As everyone who follows Standard tournaments even slightly will know, last weekend's Standard GP in Dallas was overwhelmingly dominated by Jace, the Mind Sculptor. The Top 8 decks, evenly split between two archetypes, all played the foul four Mind Sculptors. Of the 130-odd decks that made Day 2, Jace was the most commonly played card, with an estimated 379 making the cut. By the time this article goes up, I'm sure the #banjace debate will have been beaten to death on every Magic website out there, so I'm not going to dwell on it. I will say I think Jace warps the format, Standard is currently unfun, and having a $100 mythic as the most frequently played card in successful Standard decks is unhealthy, but I don't think he will be banned. He's too important to the Magic brand, and there is no guarantee that a Jaceless format would be an improvement. Instead, I expect R&D will keep throwing Raking Canopy at him until he naturally rotates out of Standard.

The salient point is that Standard is currently unfun for me, and for others. As noted a couple of weeks back, I've also cooled my enthusiasm for Block lately. What's a jonesing mage to do?

Draft

Fortunately, the keen minds at Wizards of the Coast saw fit to grant us plenty of alternatives to their flagship format. I got out to Friday Night Magic for the first time in a couple of years this week at my buddy Aaron's invitation, the format Besieged-Scars-Scars draft. I consider myself a pretty horrendous limited player, but hey, I was guaranteed three rounds of Magic with nary a Titan or Mind Sculptor in sight! I hadn't drafted Scars block before, but I had played plenty of constructed, so at least I knew most of the cards. I asked Twitter for some tips before heading in to town and was variously encouraged to force Infect, force Red and run people over, avoid Infect, play dinosaurs, and pick artifacts. In the end, the best advice was also the simplest. From Marshall of Limited Resources fame, "Basically just draft two colors, good removal, and serviceable dudes." So just like every other format, then!

I caught up with a few regular PTQ grinders including Luke Williams, whose incredible skill at this format enabled him to open Sword of Feast and Famine in the draft. My first pack started well with Red Sun's Zenith, and got even better as I was passed two Kuldotha Flamefiends, Go for the Throat, Goblin Wardriver, Blisterstick Shaman, and Crush before we even got to Pack 2. The Red just kept coming, and I added two Shatters, Turn to Slag, and Cerebral Eruption to my removal suite, as well as a couple of on-color mana Myr and a pair of Wall of Tanglecords—I figured if I got to the late game, there would be no way I could lose. The bodies coming along for the ride on the Removal Express were pretty unimpressive, but I did manage to snag a Golem Artisan, and a 4/4 Flamefiend ends the game in fairly short order when the opponent can't get a creature to stick.

I lost every die roll with an unlikely succession of 1s, but I would have drawn in both my first matches anyway. I beat William with GWB Infect 2–0, beat Rui with Blue control 2–0, and drew with Chao playing GB Infect 1–1 after I mulled to five and he crushed me with a perfect curve Game 1. That record was good to win the draft, thanks mainly to my ability to draw six lands and Kuldotha Flamefiend every game. Drafting was fun, and it gave me a chance to play some proper matches, but I'm a constructed player by preference. Deck lists are so much more fun to tinker with than pick orders. With Standard and Block out for the time being, I need to look back—a looong way back.

Legacy

The catalyst for my interest in Legacy was an excellent article by ManaNation alum Sam Stoddard. Sam's Foray into Online Legacy broke down what is a very intimidating format into bite-sized chunks, dividing the decks into broad groups based on what staple cards they played, identifying three pillars of the format—Tarmogoyf, Force of Will, and Wasteland. Getting a set of any of these three gives you a foot in the door with a number of different deck types, so with Wastelands, you could start with Goblins, and then decide to switch to Death and Taxes with the most expensive cards already part of your collection. Similarly, Tarmogoyf opens up a number of different creature-based strategies like Zoo, Natural Order, or Bant, while Force of Will is the foundation of Merfolk and High Tide, among many others.

Being naturally inclined to aggressive strategies, I decided to shell out for four Goyfs and build myself a Zoo deck. I really liked the look of Austin Beatty's Big Zoo, with four Green Sun's Zeniths to increase the threat density at every point on the curve, and some of the best burn spells ever printed. I was hard pressed to find the cards, though, as apparently I was buying in the midst of a huge rush on MTGO Legacy cards. I spent a few hours trawling the classifieds looking for Tarmogoyfs, Savannahs, and fetch lands, and eventually turned some up on some rather shonky-looking bots. It seems that the rush is over for the time being, with most staples back in stock at the big stores, unfortunately with a hefty increase in price.

