War of the Spark and Modern Horizons are now out and having their fun terrorizing the Legacy metagame. Wrenn and Six, Dreadhorde Arcanist, Force of Negation, Narset, Parter of Veils, and more have all made drastic changes to the way people are playing Legacy.
If you’re in the Legacy seat for the SCG Team Open in Philadelphia this weekend, here are some of the decks that I would think twice about bringing.
Grixis Control
I commonly joke about how boring Grixis Control is to play. It’s the vanilla ice cream of Legacy decks. It’s not exciting, but it’s fine and gets the job done. However, I’m not so convinced anymore.
There may be some form of Grixis Control that can still compete, but the traditional build with loads of two-for-ones such as Baleful Strix and Kolaghan’s Command doesn’t cut it anymore. Two of the best Delver strategies, Temur and Four-Color, are diversifying their threat base with Wrenn and Six. This gives them access to a recurring Wasteland while also stripping you of the ability to stick Baleful Strix.
Why let those Delver decks have all the fun? If you must play a blue-black control strategy, I recommend playing Four-Color Control with your own Wrenn and Six. I’ve found the mana in this deck better than traditional Grixis; Wrenn and Six is just that busted.
Four-Color Leovold, by egadd2894
| Creatures (7) 2 Baleful Strix 3 Snapcaster Mage 2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest Planeswalkers (8) 3 Wrenn an Six 3 Dack Fayden 2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor Spells (25) 4 Brainstorm 4 Ponder 2 Preordain 2 Thoughtseize 1 Inquisition of Kozilek 4 Force of Will 2 Abrupt Decay 3 Punishing Fire 1 Fatal Push 1 Liliana’s Triumph 1 Kolaghan’s Command | Lands (22) 4 Polluted Delta 3 Scalding Tarn 1 Bloodstained Mire 3 Grove of the Burnwillows 2 Underground Sea 2 Volcanic Island 1 Bayou 1 Tropical Island 1 Badlands 1 Wasteland 2 Island 1 Swamp Sideboard (15) 2 Plague Engineer 2 Force of Negation 1 Pernicious Deed 2 Nihil Spellbomb 1 Hydroblast 3 Pyroblast 1 Notion Thief 1 Kolaghan’s Command 2 Surgical Extraction |
Storm
To be honest I’ve never been that high on Storm, but now more than ever I can’t recommend it.
Mono-Red Prison has begun picking up with the addition of the London Mulligan. A Storm friend of mine always jokes that his record at events is “X and Chalice,” and now they get to look at seven cards each time they mulligan to sculpt the perfect opener against you.
Veil of Summer from traditionally good matchups like Depths is a beating. It’s bad enough that they get to counter your Duress and draw a card, but they also time walk you as you’re unable to Tendrils them that turn.
Finally, Force of Negation gives blue decks additional leverage, especially in the early game. Previously, there was no worse feeling against Storm than having to choose between doing nothing or tapping low on mana and potentially losing.
On top of all that, we have all these fun new cards to play and you want to play Storm?
Death and Taxes
It’s a scary time for all your little white creatures. Two new cards, Wrenn and Six and Plague Engineer, are both scary to face down as a Death and Taxes player.
Plague Engineer can lock you out of casting quite a few of your smaller creatures. Then when all the dust settles, it leaves behind a 2/2 Deathtouching Moat to gum up the ground. It does all this while avoiding the tax effect from Thalia, Guardian of Thraben.
Wrenn and Six is the real killer, though. The plus one, when paired with a fetchland, guarantees a land drop from your opponent for the rest of the game. On the downtick, none of your X/1 creatures will survive. Having a two-mana play that invalidates so many angles of attack from Death and Taxes is a huge beating. I would not want to be playing Death and Taxes with this card sitting across from me.
If that weren’t enough, the shift in the metagame has also pushed out good matchups like Storm and Depths.
Grixis Delver
Grixis Delver is easily my favorite deck in Legacy, but even I have dropped it for the allure of basic lands. If you’re not up for the nirvana of playing basic lands, you may as well just jump off the deep end and add a fourth color to your Delver deck. With Wrenn and Six in the format, there’s little reason to stop at three colors. If you’re able to stick a Wrenn and Six, your mana becomes considerably better than Grixis while also having access to additional cards like Abrupt Decay, Tarmogoyf, and Sylvan Library.
If you’re going to play Delver, either play Izzet or Four Color.
The Decks to Play
If I had to narrow my deck choices down to three, they would easily be Mono-Red Prison, Izzet Delver, and Four-Color Delver.
Mono-Red has seen a huge boost with the London Mulligan and with Wrenn and Six in the format, your worst matchup Death and Taxes doesn’t seem like a great choice. Don’t let your opponents play four colors, let them play one: red.
Then there’s Izzet Delver. Basic lands, unbelievable consistency with its many cantrips, and a solid threat base. It’s a pretty vanilla choice but there’s a lot to like about Izzet Delver.
If you’re feeling particularly spicy though, you can toss those basic lands in the trash and sleeve up Four-Color Delver. You get access to Wrenn and Six, Tarmogoyf, and all the great sideboard cards that you could ever ask for.
If you’re wondering about other Legacy decks, feel free to reach out on Twitter. Until then I hope to see you slinging some Legacy in SCG Philadelphia this weekend.