezawa’s Jitte |
The fundamental difference between this list and the UR Delver list is the presence of Deathrite Shaman and mana-denial elements. This list gets to play the full complement of Wastelands along with some Stifles. Deathrite helps to keep the mana flowing to support this plan. The added colors also give you more sideboard options, rather than just have the plan to be to get them dead as fast as you can. One of the important things I noticed while reviewing the winning lists from Dailies over the last week and a half is that there has been a very large resurgence of ANT, and I believe it’s because ANT can combo off quickly enough to race the burn plan and brute-force its way through the light disruption elements of UR Delver. BURG might give you a bit more game against fast combo, though I’ll give credit where credit is due, we did all watch Bob Huang race a Griselbrand in the finals. One last thing I’ll say about this list before we move on: I think it can easily support at least a third Treasure Cruise, and possibly even a fourth.
Temur Delver
RIP Nimble Mongoose. There’s no place for you in a world of delving. Draconis91 updated the old Legacy mainstay, Canadian Threshold—though I suppose that name is no longer appropriate, if we’re cutting the threshold (sorry to all you hanger-ons; just let it go, already)—to accommodate Treasure Cruise, and took it to a 3-1 finish. Who replaces the ‘goose as the third creature in the deck’s threat-suite? You guessed it, Young Peezy! So far, all three Cruise Delver lists feature the namesake creature, Peezy, and a third flex-creature as their threats. UR gives you Taylor Swiftspear, BURG gives you Deathrite, and Temur gives you the most efficient creature (in terms of raw stats) of all-time. The rest of the shell is actually very similar to BURG.
Temur Delver
| Creatures (11) 4 Delver of Secrets 3 Tarmogoyf 4 Young Pyromancer Spells (31) 2 Gitaxian Probe 4 Ponder 2 Treasure Cruise 4 Brainstorm 4 Daze 1 Fire & Ice 3 Force of Will 4 Lightning Bolt 2 Spell Pierce 1 Spell Snare 4 Stifle | Lands (18) 4 Misty Rainforest 4 Scalding Tarn 3 Tropical Island 3 Volcanic Island 4 Wasteland Sideboard (15) 1 Force of Will 1 Flusterstorm 1 Grafdigger’s Cage 1 Grim Lavamancer 2 Krosan Grip 3 Pyroblast 1 Rough & Tumble 2 Submerge 1 Sylvan Library 2 Umezawa’s Jitte |
Jeskai Delver
I’ve seen two variations of Jeskai pop up, with very different game plans. One of them completely bucks tradition and eschews Stoneforge Mystic to play as more of a Pyromancer list. It even runs Geist of Saint Traft (#teamgeist)! Let’s look at this unique approach that Silviawataru piloted to a 3-1 record.
Jeskai Delver
| Creatures (12) 4 Delver of Secrets 2 Geist of Saint Traft 3 Snapcaster Mage 3 Young Pyromancer Spells (29) 3 Chain Lightning 2 Gitaxian Probe 4 Ponder 4 Treasure Cruise 4 Brainstorm 4 Daze 4 Force of Will 4 Lightning Bolt | Lands (19) 2 Island 1 Karakas 2 Misty Rainforest 1 Mountain 2 Polluted Delta 4 Scalding Tarn 2 Tundra 3 Volcanic Island 2 Wasteland Sideboard (15) 1 Envelop 1 Ethersworn Canonist 1 Flusterstorm 1 Forked Bolt 1 Grim Lavamancer 1 Pithing Needle 1 Pyroblast 2 Red Elemental Blast 2 Rest in Peace 1 Smash to Smithereens 2 Submerge 1 Wear & Tear |
Below is the more traditional Jeskai list, adapted for Treasure Cruise. While not all lists were constructed exactly the same, the change that I had to make to go from the 60-card maindeck I was on to Jacetmsst’s version, below, was the removal of three Gitaxian Probes and the addition of two Cruises and a fetchland. I’ve 4-0’d and 2-0’d with this exact list. And by 2-0, I mean that I thought I was going to have a lot of time between rounds after round two, but the round started early when I ran out to pick up some takeout food. (Aside: would it be too much to ask for an app that can give you an alert when the two-minute countdown to the next round starts? Because that seems like something that would be super-useful, particularly for people who live in urban areas where it’s not unheard of to step out of your apartment between rounds. Bonus points if the app could do simple actions like deciding to play or draw and whether or not to mulligan.)