Nonetheless, I handed over my tickets and came away with seventy-five cards that won't ever rotate out of the format, and quickly dove into the practice room. My starting deck was a straight copy of Austin's, as follows:

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

2 Grim Lavamancer

4 Knight of the Reliquary

4 Qasali Pridemage

4 Tarmogoyf

4 Wild Nacatl

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

4 Lightning Bolt

2 Lightning Helix

4 Path to Exile

4 Chain Lightning

4 Green Sun's Zenith

2 Sylvan Library

[/Spells]

[Lands]

1 Forest

1 Mountain

1 Plains

4 Arid Mesa

2 Horizon Canopy

2 Plateau

1 Savannah

3 Taiga

2 Windswept Heath

4 Wooded Foothills

1 Dryad Arbor

[/Lands]

[Sideboard]

1 Vexing Shusher

1 Gaddock Teeg

2 Back to Nature

3 Krosan Grip

2 Lightning Helix

3 Price of Progress

2 Umezawa's Jitte

1 Bojuka Bog

[/Sideboard]

[/cardlist]

It seemed straightforward enough, but I quickly got my ass handed to me by Goblins, Countertop, and Show and Tell. More than anything else I was losing to my own misplays, as the deck wasn't as simple as it seemed. I could have any of three different fetch lands to find any of seven possible fetchable lands, and I was playing with cards I'd never played with or against before. My Lavamancers were about as effective as Mons's Goblin Raiders, I was removing the wrong threats, and I generally had no idea what my opponents were doing until I was dead.

I jumped onto http://www.mtgthesource.com, a Legacy forum that has been around apparently forever. After a few days browsing the Zoo thread and other deck threads in the "Established Decks" and "Decks to Beat" forum, I felt I had a better handle on the format, and decided to tinker just a little bit—I am never 100% happy with a straight netdeck and constantly want to change things around. The first step was to move Gaddock Teeg to the main deck, to give me a chance Game 1 against the various combo decks in the format, which had just been crushing me. With four Green Sun's Zeniths to find him, I only needed the one, and he could turn off such powerful spells as Natural Order, Dread Return, Ad Nauseam, and Aluren. He also turned off my own Zeniths, which could be awkward, but I figured it was worth the trade to stop myself being immediately killed. I shifted one Pridemage to the sideboard, as four with four Zeniths seemed excessive for what was essentially a disruption card. Other cards I didn't like very much were Grim Lavamancer and Lightning Helix, but the guys on the Source swear by them and they feature in most Zoo lists, so I'll assume the fault is mine for the moment, and think about switching them up later.

The current sideboard is also extremely boring, seemingly just a series of narrow bullets for specific matches. The card I like most there is Price of Progress, as I love efficient burn spells, and this looks like one of the best ever. I'd love to fit in some Fireblasts as well, but that's probably a different deck altogether, one that doesn't mess around with Knight of the Reliquary and Zenith and instead plays Kird Apes.

In further testing, Gaddock Teeg proved to be exceptionally powerful, completely hosing my opponents on several occasions. Against Dredge, I managed to get Teeg out on turn two by Zenithing for Dryad Arbor turn one to accelerate my mana, and he was consigned to trying to beat down with Narcomoebas and two Zombie tokens, while I played Knight of the Reliquarys and found my Bojuka Bog. Another deck I don't even know what his plan was, he played Chrome Moxes and Brainstorms, then scooped to Teeg.

The next step for my Legacy Zoo deck is to jazz up the sideboard. The cards I am looking at are . . .

Null Rod: It seems bonkers in a number of matches—Painter's Servant/Grindstone combo, Affinity of course, and maybe even these extremely common Vial/Sword decks based off the Exiler precon. Only irritating thing is the 36-ticket price tag attached, but that's no worse than Vengevine or Primeval Titan.

Karakas: A tutorable answer to such difficult-to-answer threats as Iona and Emrakul is a perfect one-of for the sideboard. I could see moving it to the main deck if I come across Reanimator or Show and Tell decks with any frequency.

Tariff: The only problem with Karakas is that it can't stop Progenitus, and the walking two-turn clock is awful problematic for a deck as fair as Big Zoo. It's unlikely we're able to race him, and we certainly can't block him, so forcing a sacrifice is probably the best plan. The issue here is it's not tutorable, so I would want three or four of them to ensure I can find one in time for it to matter, and I don't know how much room in the sideboard I can donate to one specific problem. It's certainly on the short list, at least.

One thing that surprises me about Legacy is how stupidly powerful the hosers are. Perish is basically a one-sided Wrath of God for . Boil is a one-sided Armageddon. Back to Basics, Null Rod, Engineered Plague, Kataki, War's Wage—for every ridiculous thing you can do in the format, there's a foil. After ducking, weaving, and jabbing in Block, Standard, and even limited, Legacy feels rather like fighting with rocket launchers rather than fists. Any game can completely flip on its head in a single turn, even in the resolution or countering of a single, powerful spell.

If, like me, you're tired of the dull, dreary, stale Standard format but aren't in any mood to give up Magic entirely for a few weeks, you do have options! Drafting is different every single time—you have to take what comes, think on your feet, and build as you go. Legacy is so vast that even format veterans can't anticipate every deck, and even if they could, no deck can fit in answers to all the others. Come find me on Twitter @rtassicker, or leave a comment and let me know where your holiday from Standard is taking you!