Below, we present the tournament report by Mike, who conquered the 129-player Legacy Cup at MagicCon Amsterdam on July 19th with a Dimir deck.
Talent doesn't rust: Mike hadn't played Legacy in a couple of years, had never tested the deck before the tournament, and even showed up without the necessary Dazes to complete the list. From there began a run that took him all the way to the finals against UW Phelia, fighting through BG Pox, Tron, Hogaak, Goblins, Show and Tell/Aluren, and Doomsday. Enjoy the read!
Decklist
Background
I went to MagicCon totally on a whim with some friends, having never played the deck before and without having touched Legacy in at least a couple of years.
I had put the deck together a few months ago, and in doing so, I proxied the Dazes because they were in my Premodern deck. I arrived at the tournament without checking, missing the Dazes, and with only 14 cards in my sideboard.
The Dazes were proxied with Tempest Counterspells. For a split second, laziness got the better of me and I thought, "Yeah, whatever, I'll just play with 3 Counterspells."
Then my friend goes, "What the hell are you talking about?" and snapped me back to reality.
I managed to find three Dazes from Galactus, who lent them to me, and a Fatal Push. I sat down to play with the sole intention of having fun.
And when you get a result like this, it makes it even sweeter.
Round 1 | BG Pox | 2-1
I lose the die roll.
Game 1
I keep a hand with two Barrowgoyfs, Force of Will, Daze, and three lands.
He starts with discard spells, Thoughtseize into Cabal Therapy, and shreds my hand. He had mulliganed to six and, other than that discard package, doesn't present any other real threats.
The following turn, I deploy a Murktide Regent that sticks around for four turns and attacks four times. He draws into two Orcish Bowmasters, but he can't keep up with the race and dies without finding a removal spell.
Game 2
I side out Force of Will and Daze, packing the deck with threats and answers by bringing in Brazen Borrower, the rest of my removal, and Toxic Deluge.
It goes terribly: he strings together a perfect sequence, landing a turn-three Grist, the Hunger Tide and snowballing an advantage I just can't recover from. I scoop quickly.
Game 3
I decide to keep Daze since I'm on the play, but I still leave out the Force of Wills. I haven't seen any threats in his deck that make me think there's anything mind-blowing to counter.
This game is complete control; I just keep deploying threats. Whenever he tries to cast his three-drops, Grist, the Hunger Tide and Barrowgoyf, I always have active Dazes.
I win without taking a single point of damage, keeping a full hand thanks to Flow State.
Round 2 | Show and Tell/Aluren | 2-1
I lose the die roll.
Game 1
I don't find any threats, miss my Orcish Bowmasters, and fail to apply any pressure. By the time I resolve my first creature, we're already late into the game.
He sculpts his hand with double counter backup, drops Aluren, and wins despite my double interaction.
Game 2
A completely one-sided game for me. I quickly stick a double Orcish Bowmasters, flashing one in response to his cantrip, and chip away at his life total before he can piece together the combo, finding lethal with Brazen Borrower on turn five.
Game 3
Despite opening a picture-perfect hand with two Thoughtseizes, Force of Will, a Murktide Regent, and a Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student that generates decent value, the game drags on quite a bit.
I strip his combo pieces with Thoughtseize and try to resolve a quick Murktide to close the door on any surprises.
He's left with two cards in hand, I've run out of countermagic, but I have a two-turn clock. I draw Brainstorm, cast it, and find Thoughtseize and Wasteland.
His hand is Aluren and Atraxa, Grand Unifier. I discard Atraxa, waste his double green source, and GG: he has no outs left.
Round 3 | Goblins | 2-1
I lose the die roll.
Game 1
He starts with Cavern of Souls, Goblin Lackey, but I have Fatal Push. On his next turn, he drops Ancient Tomb and Broadside Bombardiers and starts swinging.
I play Barrowgoyf, which is a 4/5, but I don't have removal. He plays Squee, Dubious Monarch (the one you can cast from the graveyard), attacks, and kills my Barrowgoyf. He drops another Bombardiers and the game is over.
Game 2
I side out my counters and bring in all my removal. If he plays Blood Moon, I lose, and that's fine.
I start with land, Ponder, and sculpt the perfect anti-Goblin hand: two removal spells, Barrowgoyf, and Murktide Regent.
