Investing in Legacy

Me: "So if I could offer you 1 piece of advice, it is to get into Legacy RIGHT NOW!!! It's so worth it! Legacy is a ton of fun as it is always changing and bound to never settle, so no matter how long you play it won't get stale."

You: "But I don't have endless flowing rolls of cash to spend on dual lands and Force of Will"

There are so many budget options for legacy it's crazy. Obviously for Dual lands we can use Ravnica block lands, which I covered here, but if you're playing allied colors you can use Scars lands too! Force of Will is not a card that can really be replaced by any other card, but who says you have to play blue? Of the 27 decks I listed in my last post, 10 play Force of Will, so you have more choices in Legacy that don't play Force of Will than you do in all of Standard. Aside from Duals, Tarmogoyf, and Force, there are very few overwhelmingly expensive cards. Check out this storm deck that just finished 3rd at SCG: LA (all prices TCG medium):

4x Chrome Mox                15.09,  60.36
4x Lion's Eye Diamond      40.59,  162.36
4x Lotus Petal                    3.52,    14.08

1x Ad Nauseaum               0.67
4x Brainstorm                    1.28,   5.12
4x Dark Ritual                   0.89,   3.56
3x Orim's Chant                15.68,  47.04
1x Silence                         1.08

4x Burning Wish                8.22,  32.88
4x Duress                          0.28,  1.12
1x Empty the Warrens       0.35
4x Infernal Tutor                4.89,  19.56
4x Ponder                         0.46,   1.84
4x Rite of Flame                2.50,   10.00
1x Tendrils of Agony         1.54

1x Bloodstained Mire       16.29
2x City of Brass                3.83,   7.66
4x Gemstone Mine            3.55,   14.20
1x Misty Rainforest          11.81
1x Poluted Delta              25.51
1x Scalding Tarn              13.20
2x Underground Sea       116.52, 233.04
1x Volcanic Island            68.33
Sideboard:
4x Xantid Swarm             2.22,   8.88
2x Echoing Truth              0.57,   1.14
1x Krosan Grip                2.48
1x Wipe Away                 0.35
1x Dimishing Returns        0.62
1x Empty the Warrens      0.35
1x Grapeshot                   0.22
1x Ill-Gotten Gains           3.52
1x Shattering Spree          1.45
1x Tendrils of Agony        1.54
1x Thoughtseize                23.22

If you want to play this exact list starting with no cards, it will cost you approximately $800. But we can make some easy changes to save a ton of money:

Orim's Chant: 15.68
Silence: 1.08

I'm willing to bet the reason he played 3 Orim's Chant and 1 Silence is because he didn't have the 4th chant. I personally have 0 Orim's Chant, but a ton of Silence

Arguably the coolest page in my trade binder. BTW I need 4 more foil Silence!

By switching the 3 Orim's Chant to Silence we will save $43.80.

The next place we can save money, as will always be the case, is in the mana. This deck only runs 3 dual lands, which are both islands, so Misty Rainforest works just the same as Polluted Delta.

Polluted Delta: 25.51
Bloodstained Mire: 16.29
Misty Rainforest: 11.81

By switching the 1x Polluted Delta and 1x Bloodstained Mire to Misty Rainforests, we will save $18.09

Underground Sea: 116.52
Volcanic Island: 68.33
Watery Grave: 8.27
Steam Vents: 9.00

By switching the 2x Underground Sea and 1x Volcanic Islands into their respective Ravnica lands we will save $275.83!!

So just by switching those 8 cards out, we take that $800 deck, which isn't too much more expensive than Standard decks (4x Jace TMS + 3x Gideon Jura + 4x Stoneforge Mystic = $595.32), and we cut it down to an equally powerful $462.28 deck, that's 43.2% off! The best part of this is that these cards will probably never lose value (in fact they will all probably go up) and the deck will never rotate out, so you can buy/trade up to this deck and never have to spend a penny on magic again for your cards! Compare this to standard, where you need to keep on buying packs, boxes, and new singles, it all adds up fast!

Let's say you're a purist who must have the best cards possible for your deck, how can we reduce our costs? Quality matters to some people and doesn't matter at all to others. I recently traded for 2 Underground Seas that were fairly beat, which I valued all the way down to $60 (the cards weren't actually that terrible and were a solid $75). Once you sleeve the cards up it doesn't matter if the back has some serious whitening on the back because it's in a sleeve! Mark got an even better deal than me recently when he was offered a Force of Will that fought the Washermachine and barely made it out in one piece for just $25. Who cares it looks like crap, it's a playable Force of Will! After slamming that trade, Mark mentioned he may just get the card painted to make it look better.

Sure, there are lots of cards in Legacy that are expensive, but that doesn't mean you simply can't play. There are plenty of decks that are as cheap as Standard decks, and of course when it's all said and done the deck is always playable. If you want it, put in 5 minutes of thinking to identify budget options, trade/buy lower quality cards for less money, and soon it's not that hard any more!

Until next time, stay classy!