If you’d like to participate in the AFR Season Legacy League, join our Discord and check out the #legacy-league channel or see our Legacy page. It’s completely free and takes place on Untap.in, a website similar to Cockatrice where you can play any deck for free. You can read more about the League format here. Signups close at 3 PM EDT (UTC-4) on August 13th.
Legacy is a fantastic format, full of all sorts of crazy cards and combos and decks that are wholly unique to it. It has a reputation for being among the most skill testing formats out there, as well as being hard to approach. The purpose of this primer is to get you over the initial hump and into the format as a whole, to help you isolate either a deck or an archetype to get started with, and to encourage you to sign up for the Untap Open League Legacy event, closing the 13th.
Archetypes
Legacy as a format is divided less into hard decks, though those also exist, than it is into broader archetypes. These archetypes have specific similarities within them and tend to have similar strengths and weaknesses.
Broadly, these are divided into Fair Blue, Fair Nonblue, and Combo. The rule of thumb is that Fair Blue beats Combo, Fair Nonblue beats Fair Blue, and Combo beats Fair Nonblue. Specific decks within these categories can deviate from this, but as a general rule of thumb, it serves decently. Let’s do a surface dive into these archetypes, look at the subarchetypes, and discuss some specific decks within them.
Fair Blue
Fair Blue is the most popular Legacy archetype by a mile. It’s the quintessential Legacy archetype that plays 14 cards across basically every subarchetype within it: 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder, 4 Force of Will, and 2 Force of Negation. The cantrips (Brainstorm and Ponder) let the deck sort through its cards to find narrower but more powerful cards to combat whatever the Fair Blue deck is fighting. Force of Will and Force of Negation serve to stop Combo decks on the first turn of the game, when other decks will not have the ability to stop them.
You might think that this is imbalanced or unfair that these decks can stop whatever happens on the first turn without tapping for mana, but this is also the lynchpin of the format.
If the Fair Blue decks weren’t around to stop the Combo decks, then Combo would run over the Fair Nonblue decks. Fair Blue having this capability let’s the Fair Nonblue decks exist. Further, because all these powerful counterspells are card disadvantage, it allows for the Fair Nonblue decks to leverage against the Fair Blue decks.
Within the Fair Blue field, the main archetypes are Delver and UWx Control, with Ninjas and other shells being a minority.
Delver
Delver is an archetype that has existed since it’s namesake Delver of Secrets made its debut in 2011. This archetype is the quintessential tempo deck for the entirety of Magic. The idea is simple and straightforward: stop them from killing you, play an early threat, and keep it on the board for long enough to kill your opponent in the meantime.
The Delver package, on top of the Fair Blue package, includes a playset of Daze and Wasteland as a mana denial and tempo package, and Delver of Secrets as an aggressive, on color one drop. Currently the best iterations are in URx, and leverage playsets of Lightning Bolt for removal and reach and Expressive Iteration to help with card filtering and late game. Some Modern Horizons 2 cards that are currently seeing widespread play are Dragon’s Rage Channeler, Murktide Regent, and Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer.
The focus of the deck is to always be on the attack and slow down your opponent’s gameplan. Game 1 will always have broad, universal answers, while the deck boards into brutally efficient cards from the sideboard such as Pyroblast, Meltdown, and Submerge.
Check out a sample UR Delver list below:
Or if you prefer to try an offbeat Delver list, this BUG Delver deck includes both a beatdown and combo plan:
While RUG has fallen out of favor, Tarmogoyf, Sylvan Library, and Klothys, God of Destiny are all still powerhouses.
UWx Control
Until a few years ago, this had been known as just Miracles, as it played Terminus as a one mana sweeper. Then F.I.R.E. design push began, and the deck adapted several threats from the Modern Horizons, Eldraine, and Theros sets.
Currently the most successful iterations are Bant (UWG) control decks, utilizing the power of Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath and Endurance as haymakers and threats. They rely on cards like Swords to Plowshares as a way to universally deal with resolved opposing threats, and Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Teferi, Time Raveler as incredibly potent planeswalkers.
The focus here is to slow down the pace of the game to the point where larger threats like Uro and Endurance can shine. They can abuse the power of planeswalkers to generate consistent value to go over the top of more aggressive shells or to shut out more combo-oriented shells.
