I love Legacy!
It is far and away the greatest constructed format in Magic! It's challenging, diverse, and skill-testing. Best of all, you get to play with cards from throughout Magic's long history!
Now, some folks will try to tell you that it's "expensive".
Well, let me tell you... they're mostly right. Buying into a top tier deck is going to cost at least 2-3 thousand dollars. And with the 2020 spike of secondary market prices, especially among reserve list cards, just a mana base could cost upwards of ten thousand dollars.
But here's a few things to keep in mind.
First, not everyone at a Legacy event is going to be playing a finely tuned, top tier deck. In fact, at large events there's going to be lots of people playing all sorts of jank and homebrews. Let us never forget the fellow who showed up to SCG Columbus in 2014 playing tribal bears, wearing a bear costume.
Second, there are actually some more affordable decks out there. Ones you can buy into, in some cases, for less than a Modern, or even Standard deck might cost. And far less than many competitive Commander decks.
Third, once you have a Legacy deck, you have it. It's never going to rotate, so you're never going to not be able to play it (although very occasional bannings happen, but that's true of every format). Moreover, there are some decks, like Merfolk and Burn that share something like 80-90% of cards across Legacy and Modern. So you're building the core of decks for two formats at once.
And so the purpose of this series is to introduce and maintain a reference guide to more affordable Legacy decks. Because I want as many people playing Legacy as possible, and I don't want anyone avoiding the format for fear of cost.
I'm going to use a cost-tier system for ranking the different decks. For reference, the dollar value I'm using is what it would cost, at the time of writing, if you loaded this entire deck into your cart on TCG player. It is quite possible if you shop around and trade into some of what you need, that you can get in for even less.
- Copper: These are decks under $200. Yes, there are plenty of decks in this bracket. Even well-tuned mono-Red Burn decks can be had for around $200 or less. And there are established decks for even less than that.
- Silver: These decks are between $200-$500. Some Reanimator builds fall into this bracket.
- Gold: These decks are between $500-$1000. Oops All Spells, and Death & Taxes are some of the decks which will fall into this category, although D&T saw a spike recently with the printing of Kaldra Compleat, and the subsequent increase on Stone Forge Mystic.
I'm not going to cover anything over $1000, because even that's pushing the idea of what I think is reasonable to consider "budget".
I'm also going to have a few categories of decks. With each deck, I'll share a list, talk about how it works, and give suggestions for more budget options (for example, substituting Shock Lands for OG Dual Lands), or more expensive upgrades. BIG disclaimer here - I am not a professional-level player or highly skilled brewer, so take all of my advice about substitutions and play strategies with more than a grain of salt.
Existing Archetypes: These are known decks, which is to say they've seen play for a number of years, and it's something you can reasonably expect a number of people to be playing. I'll look at the "optimized" builds, and some possible budget substitutions.
Blast from the Past: These are older or outdated versions of existing decks, or decks that used to be more popular, but have fallen from favor, or been outclassed by the high tier builds. The deck that inspired this category is Affinity. The current "optimal" build includes Urza's Saga, and other pricey cards. However, if we look back 5-10 years, there's older variants which are much less expensive, but still totally playable.
Foreign Imports: There are some decks which shine in other formats, like Standard and Modern, which I think might actually be able to make a go at Legacy. For example, Mill Rogues is popular in Standard and Historic (on Arena). Could it be make to run in Legacy? We'll take a look at that. Fun fact, playing in a Legacy GP once with Burn, I got my face totally stomped in by someone running a Standard (at the time) Life Gain deck.
Strange Brews: Well, just what the name says. If I find an interesting brew, or think up one of my own that actually seems functional, I'll post about it. Where the other categories contain decks which are more or less known quantities, these are most decidedly experimental, so I can't guarantee how well they'll run.
While it's true that none of the decks in this series are likely to get you to GP Top 8, they will still enable you to have hours of fun playing the greatest format in Magic.
Thanks for taking the time to read through this. I'm looking forward to exploring as many decks as I can, and hopefully getting some folks into the format who might never have thought to try it!
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