Poor Adam Prosak. He became one of my favorite players when he next leveled Sam Friedmand with storm at an SCG invitational about a year ago, but after only one run, his freshly redesigned cube has got an overhaul so complete that it’s almost unrecognizable. The new “Legacy Cube” hits MTGO for the first time today, after an extended downtime , although a few select streamers had an opportunity to draft it last week .
You probably know me as a financier, but I love me some magic online, and I really, really love cube drafting. I will always remember the first time I played cube as a seminal moment in my magic life – I already knew magic was fun, but I never knew it could be cube fun. While I was not one of the select few to get to play this cube early, I did get to check out a chunk of the coverage on various streams, so while I am working more in theory than in practice in discussing the new cube, I did get to see some of the new cards and decks in actions.
White
In past MTGO cubes, white was almost always one of two things: a primary aggressive color (sometimes alongside black or red) or a secondary control color (often in U/W/x decks). In Legacy Cube, it looks like white is more aggressive and swarm-oriented than ever before, and many of the cards that pushed white decks towards control have been removed.
Probably the biggest difference is the lack of sweepers. While the Legacy Cube, as a whole, is 17 percent smaller than the previous MTGO cubes, the number of white wrath effects were cut at a might higher rate of 43 percent. Apart from the categories namesake Wrath of God, Day of Judgment, Martial Coup, and Terminus are the only wraths in Legacy Cube, with Akroma’s Vengeance, Catastrophic, and Balance being left on the sidelines.
The biggest addition to white is a token theme, which looks to be Boros-focused. In Legacy Cube, white actually has more crusade effects that wrath effects, and new additions like Gather the Townsfolk, Raise the Alarm, and Doomed Traveler push white towards decks that want to go Turn 1 Champion of the Parish/Doomed Traveler, Turn 2 Raise/Gather, Turn 3 Crusade. While we will talk more about artifact in a bit, its worth noting that cards that punish token strategies, like Powder Keg or Ratchet Bomb, are missing from the cube this go-around.
Decks: White aggro, Boros tokens.
Biggest Additions: Kor Skyfisher, Frontline Medic, token producers.
Most Noticeable Subtractions: Control cards, Stoneforge Mystic.
Blue
As much as white is different in Legacy Cube, blue is the same offering a heavy dose of counters, card advantage, mind controls, and bounce. Along with powerful build-around-me cards like Opposition and Upheaval, much like past cube, the common blue decks in Legacy Cube appear to be U/x control (although weakened by the lack of sweepers in support colors), U/x tempo, and B/u/x (most often green) reamimator.
There are two changes in blue for the Legacy Cube, but I don’t think either will have much of an effect on the format. First, they removed some blue aggro cards like Delver of Secrets and Phantasmal Bear, which is good, because a huge percentage of the time these cards were both crappy and trappy. The problem is, they replaced the blue aggro cards with what I assume is another trap: the Kiki-Jiki/Splinter Twin and Pestermite/Deceiver Exarch combo.
While it may be possible to just fall into the combo, any given cube draft only contains 60 percent of the 600 cards in the cube, so it is entirely possible to first pick a Pestermite, second pick a Deceiver Exarch, and come to find out that neither of the red enablers were even in your draft. So be careful making this combo your primary strategy, it seems like more of a plan b for when everything falls into place perfectly.
Decks: U/x control, U/x (or X/u) tempo), B/u/x reaminator, maybe Exarch Twin (but probably not).
Biggest Additions: Pestermite, Deceiver Exarch.
Most Noticeable Subtractions: Nothing really. Storm has been gone since the Prosak update, and the cards that have been cut were consistently late picks.
Black
I’m having a hard time figuring out exactly what black is in the Legacy Cube. It still has some hold-over aggro cards like Bob, Diregraf Ghoul, and Pain Seer and it still has some strong support for U/x control decks (actually, black has as many sweepers as white in Legacy cube, and far more spot removal, so it is likely that most control decks should be U/B/x instead of the old U/W/x). Its graveyard theme has been strengthened with dredge cards including Darkblast and Stinkweed Imp to go along with all the typical reanimation spells from past MTGO cubes. On top of all this, a mono-black theme with cards like Gray Merchant being added to former late picks Phyrexian Obliterater, Corrupt, and Geralf’s Messenger. I’m not sure that Gray Merchant is enough to make mono-black a good deck, but there are more reasons to give it a shot now that in the past.
In past cubes, the nut reaminator deck was likely the best deck in the format, and it seems to be even better now with dredgers to fill up the graveyard, so this is where I will be looking first if I’m trying to win some VMA packs, although the loss of every playable tutor effect makes the reanimator strategy much less consistent.
Decks: B/u/x (likely green) reaminator, black aggro, mono-black devotion/”swamps matter,” U/B control.
Biggest Additions: Gray Merchant, Underworld Connections, Dredgers, Whip of Erebos.