A pretty stock Bant Control list:
Or if you prefer the clean, classic Miracles:
Other Fair Blue
The current top dog of the format as of writing is Ragavanstill. This deck is kind of a fusion between the aggro shell of Delver and the UWx control shells. It leans on Standstill to fuel its hands with interactive spells, while Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer serves as the beatdown.
Infect technically falls under this category. While you could always die to an early Invigorate + Berserk on turn two, it’s more common that the Infect player will set up to kill on turns three or four with plenty of backup. As the Poison counters never leave, it can also just get it for 10 points over a longer game, a few at a time.
Ninjas is a tempo deck that excels in holding raw card advantage through the namesake Ninjas. Led by Yuriko, the Tiger’s Shadow and Ingenious Infiltrator, it aims to deny the opponent the ability to resolve anything meaningful while keeping the hand fully stocked. Retrofitter Foundry is the secret sauce of the deck, turning Ornithopters and Changeling Outcasts into 4/4s for free, at instant speed.
Finally, if you want to kick it very old-school, the format that best supports Merfolk is actually Legacy. With a few recent additions from Modern Horizons 2, the deck is seeing a bit more success now.
Fair Nonblue
Fair Nonblue tends to lean into a combination of fast mana, Aether Vial, Wasteland, and engines to go over the top of Fair Blue. Under this umbrella, there are many decks and variations to play, and there tends to be a lot of variety within it. The main subarchetypes are Stompy decks and Aether Vial decks.
Stompy
Stompy decks utilize Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors to play out cards like Chalice of the Void x=1 and Trinisphere ahead of schedule, then follow with big, midrangey threats to close out games quickly. They tend to give Fair Blue trouble, as cantrips like Brainstorm and Ponder line up poorly against the disruptive artifacts, and their threats are bigger than Fair Blue tends to play. The main variants here are Eldrazi Stompy and Red/Moon/Dragon Stompy.
Eldrazi Stompy
When you generate a lot of fast, colorless mana, the Eldrazi from Oath of the Gatewatch are both easy to slot in and effective. Thought-Knot Seer is one of the best (effective) two drops ever printed, while Reality Smasher goes bigger than almost anything else in the format that’s played fairly.
This variant is weak to the other Stompy variant…
Red Stompy
Historically this has gone by Dragon Stompy, Moon Stompy, Red Stompy, Chandra Stompy, most recently even Giant Stompy. The basic idea is the same: Lotus Petal, Simian Spirit Guide, or Chrome Mox turn one lands early Blood Moon, Chalice of the Void, or Trinisphere. Follow up with other big threats and close out the game while other decks stumble. The recent addition of Fury also helps to stabilize against early plays easily!
Other Stompy
Steel Stompy takes the Stompy prison package and half-jams with Affinity.
Aether Vial Decks
These decks utilize the tempo and mana cheating power of Aether Vial to tempo opponents and sneak around counterspells. Often, it’s combined with creature synergies and a mana denial package of Wasteland and Rishadan Port.
Death and Taxes
The perennial Vial deck, D&T has been a mainstay since Thalia, Guardian of Thraben got printed in Dark Ascension. This deck always plays a playset of her, Mother of Runes, and Stoneforge Mystic, but has a surprisingly deep number of flexible slots. This is supported by the inclusion of Recruiter of the Guard, which typically finds every creature in the deck.
This is what I would say is a very typical current list:
You can play all sorts of great cards such as Solitude, Charming Price, Phyrexian Revoker, Sanctifier en-Vec, Palace Jailer, Spirit of the Labyrinth, and even Walking Ballista.
Goblins
Goblins has been on the rise again in recent years. Utilizing the engine card of Goblin Ringleader to keep up card advantage and Goblin Matron to find silver bullets, this deck is as much a control deck as a beatdown deck. The recent printings of Muxus, Goblin Grandee and Sling-Gang Lieutenant gave the deck a more explosive endgame twice over and also gave it more game against some of its worst matchups: combo decks.
With Adventures in the Forgotten Realms, the card Hobgoblin Bandit Lord is being tested and trialed, particularly in the combo variant of the deck.
I ran in the Strixhaven season of UOL Legacy with a list similar to this one, which I’d consider fairly stock. You can read about it here.
Esper Vial
This is a subarchetype on the decline right now, but I wouldn’t count it out. It gets to utilize Recruiter of the Guard but also abuses blue and black low-cost creatures and spells in order to out-tempo the opponents. It bridges the gap between Aether Vial and Fair Blue, having elements of each.
