I'm really just talking about a bunch of things Legacy-related in this article, so let's get started. First up is deck-building, with a Legacy example.

Caleb Durward recently wrote an article about his Bant deck. Around March, I was also working on an Aggro Bant list and came up with something very similar, but at the same time very different. I want to talk about a major element of my approach to building aggro, aggro-control, and combo decks, and where it leads, using Aggro Bant as an example.

I think that one of the most important baseline elements to highly proactive decks is focus. I've mentioned this before, and it shows up in my slotting. These decks are designed to be proactive, and I'm of the opinion that it is worth some sacrifices on other fronts to maintain that proactiveness. Focus is important as a baseline because it lets you determine where the deck's strengths and weakness are. Often, a list with laserlike focus (most of my initial lists) are incorrect. However, they provide valuable information during testing, and help you determine which cards are worth pushing and which ones are not. One of their biggest applications is determining whether a strategy is even worth pursuing. If critical cards for a strategy are found wanting, it's probably not time for that strategy.

So, let's take a look at building Bant from the ground up. In my view, Bant is a Noble Hierarch deck (and thus the best thing to be is U/W/G, because those are the colors Hierarch produces). Much like Merfolk, it is designed to deploy pressure and defend it with a limited suite of disruption (counterspells). However, unlike Merfolk, which invests cards for stability (AEther Vial), Bant intends to invest cards for tempo, because of Noble Hierarch. To take advantage of this, we will be looking to take advantage of the 3-drop slot. Noble Hierarch accelerates you from 1 to 3, and so one of the primary strengths of our deck is going to be the ability to play 3-drop creatures on turn two. As a deck designer, this is an advantage we should look to exploit to maximum possible effect.

So, a good Bant deck is going to be composed of three types of cards—disruption, acceleration, and threats. As a core, let's make a short list of the top cards in all three categories:

Disruption:

Swords to Plowshares (disrupts your opponent's plans to block, can also be cast defensively)

Path to Exile (see Swords to Plowshares)

Wasteland

Force of Will

Daze

Spell Pierce

Spell Snare

Counterspell

Gaddock Teeg

Ethersworn Canonist

Trygon Predator

Qasali Pridemage

Acceleration:

Green Sun's Zenith

Noble Hierarch

Birds of Paradise

Threats:

Knight of the Reliquary

Tarmogoyf

Vendilion Clique

Mirran Crusader

Rhox War Monk

Coralhelm Commander

Umezawa's Jitte

Sword of Fire and Ice

You will note the obvious absence of Brainstorm on this list. Brainstorm is an amazing card, and I'm running it, but it does not really fit into any slot here. Its ability to find various pieces, however, makes it extremely strong. Given this list, and previous experience with this type of strategy in Legacy, we want to slot about eight for acceleration and about sixteen to eighteen (eight counters, three to four StP, one to two GSZ targets, three to four Wasteland) for disruption. The rest of the slots should be threats.

"Bant v1.0"

• Creatures (18)
• 4 Noble Hierarch
• 4 Tarmogoyf
• 3 Knight of the Reliquary
• 2 Stoneforge Mystic
• 2 Rhox War Monk
• 1 Qasali Pridemage
• 2 Vendilion Clique

• Spells (20)
• 4 Force of Will
• 2 Counterspell
• 1 Spell Pierce
• 1 Spell Snare
• 4 Brainstorm
• 3 Swords to Plowshares
• 3 Green Sun's Zenith
• 1 Sword of Fire and Ice
• 1 Umezawa's Jitte

• Lands (22)
• 1 Forest
• 1 Plains
• 1 Island
• 4 Misty Rainforest
• 2 Windswept Heath
• 2 Flooded Strand
• 3 Tropical Island
• 2 Savannah
• 1 Tundra
• 3 Wasteland
• 1 Dryad Arbor
• 1 Karakas

Buy This Deck

The slotting comes pretty close to what we've laid out. The selection might seem funny to you, but there is a very large constraint placed on this deck—Force of Will. Force of Will necessitates you run at bare minimum sixteen Blue cards (counting the Forces) for it to be effective. I personally prefer eighteen, but sixteen is the bare minimum. This necessitates concessions like Rhox War Monk in the threat slot. That's what the math says.

Now, because a friend of mine likes this type of deck, we ran it through its paces.

These were our conclusions:

• Tarmogoyf sucks (or at least, is really just another man).
• Wasteland causes awkward mana draws.
• Mirran Crusader is quite strong (my initial list had it in the sideboard).
• Rhox War Monk is better than most people give it credit for.
• A twenty-third land would be nice, since the deck really wants two Tundras.
• An eighth 1-drop accelerator would be nice.
• Counterspell can be awkward.
• A fourth Swords to Plowshares is warranted.

