They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

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What? That's it, that's the whole article.

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No? Not good enough?

SCGCON Baltimore was last weekend, with a $25k team trios main event of Pioneer/Modern/Legacy. As I was to be the Legacy seat for the event, it was time to look back to some old friends.

Since Legacy stopped being a common tournament format on the SCG Tour about five years ago, as well as with the addition of a bunch of other various formats like Pioneer and Historic, the format has mostly fallen off my radar. But when it was time for me to pick a deck for the event, good ole Tundra and friends called out.

Time Stamps:

03:19 - Match 1

14:42 - Match 2

56:13 - Match 3

Jeskai Control | Legacy | Jim Davis

• Creatures (2)
• 1 Snapcaster Mage
• 1 Timeless Dragon

• Planeswalkers (9)
• 2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
• 3 Teferi, Time Raveler
• 4 Narset, Parter of Veils

• Instants (15)
• 1 Spell Pierce
• 2 Force of Negation
• 4 Brainstorm
• 4 Force of Will
• 4 Swords to Plowshares

• Sorceries (11)
• 1 Day's Undoing
• 2 Supreme Verdict
• 4 Ponder
• 4 Prismatic Ending

• Enchantments (3)
• 1 Shark Typhoon
• 2 Dress Down

• Lands (20)
• 1 Mountain
• 2 Plains
• 4 Island
• 1 Volcanic Island
• 2 Scalding Tarn
• 2 Tundra
• 4 Flooded Strand
• 4 Prismatic Vista

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Flusterstorm
• 2 Pyroblast
• 1 Kozilek's Return
• 1 Meltdown
• 1 Monastery Mentor
• 1 Ruination
• 1 Sevinne's Reclamation
• 2 Surgical Extraction
• 1 Blood Moon
• 2 Hydroblast
• 2 Red Elemental Blast

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While my event didn't go as poorly as this video did, it didn't go that well either.

The reason for this is that the two big natural advantages that base-Azorius control decks had in Legacy were resilience to Wasteland and soft counterspells (by playing a lot of basic lands) and actual card advantage rather than just the card selection of cantrips like Brainstorm and Ponder.

These advantages, alongside phenomenal removal like Swords to Plowshares, usually lead to Azorius Control having a very good matchup against Delver of Secrets decks. The problem is current Delver of Secrets decks don't really play like "Delver" decks anymore.

Expressive Iteration breaks the usual notion that Delver decks don't go up on cards, which makes playing longer into the game viable, and cards like Wasteland far less important. With Mystic Sanctuary available as well these new Delver decks are often able to out draw as well as out-tempo the control decks, and that's to say nothing of how effective Pyroblast is against Blue planeswalkers.

Legacy is currently Expressive Iterations world, and if you want to play you better learn to live in it.