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We’re coming up on the most wonderful time of the year. No, I’m not getting into the holiday spirit, immediately after Halloween like some major retailers; I’m still going to wait until after Thanksgiving. But I am ecstatic that this year’s North American Legacy Grand Prix is upon us, and it is coming to my (old) home state. One of the most popular pieces I produced in advance of last year’s big GP was my format “cheat sheet,” where I detailed the early plays, the main paths to victory, and other things to watch out for for some of the more popular decks in the format. I’m taking it a step further, this year, and updating the old guide (there will be shameless copy-pasta for things that might not have really changed), as well as adding a slew of less popular or fringe archetypes. It’s going to be so massive that it’s going to be three parts. A quick disclaimer on these guides: if you are a format expert, some of this might be old hat to you, but I know that a GP brings out more than just that demographic, and if you feel like you need a little help learning the ins and outs of the format, you might find this very useful. Oh yeah, the other big thing I’m going to be doing is a new post EVERY DAY leading up to the Grand Prix. That’s right, feel the hype! Today, I’ll be kicking things off with some of the more popular control (so basically, Miracles) and combo archetypes in Legacy.

REANIMATOR

Early Tells

• First land drop: UB lands or a fetch that gets one. Sometimes, they’ll play a Bayou or Trop in the list, for post-board Abrupt Decay, but they’re unlikely to lead off with this, unless they have to. Not really a land drop, but they also play Lotus Petals.
• Possible turn one plays: they might just go off. This deck is very explosive. One-mana plays include Entomb, Careful Study, Reanimate (though they need to do something else before they can Reanimate), discard, and various cantrips. They also play Lotus Petal.
• Sometimes, they might just go draw-discard to get their fatty in the yard.

How You Die

• Put fatty in graveyard, bring fatty back to life. Simple, right? Griselbrand is usually the weapon of choice, as he can draw them into a way to protect him and/or the ability to go off again. They have a handful of other various large creatures that they employ. Some of them include Iona, Ashen Rider, Elesh Norn, Tidespout Tyrant, Terastodon, Sire of Insanity, Sphinx of the Steel Wind and a few other fringe players.
• Most variants run between 1-3 copies of Show and Tell as a Plan B. They have a full playset after sideboard. Sometimes, they get to Plan C, as well. Plan C is hardcasting Griselbrand.

What to Watch for

• They have a large number of free counters. Force of Will is standard issue, and depending on the build, you’ll also see some number of Daze and/or Misdirection.
• This is more a piece of advice than something specific to watch for, but you are generally better off countering or making them discard their means of putting a fatty into the yard than their means of getting the fatty out of the ‘yard. Why? Because as long as they have no fatties in the ‘yard, every reanimation spell in their hand is a dead card.

SNEAK AND SHOW

Early Tells

• First land drop: Island, Volcanic, or a blue fetch. They run Sol Lands, as well, but it is unlikely for them to lead off with that. Well.. unless.. refer to the next bullet point.
• Possible turn one plays: expect a turn one cantrip. This deck usually runs the full cartel: Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain, and Gitaxian Probe. They also run Lotus Petals. And remember those Sol Lands that I said they usually don’t play on turn one? Well they might if they also have a Petal and Show and Tell and just go off immediately.
• With all of the cantrips that this deck runs, it’s pretty unlikely for them to not cast one on the first turn to start sculpting that perfect hand. Unless they already have it.

How You Die

• Show and Tell. Usually, this will deploy one of the deck’s two fatties, Emrakul or Griselbrand, though it is sometimes used to play
• Sneak Attack. This will also deploy fatties. If they drop Griselbrand, he will usually be able to find Emrakul so that both can smash you at the same time. If they don’t have another red source for Emrakul, don’t let that make you feel safe; they will likely find a Petal (or Simian Spirit Guide, if you were hoping to counter the Petal).
• Griselbrand. Yes, he can smash your face, but his other purpose is to allow them to draw up all the resources that they need to go off again. He will also almost assuredly find the Sneak and Show player a piece of protection or two.

What to Watch for

• Countermagic. Four FoW, plus a few others. The stock lists run 2-4 Spells Pierces, but they sometimes will run Daze or Misdirection.
• Hoping to load up on permission in game two? They often bring in Defense Grid, so have a plan to deal with that.
• Got discard-based disruption? I’m not the biggest fan of the card, but some wizards that are more powerful than me like Leyline of Sanctity.
• Blood Moon! This deck plays red, along with a healthy count of basics. That sets them up well to Moon you in sideboarded games. They are also capable of slamming it on turn one off of a Sol Land and Petal. I’ve even seen a few lists mainboard a Moon or two.
• Sideboard Pyroclasm will scorch your hatebears and/or weenie rush.
• While this is a bit techy, the most recent list to top 8 an Open (run by Brad Nelson) packed a pair of maindeck Overmasters.