Other Fair Nonblue
Lands is a great and weird deck. The biggest oddball in the format, this is a green-red land-based control shell with possible combo finish. There is a ton of power in operating mostly on game actions that cannot be responded to, such as playing a land card. You can also splash white with Flagstones of Trokair and newcomer Prismatic Ending. There’s so many interactions in the deck itself, especially with Thespian’s Stage. I’d recommend reading a primer before playing this, but it is a hugely skill-rewarding deck.
Madness is a recent up-and-coming deck that utilizes powerful discard outlets like Lion’s Eye Diamond and Putrid Imp with Madness cards like Basking Rootwalla and Blazing Rootwalla to generate tons of real and virtual card advantage. Anje’s Ravager is an all-star, as it can draw 3 cards a turn for free while also letting you cast cheap or free spells with Madness, or setting up Vengevine and Anger.
Pikula or Deadguy Ale is a black-white midrange deck that attacks hands and backs it up with a Stoneforge Mystic package. I’d really like to see someone mess around with the new inclusions of Grief and Solitude with Ephemerate, as a similar deck has been taking off in Modern. Legacy inclusions like Mox Diamond and Hymn to Tourach could give even more value to the shell.
C-c-c-c-combo
Combo breaks down into five categories: Storm, Depths, Show & Tell, Graveyard, and Creature. Each of these operate on different axes and utilize and exploit different aspects of the game.
Storm
This is the combo style that 99% of people unfamiliar with the format will think of when they hear “Legacy.” If you want to show someone a degenerate deck doing degenerate things, grab one of the two lists and pop off a Tendrils of Agony for a storm count of 10 or more on turn one.
The two storm decks are The Epic Storm/TES and Ad Nauseam Tendrils/ANT.
TES
The Epic Storm is a deck that has an official site and group that tests and maintains it. Check out TheEpicStorm.com for the latest information, tons of primers, individual card discussions, matchup breakdowns, and sideboarding guides. They’ll give a better breakdown than I ever could.
The main goal of TES is to generate a crap-ton of mana as early as possible and abuse Burning Wish and Ad Nauseam to set up more spells into Tendrils of Agony.
ANT
Where TES is generally about generating a lethal turn as fast as possible, ANT takes its time. This deck will set up and make sure its storm turn is guaranteed as much as possible. It utilizes mainboard discard in Thoughtseize and Duress and cantrips in Brainstorm and Ponder. Eventually, it can use Ad Nauseam to draw a ton of cards or Past in Flames to generate the required storm count to kill.
Dark Depths
Dark Depths is a card that looks like a crappy dollar rare on first blush. Coming into play with 10 ice counters on it and then requiring a total of 30 mana investment before you can get a flying, indestructible 20/20 black Avatar token named Marit Lage seems like a loose card to play. The trick with it is that you almost never actually pay 30 mana to flip Dark Depths. Instead, there are three major ways you abuse Dark Depths various qualities.
The main one is that Dark Depths is a land, which is abusable with Thespian’s Stage. You can copy Depths with Stage. Then, the Legend Rule will kick in. You put Depths into the graveyard, and then Thespian’s Stage is a Dark Depths with no counters on it. It will then become a Marit Lage. Once Stage has copied Depths, there is no stopping it from becoming Marit Lage, because it is a trigger that will constantly check itself.
The second way is to play Vampire Hexmage. Hexmage can target any permanent and was probably designed as a countermeasure to +1/+1 counters and planeswalkers. Fortunately for Dark Depths, it is a permanent with counters on it. Sacrifice the Hexmage to get a Marit Lage, easy.
The third way, and least built around, is to find a way to stop Dark Depths from ever getting counters on it in the first place. The most common way this is abused is by letting an opponent play a Blood Moon, playing a Depths after, and then removing the Blood Moon. Because Depths entered as a Mountain, it will never have gained counters in the first place.
The main Dark Depths lists divide between green-white and green-black.
GW Depths
This is currently the most meta of the Depths builds. It began as an offshoot of some Maverick lists playing a copy of the Thespian’s Stage combo before, over time, becoming its own focused build. This was really cemented with Elvish Reclaimer becoming an additional effective copy of Knight of the Reliquary.
