You Shouldn't Dread my Return

You should know, if you don't already, that I am really loving Legacy even though I don't get to play a lot. I have more legacy decks put together and proxied up than I do standard decks. I am more excited when I trade for sweet Legacy cards than sweet standard cards, and I enjoy playing Legacy events more than Standard events. Why? Who wants to play the same matchup all day? I remember reading a tournament report a couple weeks ago where the guy was playing RUG, and he had 7 strait UW Caw-Blade matchups IN A ROW! Seriously?!?! That's got to be the most boring day in the world! Sure, he had a good matchup and casually walked into the top 16, but that sucks! Playing the same matchup for 7 hours strait!?!?!

Here are viable Standard decks right now, with variations on the Archetype being tabbed in:
UW Caw-Blade
-DarkBlade
-Caw-Ping
UB Control
Valakut
-Valakut w/Cobra
Boros
Mono-Red
-Mono-Red Control
Naya
-GW Stompy
WW Quest
-GW Quest
RUG
-BUG
-UG Wave
BR Vampires
-MB Vampires
UB Infect
Grixis Tezzeret
-Kuldotha Tezzeret

That's 11 Archetypes, with a total of 21 decks after counting variations. Let's compare this to Legacy:

Countertop
Fish
Goblins
Show + Tell
Sneak Attack
Reanimator
Dredge
Mono-Brown
Zoo
RDW
PainterStone
Tendrils Storm
Charbelcher
Elves
Affinity
Team America
43 Lands
BUG
High Tide
Cephalid Breakfast
Aggro-Loam
WW
U/G Vine
Natural Order
Junk
Enchantress

That's 26 archetypes that I could think of off the top of my head! This isn't even counting variations like Green + Taxes, which is WW splashing green, or New Horizons, which is a spin off of Zoo. I am willing to bet I missed an incredibly obvious deck from this list too!

As I just typed that scentence I remembered the deck mark is building: Doomsday

Ok, 27 archetypes! Basically, you can go to 3 10-round events and not see any decks twice!

But Ryan! 3 * 10 = 30, and you only listed 27 decks!

Remember, this list is the major archetypes and you have to expect a good amount of Rogue decks too. I remember when the legacy events at toys had Tooth + Nail, Mill, and mono-black as huge decks. Maybe someone will play my Valakut deck? Maybe their favorite old standard deck like Rebels? When you're playing Legacy, you can do whatever you want!!!

So, I recently traded for half of a Dredge deck the other day, and it's my new Toy. My current list looks like this:

4x Narcomeba
4x Bloodghast
3x Ichorid
4x Golgari Grave-Troll
4x Stinkweed Imp
1x Golgari Thug
4x Putrid Imp
3x Tireless Tribe
1x Flame-Kin Zealot

1x Darkblast
3x Dread Return
4x Careful Study
3x Breakthrough
4x Bridge From Below
3x Cabal Therapy

4x City of Brass
4x Undiscovered Paradise
4x Cephalid Colossium
2x Dakmor Salvage

This deck is really fun, and you often win by turn 4, by Dread Returning up a Flame-Kin Zealot with at least 2 Bridge from Below in your graveyard to make 7 3/3s with haste attacking for 21. This deck is also suprisingly difficult to play though, and you can never tell how the game will run based on your opening hand, because it all depends on the dredge.

This is easily the most flavorful deck I have ever played. Think about what you are doing as the planeswalker: rotting your own brain away and ressurect a massive zombie horde from the dead to do your bidding. That's awesome! The Father of the Machines would be proud!

My other legacy decks that I have on hand are Bant Countertop and Reanimator. One deck I really want to make is Painter's Stone. This deck relies on the interaction between Painter's Servant and Grindstone. With the 2 in play together, 1 activation of Grindstone will mill your opponent's entire deck! It's a UR deck, with cards like Force of Will and Red Elemental Blast becoming epic when Painter's Servant names Blue. This deck is so awesome it can even win on turn 2:

T1: Mountain, Goblin Welder
T2: Ancient Tomb, Grindstone, Painter's Servant, LED, win

Yeah, it's a good feeling. The only problem with me making this deck is I have absolutely nothing for it! I had 2 Grindstone, but I traded those for a Force of Will (profit!).

I am really loving legacy, I can't even keep one train of thought going! Take a moment to review what I said at the top of the article about how many decks there are in the Meta, almost 30. You want to know why Legacy will always remain an awesome, dynamic format? You only get 15 sideboard slots, but you have to sideboard against 30 decks. So every single card in your sideboard has to come in against 2 different decks, or you will have matchups you have nothing against. But wait, now you only have a 1 card sideboard against every deck! That's not going to change a lot.... Because of the sheer number of decks you have to beat, it's impossible to have good answers to everything, which means the meta will never get stale! As one deck gets popular, people will add more cards to beat that genre of deck to their sideboard, and in doing so they leave themselves open for another deck to catch them with their pants down. So every week, a different deck will be on top. Here are the winning decks form the past 8 legacy SCG Opens:
Painter's Stone
Affinity
Merfolk
High Tide
Team America
Countertop
Goblins
Goblins

Compare this to the past 8 Standard Opens:
Caw-Blade
Caw-Blade
Valakut
RDW
Caw-Blade
Vampires
RUG
Boros

With the expection of 2 weeks strait Goblins 2 months ago, a very distinctly different deck has taken #1 in Legacy each week. Goblins is a beatdown deck, Countertop is all counterspells, Team America is pure hand and mana disruption, Hide Tide is an infinite man combo, Merfolk is an aggro-control deck, affinity is straight beats, and Painter's Stone is a fast combo deck.

Compare this to Standard which had Caw-Blade win 3 times, a fast beatdown deck win 3 times, and a ramp deck win twice. Not a whole ton of variation....

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. Nevermind when a new card comes out that generates a new deck (Knight of the Reliquary for the Lands deck), makes a weak deck stronger (Ad Nauseaum for Storm), or when a card gets banned/unbanned (Survival/Time Spiral) which shakes things up.

Until next time, Stay Classy!