So, we go back and make our cuts. Tarmogoyf should probably still be at least a one-of (due to Zenith). Outside of that, we just match our new deck lists to our conclusion. Because I'm willing to run sixty-one, we're just gonna run the twenty-third land as the sixty-first card.

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

4 Noble Hierarch

1 Birds of Paradise

1 Tarmogoyf

2 Knight of the Reliquary

2 Stoneforge Mystic

3 Rhox War Monk

2 Mirran Crusader

1 Qasali Pridemage

2 Vendilion Clique

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

4 Force of Will

3 Spell Pierce

4 Brainstorm

4 Swords to Plowshares

3 Green Sun's Zenith

1 Sword of Fire and Ice

1 Umezawa's Jitte

[/Spells]

[Lands]

1 Forest

1 Plains

1 Island

4 Misty Rainforest

2 Windswept Heath

2 Flooded Strand

3 Tropical Island

2 Savannah

2 Tundra

2 Wasteland

1 Ancient Ziggurat

1 Dryad Arbor

1 Karakas

[/Lands]

[Sideboard]

1 Rhox War Monk

1 Qasali Pridemage

1 Mirran Crusader

3 Gilded Drake

1 Loaming Shaman

2 Llawan, Cephalid Empress

1 Gaddock Teeg

1 Spell Pierce

1 Sword of Fire and Ice

2 Pithing Needle

1 Bojuka Bog

[/Sideboard]

[/cardlist]

The Ancient Ziggurat might look funny to you, but I think it is the best five-color land for the deck. Gemstone Mine will likely die too fast, and City of Brass will be worth 3 to 4 damage over the course of the game if drawn early. That is very relevant in a deck that is playing Force of Will and fetch lands as well. I feel that if drawn early, Ziggurat has no drawback, and if drawn late, likely is the same as City or Gemstone Mine, so I believe it to be the best fix for the mana base.

If I were inclined to run Aggro Bant at a Legacy event in the near future, this is the seventy-five I would battle with. The main differences from Caleb's list are the Rhox War Monk and Mirran Crusader slots. I think that this deck should be trying to take advantage of its 3-drops, and this philosophy is reflected in the final deck lists.

On Legacy Card Prices

Recently, there's been a lot of discussion surrounding the prices of Legacy cards, and I wanted to make my opinion known. I could write a full article on this, but I think most of the points have been covered, so I'm just going to do a short summary. The long and short of it is that I think card prices aren't an issue yet, but it is very likely they will be in the future.

I feel that Legacy cards as a whole were an undervalued asset at the beginning of this year. This is obviously being corrected in the market as we speak, and it looks like Legacy card prices are beginning to stabilize again. Now, $80 for Force of Will and $100 for Blue duals seems steep, but that's about where I feel those cards should be for the moment. I wouldn't be surprised to see them climb a little higher, but they're in the right place at the moment.

On Star City Games' March Buy-List Action, and Sean Morgan's Response/Criticism

I agree with the driving motivation behind Sean's article (see his first and second articles on the topic here)—that there was a chance SCG's buy-list action could touch off a bubble. I was definitely afraid of this happening, but by no means felt it was a certainty, only a possibility. Not being well-versed in economics, I wasn't really willing to make a call one way or another, but it was something I was watching very closely. If things got hairy, I definitely had plans to get out.

As usual, there was a slight overcorrection (this is normal for Magic spikes), but it appears that as a whole, fears of a market crash were unfounded, and the market has corrected itself in the intervening month or so. The other factor that goes into this is the huge inelasticity of Magic prices in the downward direction. We see this in all formats. Cards can shoot up in price very quickly, but it takes a long, sustained lack of demand to bring them down. It happens every year, with Thrun, the Last Troll being the most recent example. This alone likely protects most Legacy cards from a huge crash.

On the Reserved List

It should go. I own around thirty to thirty-five dual lands, and will be fielding two full decks and maybe 75% of a third at the SCG $5K in Boston this weekend. Even so, the Reserved List needs to go.

Now, for those of you who believe Master's Edition would follow this announcement in real life, let me burst your bubble right now—not happening. It would anger enough players, myself included, that the bad publicity wouldn't be worth it. So, how does no Reserved List solve the problem if we can't do Master's Edition IRL?

The answer is simple—gradual reprints. Legacy's pool of "staples" is actually quite small, and thus it is reasonable to handle them via this method. There are cards that can be reprinted in regular expansions, and cards that can't (because they are too powerful). Force of Will and Wasteland lead the first category (I know, many of you might think Wasteland is too powerful for Standard, but it actually isn't). But, what about the real culprits, things like dual lands?