GB Depths
There are two subarchetypes within Green-Black Depths that operate on very different axes. The main distinction here is that black allows for discard spells and the use of Vampire Hexmage as a major secondary combo piece.
Turbo Depths
As the name implies, this is focused on going for Dark Depths sacrificing as fast as possible, on turns one and two as often as possible. This is aided by cards like Lotus Petal or Mox Diamond and Elvish Spirit Guide to generate more mana early on, and Rite of Consumption as a way to get around having to attack. Not of This World serves as protection from Swords to Plowshares.
Slow Depths
Where Turbo Depths threatens creating a Marit Lage before most people are ready to deal with one, Slow Depths threatens to get a Marit Lage at some point. Meanwhile, it is going to strip your hand, your lands, your field, and your sanity. You have to respect the card advantage that Dark Confidant and Sylvan Library represent. And eventually, because it will have drawn so many cards and stripped so many of yours, they will get a Marit Lage.
Show and Tell
Show and Tell is a card that I can’t quite fathom how it got through development, other than the fact that it was printed during Urza’s Saga. A three mana sorcery that lets you put in any artifact, creature, land, or enchantment was never going to be a card that remains just okay in the long run.
Over time, with better and better and bigger and bigger creatures, the power of Show and Tell grew. With the printings of Emrakul the Aeons Torn and Griselbrand, the deck finally solidified around a solid creature base.
Sneak and Show
The main known Show and Tell deck also utilizes Sneak Attack as a way to cheat its creatures into play. It can play with or without an Omniscience and Cunning Wish package. It runs Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors to get turn one and two Show and Tells, and protects them with Force of Will. The blue maindeck allows it to fight against other counterspells, while red makes the sideboard better against other blue decks.
UG Omnishow
A recent innovation, UG Omnishow utilizes a few ‘fair’ creatures in Ice-Fang Coatl and Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath in order to force its opponents to deal with both a beatdown and a combo. These builds all utilize the power of Omniscience, allowing an Emrakul the Aeons Torn to come down with an extra turn more often than not. Veil of Summer pulls extra weight in stopping countermagic and discard.
Graveyard Strategies
Graveyards are supposed to be where cards go to die. Maybe occasionally you can grab back a creature, but most times what is dead is dead. Unless you play a graveyard deck.
Reanimator
Reanimator for years has been the big turn one combo deck to watch out for. Utilizing a main line Dark Ritual, Thoughtseize, Entomb, Reanimate to get Griselbrand into play while also refilling the hand to do it again. The deck also uses Grief and Archon of Cruelty from MH2.
Hogaak
When Hogaak, Risen Necropolis was first previewed for Modern Horizons 1, my initial reaction was “Looks decent, but not oppressive.” I turned out to be right… for Legacy.
Hogaak, Risen Necropolis plus Altar of Dementia plus some number of Bridge from Below can start a loop of making a giant zombie and milling yourself, eventually ending with hasty Hogaak, Vengevines, Gravecrawlers, and Bloodghasts crashing in.
Creature Combo
These combo decks rely on or heavily utilize creatures in carrying out their gameplan. They’re as varied as their combo pieces.
Elves!
Elves! (the exclamation mark is mandatory) is a combo deck built around the mana engine of Heritage Druid and Nettle Sentinel. The main draw engine is Glimpse of Nature, while Natural Order serves as a quick way to end the game with a Craterhoof Behemoth. This deck was the biggest winner from Jumpstart, as Allosaurus Shepherd makes the deck unable to be interacted with on the stack. This deck is also strange in that it is excellent against both Fair Blue and Fair Nonblue decks, but is crippled by its generally atrocious Combo matchups.
Painter
Painter’s Servant + Grindstone is a classic way to instantaneously win the game. In Legacy, Painter also serves as a great way to turn on color-hosing cards like Pyroblast. The deck often utilizes Imperial Recruiter as a way to toolbox.
Aluren
Read our very own primer on the rising star of Aluren here by UncleFlacco, it goes into great depth.
Wrap Up
I hope this quick dive into the Legacy format has inspired you to take a look at our next league. The format is far from being all-combo or all-blue, and even within Fair Blue and Combo there’s a lot of nuance in choosing the right deck and playing out your gameplan. If you have any questions or would like to talk about decks you may want to play, feel free to contact me or chat in the UOL Legacy channel. You can access our Discord here, or check out our Legacy League page.