Jeskai Delver
| Creatures (10) 4 Delver of Secrets 4 Stoneforge Mystic 2 True-Name Nemesis Spells (30) 4 Ponder 2 Treasure Cruise 4 Brainstorm 4 Daze 4 Force of Will 4 Lightning Bolt 3 Spell Pierce 3 Swords to Plowshares 1 Batterskull 1 Umezawa’s Jitte | Lands (20) 4 Flooded Strand 1 Misty Rainforest 4 Polluted Delta 4 Tundra 3 Volcanic Island 4 Wasteland Sideboard (15) 1 True-Name Nemesis 1 Ethersworn Canonist 1 Grafdigger’s Cage 1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 3 Meddling Mage 1 Pithing Needle 1 Pyroblast 2 Red Elemental Blast 2 Rest in Peace 1 Sword of Feast and Famine 1 Wear & Tear |
One of my favorite things about this list is that because we’ve added another fetchland to bring our land-count up to 20, we can get away with sideboarding Jace! Something I noticed while playing the deck is that it definitely felt like it could play a third Cruise. I initially thought that two was the correct number for this list, since it has lower velocity than its UR counterpart, but it felt like I always wanted to draw it, and in the rare occasions where I chained them together, I had little trouble casting the second one, shortly after.
A friend played a version with FOUR copies of Cruise, and piloted it to a 3-1 finish at our LGS’s weekly Monday Night Legacy event. He shipped me his list on MODO, and I gave it a shot. I ended up losing 1-2 in the Daily, but it felt powerful, and I was effortlessly able to chain Cruises together. The losses came to auto-losing to Blood Moon out of the Miracles sideboard, and then having mulligan struggles (to four cards!) against budget D&T (no Wastes, no Ports). In case you were wondering what his cuts were to make room for the extra Cruises, it was the 20th land that we initially added, and a Ponder.
Sultai Delver
This is the sort of list that Carsten Kotter was advocating when the Khans spoilers first went up. Corpt gave it a whirl and was able to finish with a 3-1 record in a Daily Event. Some of the cuts he made to fit the full playset of Cruises include the two flex-creature slots the deck used to play (‘stalker/Bob/True-Name), a Liliana, and a land. While Cruise gives Sultai some serious explosiveness, I do wonder what happens to these Tarmogoyf decks when you get into a Cruise mirror. An argument many people were making against Cruise, when it was spoiled, was its anti-synergy with ‘gofy. Sultai Delver veterans, who had familiarity playing with Tombstalker were quick to point out that it would be a non-issue, because they were used to delving for ‘stalker, and they understood that the opponent’s graveyard was sufficient for pumping ‘goyf. That changes in a hurry if your opponent is emptying out their own graveyard, as well. I could be wrong, and that interim period between Cruises will be enough to keep ‘goyf relevant, but I’m curious to see how it plays out.
Sultai Delver
| Planeswalker (1) 1 Liliana of the Veil Creature (12) 4 Deathrite Shaman 4 Delver of Secrets 4 Tarmogoyf Spells (28) 3 Ponder 4 Thoughtseize 4 Treasure Cruise 4 Abrupt Decay 4 Brainstorm 4 Daze 1 Dimir Charm 4 Force of Will Land (19) 2 Bayou 1 Misty Rainforest 4 Polluted Delta 1 Tropical Island 3 Underground Sea 4 Verdant Catacombs 4 Wasteland | Sideboard (15) 1 Liliana of the Veil 2 Chill 2 Disfigure 2 Flusterstorm 2 Golgari Charm 2 Grafdigger’s Cage 2 Hymn to Tourach 2 Pithing Needle |
At this point, all of you non-Delver blue mages must be exasperatedly thinking to yourselves, “This isn’t fair! Delver was already good enough! Am I never going to get to enjoy Treasure Cruise if I don’t sell my soul to the Insectile Aberration??” Well, I’m glad you asked, because there are other ways to set sail to find some ancestral treasures.
Shardless Sultai
One of the things people started saying, when they thought about running Treasure Cruise in a Sultai list was that this effectively meant the end of Shardless Sultai. Yes and no. You see, Shardless Sultai abused the cascade mechanic to immediately cheat Ancestral Vision onto the stack, effectively stapling an Ancestral Recall to a bear. With Cruise as a more reliable way of getting our Ancestral Recall, we don’t really need to jump through the hoop of casting a two-color 2/2 for three, anymore. This equated to the death-knell for the archetype, as we know it. Shardless Sultai isn’t actually dead, though. Now it’s just more like Shardless-less Sultai… or, I guess since that’s a mouthful, Sultai Midrange. We’re still trying to do the same thing, for the most part, it’s just that we no longer need the namesake card to do it. It’s sort of similar to how it no longer makes sense to call Canadian Threshold by that name. But let’s stop dissecting the finer points of the naming conventions of Legacy archetypes, or we could be here for awhile.
