Legacy is the most open format for brewing new decks.
While many players will point to Modern as the brewer’s paradise, Legacy has many tools to help aid brewing and fight against more mainstream decks. Let’s look at one of my favorite brews that I enjoy jamming from time to time.
Dali by GlassNinja
[Editor’s Note: I see we’re going back to the tradition of obscure Legacy deck names…]
Painter
What on earth is going on here? This is a multifaceted combo deck with a backup fair gameplan. The core of the deck is a card that is at the center of several other such decks: Painter’s Servant. What was likely designed as a fun card turns out to be a cute 2-card-combo with Grindstone, which was meant as a better Millstone. Combining the two, you are able to one-shot mill your opponent out of the game.
The other beautiful thing about Painter’s Servant is that it has applications outside of the combo. Most of these decks utilize Pyroblast and Red Elemental Blast, setting Painter to blue to blow up any permanents or counter any spells. Red also allows for other synergies, such as artifact recursion with Goblin Welder and tutoring with Imperial Recruiter.
Painter’s Servant can circumvent these requirements
(Green Sun’s Zenith and Natural Order) and tutor for off-color creatures.
But I’m clearly not setting Painter to blue here, so what’s the idea? As it turns out, Painter combos with more than just Grindstone and red cards. Natural Order allows you to sacrifice a green creature to search for any green creature in your deck to put into play. Green Sun’s Zenith allows you to flexibly tutor for any green creature in your deck, albeit at a slightly increased cost. Painter’s Servant can circumvent these requirements and tutor for off-color creatures.
What to Find
White has the most hateful creatures in the game. They tend to lock down players from doing things considered in some way unfair. Natural Order is almost always used to cheat out huge, very potent creatures. Two of the most powerful options in white are Iona, who stops opponents casting certain spell colors, and Elesh Norn, who effectively says you win all combat steps forever. Iona and Painter’s Servant permanently lock the opponent from casting any further spells, while Elesh Norn shuts down creature decks in one shot.
Green Sun’s Zenith, conversely, is usually used in a fairer, more value-oriented way. With Painter’s Servant, it can still be used to help stop opponents in three key ways. Grabbing one of our maindeck Containment Priests can stop strategies like Reanimator or Sneak and Show from enacting their gameplan. Getting Ethersworn Canonist stops decks that like to spam spells dead in their tracks. Finally, grabbing Tomik shuts off two keys cards from your opponents: Wasteland and Dark Depths.
Backups Plan A
However, any given combo deck that doesn’t have the most consistent of combos needs a backup plan. Painter is the key piece for most of the deck, so what do I do if it gets countered or killed? Dali, so named because its a different take on Painter, has another backup combo in Dark Depths. If I can’t mill you out or cheat things into play and stop your deck from working, I can always make a Flying, Indestructible 20/20 interplanar monstrosity.
Most Depths decks are dedicated to the land to a great degree. Here, however, Depths is a backup plan, and thus dedicated hate for it isn’t very effective. Part of that comes from how I’m assembling my combo: Knight of the Reliquary. Knight’s tap ability allows it to be both a tutor and a value piece. Knight is also part of the backup plan of the deck as a fair beater card, able to go over the top of decks like Delver and Death and Taxes.
Another tutor we make use of is Enlightened Tutor. It’s able to fish up key pieces of the deck, including both parts of the Painter/Grindstone combo, Ethersworn Canonists, and postboard Rest in Peace, Pithing Needle, and Choke. This tutor-heavy gameplan between Knight, Green Sun’s Zenith, and Enlightened Tutor gives the deck a ton of flexibility. Even when the combo isn’t the plan, the fair plan is great.
Backup Plan B – Playing Fair
The final maindeck pieces I haven’t mentioned all fall into the fair gameplan side of things. Swords to Plowshares is the best removal spell in the format, taking care of any creature for an extremely low price, no questions asked. Karakas is a great answer to Marit Lage and Thalia. Maze of Ith is designed to be both great defensively stopping the opponent’s strongest creature from combat, as well as offensively by untapping Knight in the End of Combat Step. Dryad Arbor makes a great turn 1 play if you fetch it with Green Sun’s Zenith, effectively ramping you. can snipe opposing [c]Dark Depths or other critical lands and can be replayed with Ramunap Excavator.