OMNITELL

Early Tells

• First land drop: Island or blue fetch. They may also use a Sol Land if they’re going to try to go off on turn one, but most lists have cut Petals in the last year, so this is uncommon.
• Possible turn one plays: see Sneak and Show. Really, it’s exactly the same, at least in the early stages, minus Volcs and Petals.

How You Die

• Show and Tell. Rather than dropping a fatty like Sneak, Omni will drop in an enchantment that lets them Enter the Infinite for free. Or they will drop their one copy of Emrakul.
• Hardcast Dream Halls. From here, they can either just Enter, or drop an Omni and eventually find Enter.
• Once they’ve drawn their library, they will release an infinite number of ants on you (or, you know, twenty).

What to Watch for

• Watch out for all of the things I mentioned in Sneak and Show (except Moon).
• Wishboard. They run Cunning Wish to find silver bullets or to find their kill condition (wish for Intuition to get the kill cards).
• D-Sphere/O-Ring/Venser effects are not as good in this matchup due to their ability to wish forTrickbind. I’d still side them in, but just be aware that it might not be as effective as you hoped.
• The new hotness in this list is Dig Through Time. It works quite effectively with either of their enchantments that lets them cast spells for free.

ELVES

Early Tells

• First land drop: a green-producing land or fetch. They typically splash black for Abrupt Decay and discard out of the board. White is occasionally splashed for certain sideboard cards, such as ‘Teeg and/or Pridemage. I’ve even seen blue splashed, before, for Beck, but I’d consider that on the fringey side.
• Possible turn one plays: Elves. Lots and lots of Elves (and Symbiote). No, but seriously, this shouldn’t be a difficult deck to read. Aside from Deathrite and Dryad Arbor, which appear in a multitude of decks, every other creature in their list is a dead giveaway as to what they are playing.

How You Die

• Glimpse combo: Elves has two big combos that can kill you individually or that can intertwine to kill you. The first involves Glimpse of Nature. Glimpse can allow them to flood the board VERY quickly, while keeping their grip full. Thanks to Heritage Druid, these summoning sick creatures can all be utilized for mana. The untap abilities of Nettle Sentinal, Quirion Ranger, and Symbiote also do their part to fuel this card-drawing, mana-generating engine.
• Fatty Kill: The second part of their combo, which can often be executed without going through the first part, involves bringing a fatty into play. This can either happen by generating a ton of mana and casting a large Green Sun’s Zenith, or by using Natural Order. The fatty of choice is usually a lethal Craterhoof, but I have also seen Ruric Thar or Progenitus. A new piece of tech, which isn’t immediately lethal, but gets out of hand quickly, is Wren’s Run Packmaster. They also sometimes just hardcast their fatty. It’s become a more common occurrence, since the change in the legend rule, which allows them to “chain” Gaea’s Cradles.
• Massive card advantage. Aside from using Glimpse to flood the board, while keeping their hand full of cards, they can accomplish the same thing with a Symbiote and Visionary.
• The beatdown plan. Sometimes they just kill you by turning lots of 1/1s sideways.

What to Watch for

• Wirewood Symbiote. Eliminate them with extreme prejudice. Not only is this creature important for them to go off, but it will also make all of your spot removal useless against Elves. Not to mention that it does a lot of work with Visionary, as I mentioned above.
• Gaea’s Cradle. You might think you’re safe, but they can suddenly explode for a ton of mana out of nowhere.

AD NAUSEUM TENDRILS (ANT)

Early Tells

• First land drop: Grixis-colored lands and fetches. Some versions also play Gemstone Mine, though it’s more common in TES.
• Possible turn one plays: usually just a cantrip. Discard is possible, but they will usually save it for either the turn they are going off or the turn before that. They play LEDs and Petals, but they will usually save these for the turn they are going off to generate more storm count.