I’ve dug up a pair of lists from Jsiri84 and Sakimmd, respectively. Jsiri84’s list looks like the typical Shardless Sultai list, stripped of its namesake card, with a few more creatures thrown in, to compensate. It even runs the recent sideboard tech of the white splash for Meddling Mage, so this is as close to a direct port as you’re going to get. The second list, from Sakimmd, is a bit more on the controlly end of the spectrum, running only eight creatures, but utilizing the full set of Lilianas and Cruises. Sakimmd took extra steps to maximize Cruise by running four Ponders and throwing in a Thought Scour, for good measure. My main concern with this strategy is that I envision the deck having a hard time winning games against Cruise mirrors, as I stated above, when discussing Sultai Delver, due to minuscule Tarmogoyfs. Perhaps it might be worth considering a couple True-Names.
Sultai Midrange
| Planeswalkers (4) 2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 2 Liliana of the Veil Creatures (12) 4 Deathrite Shaman 1 Notion Thief 1 Snapcaster Mage 4 Tarmogoyf 2 Vendilion Clique Spells (22) 1 Maelstrom Pulse 1 Ponder 3 Thoughtseize 2 Toxic Deluge 3 Treasure Cruise 4 Abrupt Decay 4 Brainstorm 4 Force of Will Land (22) 1 Bayou 1 Forest 1 Marsh Flats 4 Misty Rainforest 1 Polluted Delta 1 Swamp 1 Tropical Island 4 Underground Sea 4 Verdant Catacombs 4 Wasteland | Sideboard (15) 2 Baleful Strix 1 Chill 1 Darkblast 2 Disfigure 1 Duress 1 Grafdigger’s Cage 3 Meddling Mage 1 Null Rod 1 Pithing Needle 1 Relic of Progenitus 1 Savannah |
Sultai Midrange
| Planeswalkers (6) 2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 4 Liliana of the Veil Creatures (8) 4 Deathrite Shaman 4 Tarmogoyf Spells (23) 4 Ponder 2 Thoughtseize 4 Treasure Cruise 4 Abrupt Decay 4 Brainstorm 4 Force of Will 1 Thought Scour Land (23) 2 Bayou 1 Forest 1 Island 2 Misty Rainforest 4 Polluted Delta 1 Swamp 1 Tropical Island 3 Underground Sea 4 Verdant Catacombs 4 Wasteland | Sideboard (13) 1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 2 Thoughtseize 2 Disfigure 1 Golgari Charm 1 Grafdigger’s Cage 1 Leyline of the Void 1 Null Rod 2 Spell Pierce 2 Toxic Deluge |
Shardless Bant
Did I just talk about how Shardless Agent and Ancestral Vision are dead, because Treasure Cruise is now the defacto Ancestral Recall of Legacy? Scratch that, because I’ve got a fever, and the only cure is MOAR Ancestral Recall. If you still want to cascade into Visions, Cyaso has a pretty sweet take on Shardless Bant, that manages to utilize, both the namesake card, as well as Treasure Cruise. Because Cyaso is only playing a pair of Cruises, and he already shaved a Vision, it wasn’t that difficult to alter the existing form of this list to fit the powerful new Khans spell. This deck has loads of card draw and plenty of angles of attack, from Jace, to turn three Batterskull, to the Sword-Thopter combo, to simply burying your opponent in a deluge of card advantage. One card I’d like to highlight that I could see playing a more prominent role, going forward (in Legacy as a whole, not just this deck) is the single Scavenging Ooze in the sideboard. I played a match against Elves, where he would use Ooze religiously to eat anything and everything I dumped in the ‘yard, and it was very effective at keeping me off of Cruise. Just some food for thought!
Shardless Bant
| Planeswalkers (2) 2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor Creatures (9) 4 Shardless Agent 4 Stoneforge Mystic 1 Vendilion Clique Spells (27) 3 Ancestral Vision 2 Treasure Cruise 4 Brainstorm 1 Enlightened Tutor 4 Force of Will 4 Swords to Plowshares 1 Batterskull 1 Engineered Explosives 1 Ensnaring Bridge 1 Sensei’s Divining Top 1 Sword of the Meek 3 Thopter Foundry 1 Umezawa’s Jitte | Lands (22) 1 Academy Ruins 4 Flooded Strand 1 Forest 1 Island 1 Karakas 4 Misty Rainforest 1 Plains 2 Savannah 2 Tropical Island 3 Tundra 2 Windswept Heath Sideboard (15) 2 Chill 2 Ethersworn Canonist 2 Flusterstorm 1 Humility 3 Meddling Mage 2 Relic of Progenitus 1 Scavenging Ooze 1 Seal of Cleansing 1 Supreme Verdict |
Tezzeret
Telepundomian is truly a man after my own heart, utilizing Dack Fayden, a Planeswalker I’ve desperately tried to make work in Legacy, as an engine to help fuel Delve. Anyone who knows me well knows that I’m also generally a sucker for Superfriends-type strategies (is there any way we can fit big Tezzy in this hizzle, too?) and this list sports eight walkers of three different varieties. The new tech in this Tezzeret list is a couple copies of that other delve card that we didn’t talk too much about, Dig Through Time. My only mild complaint, here, is the use of 61 cards. Perhaps we can shave a Wasteland? I’ve never really attacked from a mana-denial angle with a Tezz deck in the past, as it generally doesn’t fit with the rest of what the deck is trying to do. I get that we have Crucible to go with the Waste, but with the Digs, two Wastelands might be enough. I’m also loving the spiciness of The Abyss, as well as the Helm-Leyline combo, out of the sideboard.
