How to Prepare for Eternal Weekend When You Haven't Played Magic in Months(

October 29, 2024

17 minute read

Minhajul Hoq
Image of Psychic Frog ARt

Hello friends! I've been away for quite some time, busy with one hobby or another, but I've found myself pining for Legacy lately, no matter what woebegone-ity of the format's own health. Why, you may ask? Because I find myself having the opportunity to go to Eternal Weekend this year! With various familial and scheduling obligations taken care, this will be my first year at Eternal Weekend since 2019! So, no matter how good or bad the format is, Legacy is my lifeblood and so I'll be in attendance! Fun fact, by the way, I've never met Max Gilmore, my co-author here on MinMaxBlog.com, in real life before, but this year the stars have aligned and both of us will be in attendance at Eternal Weekend! Feel free to come say hi :D

However, I'm sure you're not here to learn about where the heckarooni I've been, you don't care about that! You maybe mostly care about how someone who's been "out of the game" for so long even considers preparing for a giant Legacy tournament? Well, I've been deep in the trenches the past few months, and I figured I'd share some of my process with you all.

Everyone learns a little bit differently, and so I want to break down my process in a way that makes sense to someone that isn't me.

Thus, I've divided this guide up into the following sections:

Part 1: Learning via osmosis

My first step when diving back into a format is learning via osmosis, and for me that consists mostly consuming a LOT of content. I want to shoutout some content creators here who helped me catch up quick on a lot of what the format was doing now. Not only in decks that they play, but also varying in experience, skill level, and their general approach to the format.

There are obviously SO many more creators that make content in this space, but I'm just listing the videos I've been consuming avidly the past few months.

How does video content quickly catch me up? Well the number one thing for is that I get to shortcut matches in times that I can't necessarily focus and play magic myself, but I can have a video going on in the background where the person playing is doing commentary on their decisions and how they approach specific moments in a game of magic. I also do this as my first step because it's the fastest way for me to actually get my mind wrapped around new cards and interactions and how a format operates quickly. It's nigh impossible for me to know what cards are immediately viable in Legacy after I've missed like 5 set releases, and I can always rely on seeing the newest cards in action in any of these creator's work.

It's also really easy to identify what other people consider to be good. Watching content quickly taught me that the ban in Legacy didn't do much in terms of knocking down UB Reanimator as the #1 best deck, and the entire format still revolved around an innocuous .

It also introduced me to rather large changes on known quantity decks, such as Moon Stompy no longer playing , all of the new Eldrazi cards that are basically brand new, various shells, and all sorts of other things I was not necessarily going to encounter on my own at a pace I'd need in order to develop proper heuristics.

After getting a lay of the land, next up was...

Part 2: Finding the best deck

Wait a minute Min, didn't you already say that UB Reanimator was the best deck? Why do you need to find the best deck, again?

Great question! The answer is, I don't, but I also do. Knowing what the best deck and understanding the best deck are two very different things. I wanted to know the ins and outs of why this deck was considered the best deck. I could consume video content all day, but I don't really "understand" how a deck is considered good or bad unless I play it myself. So, I played a ton of UB Reanimator, taking stock lists that were doing well and just understanding how it worked. My findings boiled down to two words.

.

This thing just... does it all. It's an incredible plan B for when your Plan A of dumping a giant thing into the yard goes wrong, and it lets you pull ahead in games you have no business being in at all. In my mind, this card is much stronger than ever was, and I'd be shocked if it lasted much longer in the format after Eternal Weekend.

Looking at decklists for UB reanimator overall: Example Decklist, a very clear trend was occurring to me in how these decks were constructed. Game 1 was all about setting up positioning around getting , or cheated out, or, failing that, a more "fair" gameplan around , . allows you to bridge around both possible strategies in case one fails at any given moment, since it operates as a "must-answer" threat, and an enabler.

However, post board games often turned into a pivot, where most big creatures and got boarded out as UB reanimator turned into a more "fair" gameplan, with copies of and the reanimation stuff mostly getting back more fair creatures, e.g. Game 1's Plan B. This way, you didn't hard lose to graveyard hate, but still had the opportunity to out-muscle your opponent because your opponent was forced to hard-pivot to graveyard hate, but you still have a regular ol' game plan bolstered by the power of .

After a bunch of matches, it was very clear in my mind that this was easily the best deck in the format, and it should have a target on its back. How were others trying to attack the deck?

Part 3: Finding the next best deck

I am not going to claim that there is a singular "next best deck". Instead, I wanted to analyze what the data around metagame share and win rate was telling me were the next best decks, and analyze why they were the next best decks.

An extremely rudimentary glance at MTGGoldfish's metagame site as of time of writing gives me the following decks next up in metagame share:

My process here doesn't have to be precise, I just need a good idea of how these decks attempted to match up against UB Reanimator, and also their general gameplan in case they were new to me.

