Broke is the New Fixed

Legacy is a format where a two-card combo can deck your opponent or cheat an unstoppable 15/15 into play, and yet such decks are only marginally competitive.
Folks argue if you're doing nothing broken you're doing nothing period.

I don't buy that. Take Zoo and Merfolk as examples. They play dudes and they turn those dudes sideways. Maybe along the way they hit a curve of islandwalking Muscle Slivers via Aether Vial while Wastelanding and Dazing your attempts to develop. Maybe they drop a 4/5 for 1G, draw three burn spells off Sylvan Library and sacrifice two mountains to kill your ass.

And yeah, that's rough and stuff. But my point is Legacy is not a format defined by who can stick Iona first and effectively make the other player quit Magic.

(onward)

Maybe that's why I like Rock decks lately. They're not doing anything particularly effing insane, but on the whole they are raping your hand, fucking the board, dropping better guys than you have, and ratcheting up card advantage all the while. I dunno what the last three cards of this list should have been, but it's a pretty solid framework to build from.

It's weird to me how Grim Lavamancer tends to wind up alongside Tarmogoyf, but there's no denying it's good. Last summer I had a deck very similar to this, except with Cloud of Faeries into Standstill into Ninja of the Deep Hours, and running white for Swords to Plowshares instead of red for Lightning Bolt. It was effing hard to deal with, but by no means would I call any of it broken.

Speaking of pretty far from broken, I'm pretty amazed mono-blue control has been fighting its way up the lists lately, but you don't hear me complaining. See also: Soldiers. How in the hell? Nevermind, whatever, it's awesome. Shit, Landstill might not be as dead as once seemed either.

Alright, this is bugging me: the Bant Charm decks with Cold-Eyed Selkie are often seen running ONE Brainstorm. Are these budget Vintage decks that folks randomly sling in Legacy events? What the hell? And I'm surprised by the inclusion of Lightning Greaves, but I fully intend to try it and in fact hope to like it.

And while we're on the subject of decks sporting Stoneforge packages and Sylvan Library, look at this. It's like Land Hax without the Fathom Seer and Force of Will. So basically it's like if someone reworked Land Hax in a form I could fully embrace.

Anyway, to close out our theme of allegedly "fair" decks - those that don't cast three Cruel Ultimatums and a Bogarden Hellkite on turn two - I'll leave you with one silly combo: Legacy Hive Mind.

Yep.

-Dan