legacy on a budget - legacy decks can be as cheap as 50$ read on ...

[seba1983]

just made this new thread because i was drifing off topic too much in a diffrent thread.

i guess most of you have heard about legacy. i also guess most of you don't know much about it other than the rumors that float arround. so first let me clear up some misconceptions that regularly arrise about legacy:

legacy is realy expensive.

false. it can be yes, but it does not have to be. the cheapest deck you can build on roughly 50$. also since (unlike standard and extended) there is no rotaition in legacy you can stick with a deck you have indefinatly. lets say you get a cheap standard deck for arround 50$. a year later you have to scrap it due to rotaition. once again you need a new deck. lets say you go with the cheap choice again 50$. after only one year you have spend more on standard than what the cheapest deck in legacy costs. twice as much in fact.

you can't play legacy without dual lands.

false. dual lands are an irreplacable part of many decks, true. there are however a great number of deck of all play styles that don't play any duals at all and don't want to.

you can't play legacy without force of will.

false. sure its the best counter legacy has to offer. not all decks play counter magic however. the range of decks that do not run blue at all is huge.

you can not play legacy without tarmogyf.

false for pretty much the same reasons as force of will (or FoW for short).

legacy is dominated by combo decks / control decks.

both false. combo decks are played very little in legacy. they are powerful and sometimes hard to beat but they are also difficult to play. even when played perfectly (an art not many master) combo can still be disruped and beaten. control does have exceletn cards at its disposal. there are some top control decks you can play and most decks will feature some control elements. there are however a good variaty of pure agro decks in the format that still win a good amount (e.g. goblins)

so now that we cleared that up whats that legacy deck for just 50$ ?

its not a fun deck. in fact its a realy boring deck. it is however exceptionaly consitant and can win tournaments.

it is burn. more precicely it is often called "stupid red burn" and kind of desreves the title. if a red card does 3 damage for 1 mana it will most likely show up in burn. thats pretty much all burn plays. the onyl cards in burn that have a good prince tag are chain lightning. if you cant get hold of them you can replace them with some other burn and still win. of the 50$ for the deck about 40$ are spend on 4 x chainlightning. so without these you can play your first legacy tournament on about 10$ but you will be playing a boring deck. seriously.

if you spend some more cash your options broaden a lot. for the price of a good standard deck like jund you can build the following decks:

mono-blue meerfolk - agro-control-tribal deck with FoW, standstill, aether vial.

death and taxes - white weeny in a control shell very tricky to play but fantastic card interaction.

vial goblins - the good old goblin deck. used to rule legacy befor goyf with whom grow took over. most rares have dropt a bit since they left extended and are played less frequently in legacy.

pox - a black control deck based on attacking creatures, lands and the handcards all at once.

dragon stompy - you like big red creatures that hit very hard ? this is the deck for you. some artifacts that hinder your opponents game plan and your ready to go. there are 3 other stompy decks that more or less work the same as dragon stompy. 2 of them are not as good but more unexpected (mono-black demon stompy and mono-green beast stompy) and the last is outside of the 200$ max (faerie stompy) due to the hefty price tag on sea drake because its from portal.

train wreck - a strange but surprisingly good black control deck that works with helldozer and staff of domination.

mono-blue-control - counter, card draw and something to win with + something to reset the board. if you decided on not paying engenierd explosives but powederkeg or nivreals disk the deck is budget. if you want the explosives you wont get around some duals / fetches to make it more efficiant.

solidarity / spring tide - a combo deck that uses high tide to make tons of mana, play trough huge amounts of spells and then kill with brainfreez. used to be a real force. nowerdays its a little too slow but still playable. solidarity is the slightly more expensive instant speed version whilst spring tide is the realy cheap sorcery speed version.

sui - black agro that cares little about its own life total as long as the opponents drops faster.

white weeny - nothing special or exciting just white weeny

ichorid - legacy dredge deck. mill yourself over and over and use the stuff in your graveyard to win. only pricetag card in this deck is lion's eye diamond. very bizzar deck since it ignores allmost everything but the grave.

2-land belcher - you play 2 duals 4 lion's eye and 4 chrome mox the rest costs next to nothing. play gobling charblecher turn 1-2 and win ... thats if the belcher does not get counterd ^^

tendrels - tendrels of agony are an impressive combo finisher. very simply 9 spells + tendrels = i win. the way this is achived varies a lot from variant to variant. there are at least 5 variants of this deck, useing stuff like ad nauseum, doomsday, ill-gotten gains, draw-4 spells, burning wish and / or all of the above.

elves! - there are some more expensive elf decks like survival elfes but the combo elves are cheap. wether its glimps of nature + strom spell or priest of titania + staf of domination. there are even the occasional agro elves playinf stuff like impervious perfect and wren-runs vanquisher.