Tezzeret
| Planeswalkers (8) 2 Dack Fayden 2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas Creatures (4) 4 Baleful Strix Spells (25) 2 Transmute Artifact 2 Dig Through Time 4 Force of Will 4 Chalice of the Void 1 Crucible of Worlds 2 Dimir Signet 1 Engineered Explosives 1 Ensnaring Bridge 4 Mox Diamond 1 Sword of the Meek 2 Thopter Foundry 1 The Abyss | Lands (24) 1 Academy Ruins 4 Ancient Tomb 2 City of Traitors 1 Creeping Tar Pit 2 Island 2 Misty Rainforest 4 Polluted Delta 1 Swamp 3 Underground Sea 1 Volcanic Island 3 Wasteland Sideboard (15) 1 Engineered Explosives 1 Ensnaring Bridge 1 The Abyss 2 Blood Moon 1 Helm of Obedience 1 Izzet Staticaster 4 Leyline of the Void 2 Lodestone Golem 2 Toxic Deluge |
While I could spend all day talking about delve, we’re already over 3000 words, and my editor once said that we should try to stay around 1500. Whoops? Sorry? I’ve got a few more quick hits I want to go over, so lets run it down in a hail of bullets. These are a few things I’ve seen, and I’m not necessarily sure that they’re good, as they’ve only made a few appearances in the 3-1 or better lists for Legacy Dailies, but they seemed noteworthy:
- Miracles with two Digs: I don’t love it. Putting Miracles into your hand via Dig usually isn’t ideal, and I could see situations where you bottom two copies of Terminus that you needed to draw. I don’t know, it might be better in practice than theory, but I’ve only seen a single list 3-1 with it. I’ll still try to find time to give it a chance at some point.
- Reanimator with one Dig: I was not a fan of this list at all. While there are plenty of useless cards to delve away, since only a handful of cards (your fatties) are important to keep in the yard, this list heavily diluted the combo pieces. He made some weird choices like three Reanimates (really? cut the card that gives you some of the best nut-draw potential?) and two Careful Study, which seems like a card you’d want more of with Delve. Granted there was only one delve card, but the list seemed like it had some choices that made me scratch my head.
- Infect with two Cruise: I like the way this looks. I initially thought that Become Immense was the card that Infect decks would universally adopt, but Tom “the Boss” Ross disagreed, based on the fact that +6/+6 would typically either be overkill or not enough damage based on how the early turns of attacking typically played out. Taking his word for it seems like a good idea. I can get behind Cruise, though, because this seems like a great way to reload if they blow you out on the turn you attempted to go for the kill.
- Burn with four Taylor Swiftspear: nobody was surprised by this one, right?
- This was not in a Daily, but a friend ran into Owen Turtenwald, in a two-man queue, playing what he described as an insaaaaaane version of Solidarity, featuring 3-4 copies of Dig Through Time. I did some further investigation, and it looks like some folks are talking about this in the Solidarity thread over at The Source.
- These two lists haven’t been adopting Khans cards, but I’ve seen a larger-than-usual number of ANT among the top-performing decks . I think this is because many of the Cruise lists are packing less disruption, so it allows a fast, resilient combo deck like ANT to just blast through these new-fangled Delver lists. If you just want to punish every going on their Ancestral Recall boat, ANT might be the way to do it.
- Regular Miracles, with no Khans updates also remains a strong performer in this meta.
- I tried out Sneak and Show with a copy of Dig, last Monday, in paper. It was my first time playing Sneak and Show, and let me say, the archetype is stupid powerful! I sadly never got to cast Dig, but I pitched it to Force a few times. I once almost cast it, but I drew the card I needed to win just before I was going to, so I decided to just win the game, instead.
- I know we’re talking about Legacy, today, but you need to check out this week’s Vintage Super League matches. Every player who cast a Khans card, whether it be Cruise or Dig, won their match. Delve in ALL the formats! Khans is freaking awesome!