How You Die

• Tendrils is always the kill. They have three main ways to generate a lethal storm count. The first is by just playing out everything in their hand and then casting an Infernal Tutor for Tendrils to win. You’ve probably had to do a bit of damage to yourself, already, for this to work, or helped them with storm count, via counters/Brainstorm/etc.
• Past in Flames. Tutor with at least five mana available to get PiF. Flashback enough to generate a lethal storm count and six mana. Use two to recast Tutor. Get Tendrils.
• Ad Nauseum. Tutor with at least five mana available and enough life to draw enough cards to win. While this card is the namesake of the deck, since the printing of Past in Flames, this has become the least common path to victory. Sometimes you win by them blowing themselves up if they go this route.

What to Watch for

• You will bring in some form of disruption. Expect them to have reliable ways to interact with it. Typically, Abrupt Decay and more discard are their main answers.
• Young Pyromancer. He can be an absolute house, post-board. Once you cut all your removal, they can very easily just cast a hand full of rituals to flood the board with 1/1s, and run you over.
• The other, common post-board tactic is Xantid Swarm. Again, the Storm player is banking on you cutting your removal, and swarm will give them a free ride through any potential countermagic.

THE EPIC STORM (TES)

Early Tells

• First land drop: U.Sea, Volc, Gemstone Mine, or fetch. The deck is very light on lands, as most versions typically play around 12.
• If you are playing against Bryant Cook, it is probably TES. I’m not sure if anyone else actually plays (or at least does well with) this deck.
• This version of Storm will often go off faster than ANT, due to a greater number of one-mana rituals, with Rite of Flame to complement the Dark Rituals. To help with the speed factor, they also typically run Chrome Mox.

How You Die

• Similar to ANT, they have the Ad Nauseum–Infernal Tutor–Past In Flames-Tendrils package. Except the Tendrils are generally in the sideboard, to be fetched with Burning Wish. The wishboard is one of the key differences between this deck and ANT.
• Empty the Warrens. Another contrast this list has to ANT is that they can often resolve an Empty on turn one or two that is large enough to kill you. It won’t kill you immediately, but putting 8-12 Goblins into play often means that you are dead.

What to Watch for

• While I’ve noticed that some recent lists have cut the card, they can use Silence on their go-off turn to make sure that you cannot interact.
• Xantid Swarm also sees play in TES sideboards, similar to its Storm cousin, ANT.

MIRACLES

Early Tells

• First land drop: in order of likeliness: blue or white fetch, Island, Tundra, Volcanic Island, Plains, Karakas, Mountain (and sometimes Mystic Gate). I generally would not lead off with any of the latter three unless I have a Top. One of the key characteristics to identify Miracles in the early going is multiple Islands and/or Plains, as Miracles tends to run a lot of basics. When they don’t know what their opponent is on, they will generally fetch for basics, as they need to develop their mana.
• Possible turn one plays: the only absolutely correct turn one play is Top or hold up mana. If they Brainstorm, that usually means they are desperate, so you should probably go ahead and counter that if you can, because you will put them in a VERY bad spot. The same often (but not as often) holds true if they lead off with a non-blue land and attempt to cast Top. If they pass without doing anything other than playing a land, they are likely a mystery to you, but they may be holding up Pierce, Force, Swords, or even Flusterstorm.

How You Die

• Jace.
• Entreat the Angels.
• Not being able to resolve anything, ever. CounterTop is tough to deal with. There are clever ways around it, like casting GSZ for more than you need to, in order to use an irregular CMC, or doing something similar with Engineered Explosives (remember, sunburst and X don’t have to be the same number).
• Legendary beats: the version popularized by Joe Lossett’s build, runs five legends in the 75 (Cliques and Venser). These flash creatures have very powerful ETB triggers that can be reused again and again thanks to two copies of Karakas.
• There are various other versions with a multitude of kill conditions. Some use the RIP-Helm combo, some use Thopter-Sword with Stoneforge to set it up, some use Stoneforge and good ol’ Batterskull. Some use combinations of the various kill conditions. Just be aware that any of these wincons may exist in the main, or as a sideboard plan to throw you for a loop, after game one.

What to Watch for

• DON’T OVERCOMMIT TO THE BOARD! No, seriously, don’t. Instant-speed Wrath of God for one mana is generally not a fair card. Often, you will see other sweepers, in the form of Explosives, Supreme Verdict, and/or Pyroclasm.
• Maindeck RIP. Some versions pack this powerful piece of hate in the maindeck, just because it incidentally hoses so many commonly played cards, as well as combos. While this piece of tech faded away, it’s starting to make a comeback, due to the power of delve.
• Maindeck Blood Moon. This has fallen out of favor, but some versions still like it. It’s still common in sideboards, due to how bad the archetype’s 12-post matchup is.
• Venser and Karakas. Venser is capable of some shenanigans, so don’t think Abrupt Decay will save you from everything!