berserk / 10-land stompy - mono-green agro with very few lands that relies on good green weenys + pump spells to hit hard and fast.

affinity - more or less like the old standard deck. artifact agro at its most extreem.

geddon stax - the white stax variant useing a lot of staling artifacts with armageddon + magus of the tabernacle to ensure the board stays empty. the mox diamonds can sometimes take the deck price over the 200$ line if you can't get them for a decent price. appart from that totaly in budget.

mono white control (aka mighty quinn) - wrath, swords etc. all the best white control stuff. realy want to play a single moat (yes it makes all the diffrence since it wins some matchups on its own and you have 4 tutors for it). you can play the deck without though to keep it within the budget range.

enchantress - 4 creatures, a bare minimum of sorcerys, instants or artifacts (sometimes only 2 replenish). the rest is lands and enchantments. agothian enchantress and enchantress presecen give you a very powerful draw engien. again like in MWC you actualy want to run 1 moat but the deck is palyable (and in budged) without the moat.

so there you have a quick selection of legacy decks that only cost as much as a standard deck but will last a lot longer

the prices for other decks stretch out up to about 600$ for a deck. for any budget between 50 and 600$ you will find all kinds of tournament worthy decks.

[kip]

good article

[Kappu1]

So many Legacy decks to choose from and look at I'm baffled.

[Kappu1]

So I've looked through about 50 decks and I don't know which one's I would even be interested in here are a few that caught my eye.

Back to Prison: Back to Prison :: Stefan Ball | DeckCheck.net - Providing 'outside assistance' since 2004

Merfolk: Merfolk :: Christophe LEAUTHIER | DeckCheck.net - Providing 'outside assistance' since 2004

MUC: MUC :: Lasse Seidel | DeckCheck.net - Providing 'outside assistance' since 2004

Septer Deck Wins: Scepter Deck Wins :: Dustin Steger | DeckCheck.net - Providing 'outside assistance' since 2004

I can't say any of these made me go I have to play this deck. Just a few I liked Fearie deck looked neat but... pricey and I didn't really see a W or W/G deck that I liked either. Some of the decks had so many cards and looked so complex that I don't think I'm ready for them.

I'm up for suggestions at this point. I like the idea of control and I like to bash but I think if I want to bash I will just play a standard deck. Control just looks like fun only letting someone do something if I want them too.

[seba1983]

ok that cepter deck looks awful ^^. cepter decks used to be realy good but when krosan grip was printed they kind of fell out of favour. they are still playable, though you should not relie on scepter + chant too much. the version you liked above plays soo many bad cards. that may be ok if most people who play legacy where you are are not playing optimal lists but stuff like cancle, costal tower and even adakas waste dont realy have a place in legacy since you have cards that do the same only better.

the MUC looks quite solid but with the fetchlands and the dual it moves a bit out of the budged range standard decks are in:

4 x force ~ 80$
2 x explosives ~ 25$
2 x shackles ~ 20$

7 x fetch ~ 105$
1 x dual ~30$

so without the fetches and the dual your looking at about 150-175$.

the back to prison deck looks fun but a little unfocused. i think that deck could realy need some tweaking to get it to its best proformance. also you might want to start off with a tried and tested deck so you dont spend too much on a deck that could fail in your meta.

meerfolks is a suprisingly strong deck that has proven its worth time and again. the only thing i personaly dont like about the one you posted is that it does not play 4 x standstill. i think draw 3 is just too good for this deck not to play it. remeber that you can keep puting stuff into play with vial if your opponent foolishly tries to avoid setting the standstill of. that usualy means you win ^^.

if MUC realy takes your fancy you could start of by playing a budged version that is still very capable of winning. replace the fetches and the dual with islands and the engeniered explosives with nevrials disk. the swords to plowshare can be replaced by upping the count on spell snare, shackles or back to basic in any combination. that should keep the deck under 150$.

if you love whacking people but still want to play with counters there are many very good decks in legacy. most of them are a little moreexpensive though.

a very cheap but amazinglig good + fun agro-control deck is death and taxes. i play it myself and you can always discover more stuff the deck can do. its a nice deck to grow on. in the beginning you seem to loose a lot but as you learn the in and outs of the deck you start doing the ost amazing plays. the only downside this deck has is that Karakasis only realy played in this deck. thats ~ 40$ that you wont be useing in other decks. since the only other cards that have a price tag in this deck are jitte and wasteland/rishadan port that not that bad since the latter you can use over and over. if you can pick up a playset karakas for a small price then this is definatly worth takeing a look at.

for a deck you can build with a budged that also runs a good control portion i would sugest meerfolk, budged MUC or death and taxes to get started. all three are good decks that can win tournaments.

i will post an indepth description of death and taxes in the deckbuilding section or the competative section. its quite difficult to see how evverything in that deck works if you've never seen it in action .