Speaking of creatures, Noble Hierarch is another fantastic card, ramping you and boosting combat abilities. Tomik is useful in protecting your own Dark Depths as well as stopping theirs. Renegade Rallier is an allstar. In fair mode, it can buy back anything from a Wasteland when played turn 4 or later to a Noble Hierarch if you need more damage, to either Painter combo piece, to simple a fetchland, and it only requires you to fetch, activate Knight or Wasteland, or have lost a creature in combat to do so, all easy to achieve.
Gaddock Teeg is a fantastic card at stopping a lot of Legacy’s degeneracy and serves as a backup Green Sun’s target if you don’t have a Painter out on turn 3.
Finally, Woodland Bellower is the fair target for Natural Order. If you’ve had a Painter or Grindstone killed, have a Natural Order in hand, and have a spare green creature, the plan is as follows:
Cast N.O. sacrificing preferably Dryad Arbor. N.O. finds Woodland Bellower. Bellower ETB triggers. Find a Renegade Rallier. You just sacrificed a creature, so Rallier triggers. Rallier buys back either combo piece or the Dryad Arbor or Hierarch you sacrificed. For 4 mana, you’ve just dumped 9+ power into play, and that’s quite a swing.
Sideboard
The plan with the sideboard is to fight against either the fair or unfair deck you’re facing better.
Against combo decks, you board out ineffective hate pieces and board into the effective ones. For example, against Reanimator, you board out Elesh Norn, Gaddock Teeg, Ramunap Excavator, both Tomiks, and shave a single Enlightened Tutor to bring in Blessed Alliance, Containment Priest, Council’s Judgement, Pithing Needle, and both Rest in Peace. Against Elves, you cut cards like Tomik, a Rallier, and Knights to bring in Canonists, Priest, Sanctum Prelates, and Questing Beast.
Against fair decks, you become a slightly different take on Maverick, peeling away the combo stopping pieces. Trading out Priest, Canonist, and Teeg for some mixture of Prelates, Pithing Needle, Council’s Judgement, Questing Beast, Choke, and Blessed Alliance lets you maximize the powerful Natural Order combo plan while also cutting cards that aren’t traditionally great in fair matchups.
The best thing to do is to consider which cards are easy to find and have a good impact in the matchup, as well as how fast you can deploy those cards.
General Gameplay and Mulligans
In your opening hand, you want to look at which gameplan you are closest to achieving and how you can achieve that goal. You’ll almost always want to have a turn 1 play of Grindstone, Hierarch, Green Sun for Arbor, or Enlightened Tutor. If you have half the Depths combo, you should lean towards holding Green Sun’s for Knight if possible, though not at the cost of missing the turn 1 ramp.
For mulligans, hands that lack the ability to assemble a combo are a little more shaky game 1 and should be considered for a mulligan. Hands that have one of your white Natural Order targets tend to be very shaky.
Deck Strengths and Weaknesses
The deck is very good at being hard to corner by many decks. Having to defend against two different styles of Painter combo, Dark Depths, and fair value beats is very tough for any deck. Because of the flexibility of gameplan, even if one is shut down, another is possible. Additionally, postboard it becomes a monstrous pile, able to attack and exploit many decks’ weaknesses ruthlessly, making it even harder to tangle with.
The major weakness of the deck is its speed. It can’t do much in the face of a turn 1 kill, and folds to decks like Leylines or Belcher, as well as having a coinflippy matchup against Storm variants. If the Storm decks keep slower hands, Canonists and Teeg will reign supreme. Faster hands, and it becomes nigh impossible to fight.
You Should Play Dali if…
- You like toolboxes.
- You like turning off combo decks out of the blue.
- You love fair value gameplans.
- Painter’s Servant is a pet card of yours.
- You like to think through several turns’ worth of plays every turn.
- You want to Natural Order for an Iona or Elesh Norn.