DREDGE

Early Tells

• First land drop: LED Dredge, the more powerful of the two, in my opinion, typically plays three different lands, Cephalid Coliseum, City of Brass, and Gemstone Mine, so they will likely lead off with one of those, as you can’t be too picky with only twelve lands in your deck. Can you guess what land Manaless (HINT!) Dredge leads off with? Very good, class (I don’t know if you actually got this question right, but I sure hope you did).
• Possible turn one plays: LED Dredge wants a discard outlet, right from the get-go. It might be Putrid Imp, it might be Breakthrough. They may lead off with Faithless Looting or Careful Study. They could even lead off with LED, crack it for red, discard a non-zero number of dredgers and a Faithless Looting, then use the mana to flashback the Looting to start dredging. If they really need to discard something, they could even Cabal Therapy themselves. They have a lot of different lines they can take. Especially compared to Manaless Dredge, where the line is always draw-discard-dredge.
• Other major early tell: If they win the die roll, Manaless Dredge will choose to be on the draw. I probably far too often make the awful joke, when my opponent says that they will be on the play, of, “Well I guess that means you’re not playing Manaless Dredge.”

How You Die

• By not playing any graveyard hate.
• Oh, you wanted more than that? Ok, let me elaborate…
• Creature beats: Ichorids, and zombies, and 1/1s, oh my! Once they get a Bridge from Below in the yard, they can start generating a zombie every time Ichorid goes back to where he came from at EOT. Once they have multiple Bridges, you can get overrun rather quickly. There’s also Narcomoeba, who can peck at your life total, and act as a combination of flashback fuel and zombie fuel when used in conjunction with an active Bridge and a Therapy or Dread Return in the yard. Speaking of Dread Return, if there was ever a MUST-counter spell in this deck…
• Dread Return kill: the combo kill of choice in both versions of Dredge involves Returning a fatty. In Manaless, it really feels combo-y; the plan is to Dread Return a Balustrade Spy to mill their entire library. Then you use a Return that they just milled to get back Flayer of the Hatebound. And then, use another Return to get back a lethal Golgari Grave-Troll. LED Dredge sometimes uses a similar plan of Flayer into Grave-Troll, but Flame-Kin Zealot plus lethal zombie army is generally more ideal.

What to Watch for

• LED Dredge plays the more robust anti-hate cards. Manaless often scoops to something like Leyline of the Void or RIP. Still, though, graveyard hate is incredibly strong in this matchup. When someone brings Dredge to a tournament, they are basically banking on Legacy being diverse enough that people couldn’t afford to pack TOO much hate in their boards. Don’t hesitate to mulligan to your hate, especially if you’re up a game.
• One thing that I do often see players miss is opportunities to get rid of a Bridge (or multiple Bridges). Always remind yourself that if one of your creatures dies, so does Bridge. Bolting your own Delver might be correct at times. And flash creatures are fantastic for this, because they often won’t see it coming.. well.. you know, as long as you didn’t let them Therapy it away.

‘BELCHER

Early Tells

• First land drop: trick question! Well, sort of. they play one Taiga, and they have four copies of Land Grant to find it, though they don’t necessarily need to play to make other plays.
• Possible turn one plays: Kill you. I’m not even kidding. This is probably more appropriate in the “How you die” section. But individual cards that they can play include various free mana sources such as Spirit Guides, Petals, LEDs, Chrome Mox, the aforementioned Land Grant. They also have rituals and Tinder Wall for more mana. In post-board games, Xantid Swarm might be a turn one play to allow themselves to go off without you bothering them with silly countermagic.
• A somewhat significant early tell is if they take an inordinate amount of time to resolve their mulligan. While many combo decks will often take some time to grapple with the mulligan decision, ‘Belcher is the deck where this is far and away the most important decision they will make in the game.

How You Die

• Goblin Charbelcher: they vomit out their entire hand worth of mana sources, cast this, and shoot it at you. The important facts are that it takes seven mana to kill you, but they don’t have to do it all in one turn. If three of their sources are sticking around (Mox, extra Petals, Taiga) or if they have three or more cards in hand, it’s very probably that you are getting fired at on the second turn.
• Empty the Warrens: You’ve got a Force of Will in hand. You’re feeling pretty good about your chances of stopping the Charbelcher, then all of a sudden, they look at the last card in their hand and look at you and say, “Storm count six,” and before you know it, fourteen goblin tokens are about to come down, and your Force can only stop two of them. The right way to play this is to use the Force on the last ritual that would put them below four mana. In other words, if they have five mana floating and they use three of it to try to cast Seething Song, you may be better off countering the Song than waiting for their next play.