He deploys his threats one by one, starting with Lackey. I kill it, play Barrowgoyf, he plays a weak creature, I play another Barrowgoyf, remove some random Goblin, and he concedes.
Game 3
This game was incredibly tense.
I keep a hand with no hard removal after mulliganing to six, but I have Toxic Deluge, Brazen Borrower, and Barrowgoyf.
He starts with Lackey in G3 as well. I go land, cantrip; he attacks with Goblin Lackey and cheats in Goblin Ringleader, hitting two cards, one of which is Muxus, Goblin Grandee.
On his third turn, he attacks with Lackey, cheats in Muxus, and the entire board fills up. He drops Carpet of Flowers and Chalice of the Void on one, but only has two lands.
At his end step, I bounce Carpet, ignoring the Chalice since it wouldn't let him replay the Carpet anyway.
On my turn, I cast Toxic Deluge for four and wipe his entire board. On his turn, he misses his land drop and is stuck on two mana.
On my turn: Wasteland plus Barrowgoyf and GG.
Round 4 | Tron | 2-0
I lose the die roll.
Game 1
I let his mana rocks resolve, counter his big payoffs, he fails to draw other threats, and I win with a single creature.
A quick, one-sided game.
Game 2
The sideboarding is obvious. I mulligan to five because I don't see any lands.
At five cards, I see two Wastelands and decide to keep anyway. At the time, I figured that at four cards, I'd have to hope to hit Force of Will plus blue pitch and two lands.
It was a gamble, but that's how I chose to play it.
Long story short: the Wastelands do their job. He gets color-screwed, I draw another one, waste him again, and I still haven't played a spell.
I finally draw land and Ponder. We pass back and forth doing nothing, then I drop Barrowgoyf.
Meanwhile, he tries to resolve Karn, the Great Creator, but I have Consign to Memory. Barrowgoyf finishes him off in four turns.
Round 5 | Show and Tell/Aluren | 2-1
I lose the die roll.
I play against a very friendly and, in my opinion, very skilled player. But it was just my day, luckily.
Game 1
The game drags on.
Just like in the other matchup, I struggle to apply pressure because I can't find my threats, and I start thinking about how I'm going to die and wishing I had the lists running Nethergoyf, which solve this exact issue.
Late in the game, I resolve an 8/8 Murktide Regent: a two-turn clock.
As expected, he takes the first hit and tries to combo off on his final turn.
He casts Aluren, I cast a counter, he responds. In hand, I have Brazen Borrower, Orcish Bowmasters, and two open mana. I had cast Flow State on my turn looking for answers, partially finding one in Borrower.
With Aluren on board, he casts Acererak. In response, I bounce Aluren, but he has another Acererak in hand and closes out the game right there.
Game 2 and Game 3
Nothing major to report.
In both games, I find a pretty fast clock this time, backed up by hand disruption and counters.
I chip away with small threats, namely Orcish Bowmasters, and he is forced to dig for his combo pieces with various cantrips while taking damage. I counter and discard everything he has.
Round 6 | Doomsday (Vroomsday) | 0-2
I win the die roll.
He absolutely destroyed me. We literally played six turns total across two games.
Game 1
I apply zero pressure.
On turn three, he casts a discard spell, strips my only Force of Will, rituals, casts Doomsday, builds an easy pile to win next turn and... wins next turn.
Game 2
I keep an interactive hand after a mulligan to six. It's still a slow hand, but I have Daze and Force of Will.
On turn one, he plays land, Lotus Petal; on turn two, discard spell, strips Force, plays a land, rituals, casts a vehicle, and some random spell I don't remember.
I cast Daze on The Fantasticar because "why not?" → GG.
Could have gone better.
Round 7 | UW Phelia | 2-1
I lose the die roll.
I played Pim Langen in the Swiss and also in the finals, and we had a blast. Both matches were thrilling, and he was a super nice guy.
He lied to me, saying I'd find him on social media; it was a trap, I couldn't find him.
If anyone has his socials, I'd love to add him.
That said:
Game 1
The game is very balanced, but neither of us lands any threats.
We go deep into the turn cycles with an empty board, but the difference is that I manage to resolve multiple copies of Flow State to pull ahead in cards and quality.
When it's time to pull the trigger and use resources, I have way more and simply overwhelm him with raw card advantage.