I then analyzed general social media and results to see if any lists seemed like outliers, especially Legacy Showcase Results, which resulted in my adding of two additional decks to my list:

I'm going to give a brief summary of my impressions and learnings from each of these decks.

Red Stompy

This deck recently won Japan's Eternal weekend, with this really interesting list:

Takano Shigeki's Red Stompy List

Gone are the normal attempts at trying to "lock" opponents out of the game with these decks. Instead, they try to simply out muscle everything possible while leaning on a widely applicable offensive lock piece, . Why offensive? Simple, it turns off and , the two most prominent free counterspells in the format, and allows you to simply tap out for the biggest threat you can, using and to constantly have threat after threat going. This deck simply tries to out-muscle UB Reanimator, because for all of that deck's accolades, it mostly only plays the afore-mentioned countermagic as its primary form of disruption.

Notably, post board the deck has 4 / effects, alongside 4 as graveyard hate, and 2 copies of to attempt to deal with large or reanimated creatures.

Eldrazi

Eldrazi, also represented in Japan's Eternal Weekend Top 8, looks wildly different from the last time Eldrazi was wide-spread in Legacy. Eldrazi is no longer an -fueled aggressive deck, trying to combo into . Instead, it an -fueled "over the top of you" ramp deck, that uses , , , and , overwhelming opponents with cards that have cast triggers that create 2-for-1 exchanges.

The challenging aspect here is that this deck has built-in graveyard hate in , so it augments game 1 graveyard hate with more elements like and even cards like which are surprisingly solid against the midrange gameplan of UB Reanimator.

Dimir Tempo

This deck is a bit of an odd one to me. It seems like it's trying to do what UB reanimator does post board, but be pre-boarded against decks that play overwhelming hate for Reanimator. Good in concept, I think, but in execution something else emerges...

This deck is just the latest in the attempts of folks trying to re-create the success of something like Grixis Delver in Legacy, relying on as a card advantage engine.

I think structurally, however, the only thing this deck has going for it is that it doesn't fold to hard graveyard hate, but it also doesn't altogether side step it. In fact, this deck proved to me something about UB Reanimator instead, the indefatigable truth that folks were playing 0 or 1 mana answers, and that two mana spells were just too slow.

Gone are the attempts at treading water into or , with the former hitting the , , and angles, and the latter just being too slow. In fact, "treading water" simply doesn't work at all since UB Reanimator has a built-in plan against "hard graveyard hate" as I've alluded to earlier.

Looking at an example decklist, this deck relies on a tried-and-true tempo gameplan, and relying on the cantrip cartel to find flexible answers for graveyard hate, such as , and once again .

Painter

Painter is a deck I was already quite familiar with, and one of the decks that did not really have its overall gameplan change with Modern Horizons III. However, allows it to have the proactive threat-based angle that Eldrazi has, which just makes its angle of attacks just as multifaceted as before, but significantly more insulated as well.

Looking at this decklist, they seek to painter combo you still, or out value you with , utilizing and as their graveyard hate du-jour.

Doomsday

Another somewhat classical deck, this deck is maybe the most similar to UB Reanimator in that it has a combo kill comparmentalized by a plan B of , which draws you into disruption or protection for the combo, this deck also has the capacity to morph into something more fair, this time with and .

Since this deck doesn't need the graveyard at all, morphing into elements that rely on the graveyard allow it to remain flexible, and also enables them to play their own forms of graveyard hate for UB Reanimator.

Mystic Forge Combo

A new take on a classical deck, this is the latest take on trying to break the artifact/untap mana engine using and a effect, but this time it wins with , or . An upgraded version of a deck that's been on the fringes of Legacy for a long time, the ability to play main deck graveyard hate in does a lot for this deck,

This deck has a ton of graveyard hate options, playing a mix of all of any of the graveyard artifact hate cards, as well as , but it's also a non-blue deck so it has to rely on a mix of all of these.

Nadu Combo

This label is actually encapsulates a slew of different archetypes, some that take into the Cephalid breakfast shell, while others slot in into a more elves-like shell with [Chord of Calling]. The first deck operates sort of like a combo/control deck that has a lot more reactive elements, while the latter is a true all-in combo deck, looking to overwhelm the opponent with lots of creatures and combing while being all-in on being proactive.

Both lists mostly rely on and more "fair" hedge cards since UB Reanimator post board often morphs into more of a midrange deck. out of the first list does a number on the post board plans for UB Reanimator.

Yorion Death and Taxes

I could probably wax poetic about Death and Taxes and say absolutely nothing good about it, so instead, I'm just going to send you over to the best in the business, a video podcast that breaks down building Death and Taxes with xJCloud and Akaleth.