Most Noticeable Subtractions: Braids, Cabal Minion (which will probably improve my win rate because I’m a sucker for the Braids/Smokestack deck), Tutors (both Demonic and Vampiric).
Red
Don’t worry, red is still pure beat-your-face-in aggro. The biggest changes in red have already been covered in talking about the other colors, most importantly the addition of the Splinter Twin/Kiki-Jiki combo and the Boros token theme. Where white got Raise the Alarm and Gather the Townsfolk, red got Hordling Outburst, Krenko’s Command, Dragon’s Fodder, Stoke the Flames and the potential center piece of the deck: Goblin Bombardment.
On paper, Boros tokens looks strong, perhaps even better than mono-red aggro, so when your drafting the cube, be sure to keep this deck in mind, and if you open a Goblin Bombardment, don’t be afraid to dive in, because there is plenty of support for the archetype.
Decks: Mono-Red Aggro, Boros Tokens, X/r tempo, U/B/r control.
Biggest Additions: The token theme, highlighted by Goblin Bombardment, Splinter Twin.
Most Noticeable Losses: Ball Lightning effects, Keldon Champion (maybe the best mono-red 4-drop), land destruction (Ravenous Baboons, Magus of the Moon, Goblin Runeblaster), Wildfire effects, and all the bad Chandras (thankfully).
Green
If you want to get your ramp on in the Legacy Cube, green is about your only option, because there are no signets and very few mana rocks of any kind. Like always, green is elves and fatties. Green also has more planeswalkers than any other color in the Legacy Cube, with every Garruk every printed, Nissa, and Freyalise making it six in total.
In past MTGO cubes, green aggro was a deck. In the legacy cube, cards like Experiment One, Flinthoof Boar, and Strangleroot Geist are left on the sidelines, so green is firmly a mid-range and ramp color. Green has also gained some pieces which make it an appealing support color for reanimator strategies including Tracker’s Insight, Commune with the Gods, Wild Mongrel, and Satyr Wayfinder, so in Legacy Cube, BUG graveyard decks might be the way to go over something like Esper reainmator.
Decks: Green Ramp, G/x(/x) midrange, B/U/g reaminator/”graveyard matters.”
Biggest Additions: Graveyard support (especially Wild Mongrel, one of the best limited 2-drops ever printed), removal (Songs of the Dryad, Setessan Tactics).
Most Noticeable Subtractions: Aggro cards, Heartbeat of Spring, Survival of the Fittest.
Gold and Artifacts:
Since there are not enough multi-color or artifact cards to create their own archetypes, this group is more about individual additions or subtractions, and what they do (or don’t do) for the decks we have already discussed. Prime Speaker Zegana is an interesting addition to U/G ramp decks, and potentially even U/B/G graveyard decks, which also gain from the addition of the former best creature ever printed, Psychatog. Boros Reckoner slots into WR tokens and Brango, King Eternal is a cool card, but I have no idea where (or if) it fits in the format.
Most of the cuts from of the gold cards go along with what we have already talked about. Things like Putrid Leech and Ghor-Clan Rampager leave G/x aggro. The loss of every charm (minus Boros) is also notable, but I’m not completely sure why.
As for artifacts, there is a huge reduction in equipment, most importantly the loss of all swords and a 7 percent reduction (as a percentage of the cube) in mana producing artifacts. Things that hate on the newly pushed token deck (Ratchet Bomb/Powder Keg) and BUG graveyard deck (Relic of Progenitus) also get the axe, along with some of my personal favorites including Smokestack, Crucible of Worlds, Memory Jar, and all colorless sweepers including Oblivion Stone and All is Dust.
Overall, there the number of colorless cards (as a percentage of the cube as a whole) has been greatly reduced by 15 percent while the number of gold cards has increase by 7 percent.
Lands:
The Legacy Cube has 6 cycles of dual lands: Shocks, ABU Duals, Fetches, Buddy (core set/Innistrad) lands, Scry-lands (the only new cycle of lands), and Painlands. This is a massive change, with Filters, Tri-Lands, Mirage Fetches, WWK (and Urza’s) Man-Lands, dropping out. So the amount of mana fixing is limited compared to past MTGO cubes, which makes multi-color decks slight worse. If you look a bit deeper, the changes seem to hurt control decks more than aggro, as the man-lands made great finishers in creature light decks, and control deck are usually more apt to play a greater number of comes-into-play tapped lands like the Mirage fetches and Tri-lands.
There number of utility lands has also been reduced. Probably the most impactful change is the loss of Karakas, which was a very powerful option in past cubes (to the point where it was sometimes playable in non-white decks), and Strip Mine, which is one of a handful of lands that can win a game on its own.
All in all, there are nearly 15 percent less lands (again, as a percentage of the cube) than in the last update, which suggests that it may be correct to take premiere duals even higher than in the past.
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That’s all for today. As always, you can follow me @SaffronOlive on twitter, you can find my financial article on http://www.mtggoldfish.com, or send me a message on MTGO.
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