The ability to flash in threats at end step is huge for Kaito, Bane of Nightmares, who wins the game on his own.
Game 2
He finds four Wastelands in a row, starting to waste me from turn two.
I fetch out my two basic lands, but after the fourth Wasteland, I just can't get back into the game. He keeps drawing lands and I'm stuck.
Game 3
I side out all my counters to play as a pure midrange deck.
I figure he'll probably play around Daze. I don't know if he actually does, but the decision to make my deck as dense as possible works out.
Having no counters means I never have dead cards in hand if he manages to resolve Teferi, Time Raveler at an awkward moment, and I never have to 2-for-1 myself.
Just like Game 1, it's a long grind, and I win off pure value generated by Flow State. What an incredible card.
At a certain point, he runs out of steam, I answer his threats, and close it out. It was a very close game, but always tilted in my favor: he was playing catch-up the entire time.
Orcish Bowmasters is terrifying in this matchup, while his Phelia on an empty board just doesn't have the same impact.
We go to turns, and I manage to win on turn three of time, once again thanks to Kaito, Bane of Nightmares, who taps down a blocker, flashes in unexpectedly, and pushes through lethal out of nowhere.
Well, more or less out of nowhere.
I make Top 8 as the 3rd seed with a 6-1 record!
Quarterfinal | Tron | 2-0
I win the die roll.
Total blowout: counter, Daze, threat, attack. He barely gets to play Magic.
We finish two games in ten minutes.
Maybe some bad luck on his part; I opened absolutely god-tier hands.
Semifinal | Hogaak | 2-1
I win the die roll.
Game 1
I didn't know this deck existed anymore or that people were still playing it, but the cards are still the same, and I quickly grasp the situation.
I knew what archetype he was playing, but not his exact decklist.
In this game, he floods the board and resolves a quick Hogaak, which I counter, but he just casts it again the next turn.
I can't keep pace and lose the race to my Murktide Regent, which gets slowed down by a Thran Portal (the land that phases out a permanent) tutored up by that elf whose name escapes me.
Game 2
Sideboard: out Force of Will and Daze.
His deck is full of one-drops, and I don't want dead cards. In come Toxic Deluge, Sheoldred's Edict, more creatures, the last Fatal Push, and two copies of Dauthi Voidwalker.
The game is pretty quick: I play Orcish Bowmasters on turn two to ping his one-drop, quickly deploy Barrowgoyf, follow up with more Bowmasters to machine-gun his other creatures, and finish it fast with double Barrowgoyf.
Game 3
I open with Fatal Push and double Dauthi Voidwalker: instant keep.
I push his first threat, play Dauthi. He kills it, I drop another one.
He can't find an answer to it, and his army of 1/1s can't block my threats.
He resolves Hogaak, but I bounce it with the fairy, keeping him from pulling ahead in the race.
I get him down to eight life and cast an 8/8 Murktide Regent just in case he found a way to kill Dauthi, putting him in checkmate.
I also had Toxic Deluge in hand: I don't think there was any way for him to crawl back.
An unanswered Dauthi basically wins the game on its own.
Final | UW Phelia | 2-0
Game 1 and Game 2
Carbon copies of Game 1 and Game 3 from the Swiss in terms of gameplay: I win the card advantage battle, heavily carried by Flow State.
In Game 1, when I see he has four cantrips in hand via Thoughtseize, I don't hesitate to deploy a double Orcish Bowmasters.
Without an active fetch land, he is forced to cast two Brainstorms, getting zero real value, and is left holding two very awkward Ponders.
Then I close it out with Kaito, Bane of Nightmares.
In Game 2, an absolute unit of a 7/8 Barrowgoyf holds off two Riddlers.
He can't block, otherwise I get a easy 2-for-1 and open the floodgates for my small creatures to deal cheap damage on an empty board.
He digs for Swords to Plowshares but misses, and in three turns, the match is over.
Conclusion
I hadn't played Legacy in ages, had an absolute blast, and got an incredible chance to brag to my local Magic playgroup about a result that was pure, beautiful variance.
A special shout-out to the organizers, who didn't publish the decklists or the tournament results, leaving my fleeting moment of glory confined to my close circle of friends and anyone who walks into my house and sees the trophy.
And now, to Metagame as well!
Mike