The answer for that is in WotC's extra product. Just, as an example, Knights vs. Dragons would have been a great opportunity to print a singleton Savannah. Over the years, this would be a great way of keeping a reasonable supply of these cards without flooding the market. In years where you are printing core "lesser" value Legacy staples like Plateau and Badlands, it is probably okay to print two to three in a year. If you are doing things like reprinting Underground Sea, I might make that the only reprint that year.

Putting core Legacy staples on about a seven-year reprint cycle like this will allow them to retain good value while also allowing the format to grow. There would be individual changes in valuation, but collections as a whole would be relatively stable because downward trends in certain cards would be balanced by upward trends in other cards.

This also keeps enough product in the market that demand will be relatively stable or show slight growth, helping the format as a whole. I have no problem with niche cards being extremely expensive due to lack of supply. Cards like Moat and Tabernacle that don't show up very frequently—and show up as one- or two-ofs when they do—are fine at large price points. Candelabra of Tawnos probably should be reprinted, though.

On Time Spiral

This card doesn't need to be banned. Shaheen Soorani and all the other Chicken Littles are wrong. Go read Adam Barnello's excellent rebuttal here.

There are a variety of ways of attacking this deck. If people are interested, I can write a full High Tide primer talking about how this deck operates and where the points of attack are. I have been playing variations of this deck for a long time, and have a lot of experience with it. If I had Candelabras, I would be playing High Tide in Legacy, but I don't, so that's that. If you have Candelabras or know anyone who does (and is willing to trade them), point them in my direction at the $5K on Sunday. I am definitely interested.

On the Future of Legacy

I do feel that Legacy is relatively close to the point of no return. If Wizards cannot find a way of increasing the supply of critical staples like dual lands, I feel like they will have no choice but to create another eternal format. The proposed "Overextended" from Masques block forward is, to me, the best choice. I do, however, believe that this theoretical format would lose much of the appeal of Legacy. Many of the powerful cards in Legacy are from before Masques block and unlikely to be reprinted. I feel that the format would not be as appealing to people like me, who enjoy doing very powerful things.

The issue with Legacy is the one that everyone has been raising—the price of the format. Because of the lack of supply of many Legacy staples, these cards are eventually simply going to hit a practical ceiling. If Magic continues to grow past this and newer players want an Eternal format they can play, WotC will create one. WotC would likely move official tournament support to this new tournament format, and I can imagine many independent retailers following suit. If this happens and support for Legacy dies, the format will go the way of Vintage.

Like many, I think that the biggest barrier to the health of Legacy as a format is the Reserved List. Wizards—or, at least, Hasbro's lawyers—clearly understand the importance of Magic as a collectible card game, however, and at this point, I would trust WotC to not make a boneheaded mistake like Chronicles II/Master's Edition. What needs to happen is a graduated reprint of Legacy staples, allowing them to maintain significant value while increasing supply, as I stated above. I can't really see a way where Legacy remains a large, vibrant format while there is no increase in the supply of staples.

I don't know what route WotC will take (perhaps they already intend to let Legacy die), but it is clear that the issue is on their radar, and I hope for a solution that all parties can agree to. I think a gradual reprinting of core staples is the best solution. I understand that Wizards does not like to stick its hands in the secondary market, but I feel that the Legacy problem is going to force their hand one way or another. Either they permanently kill the format by announcing Overextended, or they repeal the Reserved List. No matter which they do, they will be sticking their hands in the secondary market.

The thing is that many Legacy players, myself included, treat their collections partially as investments. The logic is simple—because the Legacy market is far less volatile, it requires less work to maintain. For those who don't have much time to trade, but lots of cards, Legacy is a good way to "hold" value and to be able to get into and out of formats quickly. Going from a Standard collection to a Legacy collection is difficult. The reverse is easy. Thus, the ability to liquidate part of your collection to change formats or to "play the game" is important.

Legacy players are not evil overlords who sit on piles of cards and cackle in glee, charging an arm and a leg newer players who want to get in. Legacy players are also not an exclusive gentlemen's club that denies membership to all but the most promising of members. Legacy players play Legacy because they love the format, and most want to see it grow. However, most Legacy players are also older, and thus have less time to invest in the game itself. If they want to play Standard or Extended, it is likely they don't have full collections and thus need to acquire cards. That's where the Legacy collection comes in.

Legacy players love Magic as much as you do, maybe more, because so many of us have been playing for so long. I really do think there is a way for the Magic community to have its cake and eat it too with respect to Legacy, but Wizards needs to work with us, and the first step is simple—repeal the Reserved List. The second is to institute a policy of gradual reprints to allow supply of core staples to roughly keep pace with demand, stabilizing the secondary market while allowing the format to grow.

That's all I have for this week.

Chingsung Chang

Conelead most everywhere and on MTGO

Khan32k5 at gmail dot com