What to Watch for

• You know their namesake win-condition? Here’s a mistake that I made the first time I played against ‘Belcher that I don’t want to see you make. When they flip over their whole deck, at least have a look through it before acknowledging that you’re dead so you can see what their exact configuration is, especially if it’s game two so that you can see what sort of hate and/or protection they brought in against you. Most lists are fairly similar, but it doesn’t hurt to have a look, especially if you’re unfamiliar with the archetype.
• Reverent Silence. It’s pretty much their only answer to many of the hate cards in the format, and they are capable of Wishing for it.

TIN FINS

Early Tells

• First land drop: Mostly UB lands and the appropriate fetches, plus one or two white sources (Tundra, Scrublands). They also play Lotus Petals and a Chrome Mox or two.
• Possible turn one plays: they are capable of a turn one kill. One-mana plays include Entomb, Cabal Therapy, Reanimate, Thoughtseize, Dark Ritual (this means they’re probably going off), Children of Korlis, and various cantrips. Therapy is very strong in this deck, as they often run a playset alongside a playset of Gitaxian Probe.

How You Die

• Bin Griselbrand, reanimate Griselbrand, draw nearly their entire deck (thanks to Children of Korlis), Tendrils you out. They don’t actually need a very large storm count, because Griselbrand gets to swing, due to the fact that most of their reanimation spells grant haste.
• Because their reanimation spells of choice are the instant-speed Goryo’s Vengeance and Shallow Grave, they can also bring back Emrakul, while his shuffle trigger is on the stack. They usually play the Flying Spaghetti Monster as a one-of.

What to Watch for

• Unlike Reanimator, they have no countermagic, so don’t worry about getting into a counterwar. Their disruption suite is entirely discard-based. This makes Leyline of Sanctity pretty strong against them.
• Silence. Often, they’ll even run a single copy in the maindeck, to make it easier for them to go off.

HIGH TIDE

Early Tells

• First land drop: Island or blue fetch. Tide players often like to play fancy Islands, but that’s more of a personal style preference; I wouldn’t actually make any judgement calls based on that, as I personally play foil Unhinged basics in all of my decks.
• Possible turn one plays: cantrip or Top are the most common plays. They could also play out a Candelabra, though I think that’s a bit suspect, as it immediately tips their hand as to what they’re on (ok, they could also be UG 12-post, with their one basic Island). In game one, they’ll try to wait on their Candle until their go-off turn, or possibly the turn before to save a mana.
• Early on, they could look very similar to a Sol Land-less draw from Omnitell, if they don’t have a Top. If all you’re seeing are cantrips and Islands, it could be either deck. Candelabra and Merchant Scroll are typically the early telltale signs of High Tide.
• Your opponent is named Feline Longmore.

How You Die

• Four Islands plus High Tide into Time Spiral, or three Islands plus Candelabra/Turnabout into Time Spiral are typically the minimum requirements to get their engine going.
• The engine: they cast High Tide(s), use cards like Turnabout and Candles to net them extra mana, use cantrips and Merchant Scrolls to find more of the aforementioned cards to net even more mana, and then cast Time Spiral, which will net them mana if there are active Tides. Spiral allows them to rinse and repeat the whole process. Merchant Scroll can also find Cunning Wish, which can get Intuition, which can get Spiral, if they can’t find one through cantripping/drawing seven.
• Their two main kill-cards, both of which are accessed from the sideboard via Cunning Wish, are Brain Freeze and Blue Sun’s Zenith. They will either generate a large enough storm count or a large enough amount of mana to kill you with one of those two cards (by decking you, obviously).

What to Watch for

• They play some light countermagic to protect their combo. Typically, it’s a set of Force of Will and some number of either Pact of Negation or Flusterstorm, with the ability to use Cunning Wish to find additional copies.
• Counterbalance after sideboard. Feline popularized this plan in the last year, so if it’s been awhile since you’ve faced Tide, be prepared for this in postboard games. Because the deck already plays a full set of maindeck Tops, it’s a perfectly reasonable plan to side into CounterTop to help protect their engine.
• Remember that High Tide is symmetrical. Be aware that sometimes, after multiple Tides, you might be able to hardcast that Force of Will in your hand off a single Island.