Welcome to another UOL Legacy League everyone! 

Before we dive into the meta report, I’d actually like to give a huge thank you and sayonara to Dank_confidant, who’s been Legacy T.O. at UOL for a while now. He’ll be stepping down from his role after this season to focus on real life stuff. He ran Legacy with both passion and great humor and will be missed. 

If you want to see all of our decklists and the current standings for Legacy, check out our Legacy format page.

Macroarchetypes

The breakdown of the marcoarchetypes this season looks like this: 

Only four aggro or tempo decks and seven combo decks is quite unusual for the Legacy meta. The presence of only a pair of decks designed to slow the game down on top means we’re looking at a league that is likely to be brutally fast and hard hitting. I expect to see a lot of very frenetic, bloody games. 

When we break this down into deck archetypes, we once again see our usual glorious UOL spread of decks represented: 

Only three decks have more than one representative, meaning we have fifteen distinct decks being played by eighteen players. You’re highly unlikely to be facing the same deck from round to round, and that means that matchup knowledge will be very key in deciding these matches. 

Let’s break down some of the decks we see here. 

8Cast

Neither of our 8Cast pilots managed to convince themselves to play the new hotness, Card not found, which means they’re on the much less explosive version of the deck. 8Cast was still great before Cannoneer, however, and will still be a threat. The card advantage engine backed by counterspells and light prison elements also sports an artifact toolbox thanks to Card not found. It can play the beatdown in combo matchups and the control in tempo mirrors quite well. The sideboard can be configured to the meta and boasts silver bullet artifacts such as Card not found can be slotted in as 1-ofs due to the power of Card not found. I’d be quite shocked if one of these two didn’t end up in the Top 8. 

Nusk went with a slightly different-from-the-norm version, with a lean towards the Affinity decks we saw just after MH2 was released. The playset of Card not found enables fast and consistent Card not found and powers up Card not found. The white splash for Card not found and Card not found is also quite potent. 

Depths

Depths has been a historically underrepresented strategy in UOL. Last league’s winner, ssch21, decided to follow one league win on combo with another league on a different combo to aim for the back-to-back. This deck is very annoying to face, as you have to deal with both a combo gameplan of Card not found + Card not found backed by a Card not found as well as a green toolbox midrange plan built around Card not found backed by tons of great white removal. Disrespect the fair side, and Card not founds will beat you down. Deal too much on the fair side, and you’ll face the Card not found, a black, flying, indestructible 20/20 creature token. The only knock I have against the deck is not finding room for at least one copy of Card not found. 

TES

Our runner up for the Crimson Vow season decided to half run it back. He’s on Card not found, but something a little more mainstream than Peer Into the Abyss Storm. It’s zachinflames’ time to shine on TES! 

The current version of TES is tuned to deal with Card not found quite handily, playing six Card not found effects. However, that may just mean a lot of free slots to sideboard out this league, since we actually have only eight pilots playing Card not found. The rest of this deck is all action, however, and quite capable of stringing together explosive turns that win on the spot. The lack of Card not found in the league means Zach will have to play around more static prison elements postboard, but I do think this looks like a great metagame choice.

Jeskai HullDay

One of the control deck flavors of the month is UWx Card not found + Card not found. This deck is very annoying for both blue mirrors, where Card not found can be deployed in response to cantrips naturally, and for non-blue decks, where the board is controlled til the combo is pulled off and the gamestate is essentially unrecoverable. 

Pinecone has brought a more all-in version, featuring mainboard Card not found and the greatest thief in the multiverse, Card not found. Dack + Card not found has been playable in the past, and while Card not found isn’t quite as punishing as Thief, it still will quickly lock opponents out of their hands. 

Trinket Stompy

The award for the most Neon Dynasty cards in this league goes to Viperfang on Trinket Stompy. A deck specialist to a T, Viper has been playing this for a while to varying levels of success. He’s the type of pilot who complains about his Card not found on 0 getting blown up, hears me joke about Card not found, and then puts it in the sideboard. 

For this league, Viper has packed three cards from NEO: Card not found and Card not found in the main and Card not found in the side. Card not found can use noncreature artifacts like Card not found to ramp out other cards. Card not found is a good catch-all bouncer. Card not found is one Viper is personally very high on, valuing it close to a Card not found. 

Temporal Doomsday

The final deck I want to look at is our dear T.O, Dank’s: it’s time to jam a Card not found, stack two Card not found on top, and kill someone with a Card not found. 

There’s been a not-insignificant amount of stir over this deck (before Card not found hype drowned it out). Dealing with both the Card not found/tempo side of the deck makes you naturally weaker against the Card not found side and vice versa. Card not found is good in both plans as it lets you chain into lethal turns with creatures naturally on board, bait out counters, or even build effective pass-the-turn piles with Card not found. Card not found, Card not found, and Card not found are all great at protecting a Card not found you’re trying to resolve. Dank has also packed the best anti-blue Card not found pile tech in Card not found, naming Wizard for an uncounterable Card not found. He also has great fair matchup tech with the ability to simply cast Card not found into Card not found to snipe every creature off the board and threaten an ultimate as early as turn 3 with the pair of Card not found. 

This is a super spicy pile. In general, Card not found has always seemed like an underutilized card in Legacy, since our plethora of cantrips let us set it up and the tempo shell of Delver has always had the capability to just kill people. 

Wrap

That’s all I have time and room to write about now. What are your favorite decks from this season? What would you want to pilot into this? Is there a deck I should have covered, but didn’t? Let us know in the comments or feel free to hit us up on social media.