For my purposes, Death and Taxes featuring and operates similarly to past iterations, just with a much faster potential on clocking the opponent, and the ability to outmuscle UB Reanimator's fair game plan by virtue of having inevitability in most midrange matchups. This deck has a slew of potential graveyard hate options as well, so the matchup dynamic often comes down to if DnT can answer any pressure while stabilizing its late game engines.

Jeskai Control

Ha. Ha ha ha.

Okay, in all seriousness, Legacy is extremely fast right now, and control decks generally do not do very well in really fast formats. However, Jeskai Control appears to be the current premiere control deck in the format. While I tend to disparage Control decks without a mana-efficient card advantage engine when a format is fast, Jeskai attempts to have stable mana and deal with the plan B of the best deck in the room, using and to take care of any attempt for UB decks to pull ahead.

Notably, it's also the blue control deck on this list, which I think happens most times that Legacy has a tempo-enabled card advantage two drop in the format.

As far as taking on UB Reanimator, it mostly relies on going toe-to-toe with the deck's plan B, and making sure it has stable mana to take on the longer games that this sort of dynamic inevitably creates.

Esper Stoneblade

Wait, are you sure it's 2024 and NOT 2012? Yep, our very own Max Gilmore has been working on Esper Stoneblade, showing incredible results in two challenges as well as some paper events at MagicCon Las Vegas this past weekend, and I'm very much in awe of this deck's transformation and resurgence. It tries to play a really fair gameplan as well, but operates a lot like post-board UB Reanimator also in game ones, like Dimir Tempo tries to do. However, it sits in a space between Tempo and Control because it can remove all of the creatures in the format with white removal, and each of its threats line up well against post board configs of both Tempo and Reanimator.

It's a good place to be in the format right now, surprisingly! A control deck glued together by , why didn't I think of that?

**Spoiler, I will!**

Esper Vial

An interesting deck that's been gaining traction the past few weeks due to , Esper Vial on paper looks it was absolutely designed to beat up anyone attempting UB anything. A combination of , a new blink effect with , and the ability to as a toolbox for any scenario means that this deck is an absolute nightmare for UB Reanimator and it really doesn't get much better post board for that deck. If I am absolutely looking to beat the best deck, this deck is probably the best on this list primed to do exactly that.

Finding your best deck

You may notice that there's a lot of strategies that aren't necessarily on this list, like Lands, Storm strategies, and our favorite strategies. This is literally just because they aren't has high metagame share as these other decks, nor are less obviously "good" against the best deck. So how do we determine if these decks are reasonable to play and could be next "best" deck contenders?

Well, either we dismiss them outright for one reason or another (more on that later!) or we play them ourselves.

In the cast of the latter two, I tried them myself!

Very few people know this, but I actually cut my teeth playing ANT, and so I quickly looked up storm combo decks and saw if anything seemed reasonable, starting with this Challenge Winning List

Yep, it's storm alright! It's still a deck designed to beat up and , leveraging discard to clear the way. However... ANT has always had a bit of a challenge against Reanimator since they have both a fast clock AND disruption, while also accumulating some amount of cross-hate pieces, as some lines do rely on the graveyard, and sadly does a number on the deck's artifact mana based storm lines. Still good, and a reasonable choice to prepare with, but volatile nonetheless.

Then, I tried toying with a pet deck/earworm of mine, Domain Beans. As a psuedo-control deck relying on , and the modern-ported and combo to out muscle all the fair plans in decks while also having lots of card advantage built-in.

My findings here were that I actually didn't out-muscle the fair decks at all, and a lot of decks had answers to more passively now, making it a lot more difficult to rely on, while also dealing with more shaky mana than traditional Beans decks. All in all, not a reliable way to go.

So, that leaves Lands, right? Well, not exactly.

Lands is one of those decks that just really isn't in my wheelhouse at all. While I do consider myself a Spike these days, I tend to always veer towards the cantrip cartel as I prefer that sort of agency and control over my game, and Lands is really a metagame deck that plays magic very differently than the rest of the format. It just isn't in my wheelhouse and I didn't want to dedicate the time to learning it even if it was reasonable against the best deck. Even if it was reasonable, I don't think I would be able to play it without a direct mindset shift, and really... the vibes for me to play lands just weren't lining up.

Play, play, and play some more

This is where I am at now. I'm not 100% sure what I'll be playing at Eternal Weekend just yet, but I've been having a blast just jamming various decks. I've tested the decks you see above, and I've played a ton of UB Reanimator. I've even tested out the Japan Eternal Weekend Top 8 Beanstalk Control deck, which I really liked, but did I like it more than UB Reanimator? I don't really know.

There's no real substitute for straight up experience, no matter how much research or osmosis I try to take care of. So now, I've concluded that I've gleaned all I can from other sources and now I just play play play. Playing magic builds up your heuristics, lets you commit more situations and moments to memory, and just internalizes everything you need so future you doesn't have to worry about spending brain cells!

Tl;DR