Hi, it’s Terribad, also known as Karl.

This upcoming weekend in Prague Ultimate Guard is sponsoring the European Eternal Weekend and as the Magic Online Legacy Showcase Champion I feel it is my obligation to share with you, the reader, my sideboard guide for the best deck in Legacy.

Before we get into the details I would like to give my thanks to Stefan Schütz a.k.a MentalMisstep, one of the greatest Legacy and MTGO players ever and Roope Metsä, a Finnish national champion and a MTGO grinder by the name of Folero. Both of you were amazing for answering my questions about the deck and the format and I could not have done it without your help!

The deck I played in the tournament was built for a metagame that expected about 30% various UB decks, 14% Eldrazi, 10% Doomsday, 10% Yorion D&T/Toolbox decks, 8% Mystic Forge Combo, 8% Mono Red Stompy and some Painter Servant, Oops! All Spells and Sneak and Show.

This is also a fairly accurate representation of the open field Legacy right now, with a slight over-representation of Doomsday. 

UB Reanimator decklist I played:

UB Reanimator Mirror

-4 Entomb

-1 Daze

-1 Archon of Cruelty

-1 Atraxa, Grand Unifier

+1 Barrowgoyf

+1 Brazen Borrower

+1 Fatal Push

+1 Dismember

+1 Orcish Bowmasters

+1 Murktide Regent

+1 Ghost Vacuum

As you can see I decided to trim down on graveyard hate in the sideboard, the reason is I think most players tend to sideboard out Entombs in the matchup and play more of a midrange gameplan, which I also think is correct. The reason for that is that entombing is very risky vs opposing animation effects.

If I wanted to play another SB card for this matchup I would consider the following options:

Dark Betrayal - dealing with Trolls can be an issue, the problem with playing this card is that it is basically useful only in this matchup as regular midrange and Delver decks play too many non-black creatures right now.

Faerie Macabre - this is also a targeted hate card vs reanimator, but it has a bit wider appliance against other decks that care about graveyard.

Surgical Extraction - this card has the highest application in other matchups, especially other combo decks like Oops! All Spells and Doomsday.

UB Midrange / UB Delver

-4 Entomb

-1 Archon of Cruelty

-1 Atraxa, Grand Unifier

+1 Barrowgoyf

+1 Brazen Borrower

+1 Fatal Push

+1 Dismember

+1 Orcish Bowmasters

+1 Murktide Regent

In this matchup you have an edge in game 1 because even though they are playing main deck hate cards it is usually not enough. You do tend to be a bit unfavored in the sideboard games, because they do get to bring in more hate cards and their midrange plan is better. Due to the prevalence of 4 targeted cards vs our matchup I would advise going to our plan B and becoming a midrange deck ourselves.

I think you can also consider trimming on Animate Deads or perhaps Reanimate if their version is especially tempo oriented.

I think if I wanted an extra card for this matchup I would go with Snuff Out. The games I lose most often are usually to Tamiyo or Murktide Reagent. This is also a flexible card that can be used against Eldrazi or Mono Red.

Eldrazi

-1 Reanimate

-1 Entomb

-3 Daze

-1 Troll of Khazad-Dum

+3 Consign to Memory

+1 Barrowgoyf

+1 Brazen Borrower

+1 Dismember

This matchup is good, but sometimes you can get caught by Chalice of the Void, so play carefully around that. I believe we already have enough cards for the matchup and there is not enough reason to justify adding anything specific to target it.

Snuff Out and Engineered Explosives are two cards that could be good here if you want to play them for other reasons though.

Doomsday

-1 Animate Dead

-1 Brazen Borrower

-1 Troll of Khazad-Dum

-1 Atraxa, Grand Unifier

+2 Consign to Memory

+1 Fatal Push

+1 Archive Trap

This matchup is also favored for our deck, but because of Cavern of Souls I tend to lose if they managed to resolve a Doomsday. Be careful often their plan involves becoming a midrange version themselves, hence why I'm keeping in the removal. Some versions play Murktide and in that case Brazen Borrower or any other answer to it is necessary. Borrower can also be good depending on what kind of graveyard hate they are playing.

Archive Trap is very clearly a targeted bullet for this matchup, I would not play it in an open field event and you should still be favored, just be more aware of not letting them to Doomsday.

Mystic Forge Combo

-1 Fatal Push

-1 Entomb

-1 Animate Dead

-1 Daze

-1 Barrowgoyf

-1 Troll of Khazad-Dum

-1 Basic Island

+3 Consign to Memory

+2 Null Rod

+1 Brazen Borrower

+1 Wasteland

This is a bad matchup, the most complicated part is to figure out how to beat Vexing Bauble being searched up from Urza’s Saga. Because of that sequence playing mindfully with your Wastelands and mulligan decisions is very important.

I have decided to go with basically 6 targeted hate cards for the matchup with 3x Consign, 2x Null Rod and a Wasteland. As it currently stands I believe this is where I would want to continue being at.

Mono Red Stompy

-1 Thoughtseize

-1 Animate Dead

-2 Daze

-1 Atraxa, Grand Unifier

+1 Barrowgoyf

+1 Brazen Borrower

+1 Fatal Push

+1 Dismember

+1 Hydroblast

This matchup is very good, getting Blood Mooned is our biggest worry, but usually they can not keep up with our interaction and card advantage while also trying to deal with not getting reanimated out of the game. I would not add any targeted hate cards, but if you have to ask then Hydroblast is the best possible option.

Yorion Vial

-1 Animate Dead

-1 Daze

+1 Barrowgoyf

+1 Fatal Push

These matchups are very scary to play against. I would also say that if you have limited time to prepare, my advice would be to practice this matchup. I found it to be the most complicated deck to play against in the entire field right now.

I have had more success when I am not overboarding, thus you see I don’t even want to bring Dismember. The reason for that is that if you have too much removal in your deck they can simply out grind you. 

Trying to resolve an Atraxa is at utmost importance, which makes Thoughtseize for Faerie Macabre especially important. Also be mindful of not losing all of your threats to their cheap targeted removal. 

Because of that reasoning the best additional card you could play for the matchup is Griselbrand.

Painter

-1 Thoughtseize

-1 Entomb

-2 Animate Dead

-3 Daze

-1 Atraxa, Grand Unifier

+2 Consign to Memory

+1 Null Rod

+1 Brazen Borrower

+1 Fatal Push

+1 Dismember

+1 Wasteland

+1 Hydroblast

Because our deck has so much removal for Painter’s Servant, they are usually trying to midrange grind with Urza’s Saga and Fable of the Mirror Breaker. While Null Rod does stop the combo we expect the best Painter’s Servant players to not be reliant on that in sideboard games, so I would not bring in the 2nd copy. It is still helpful against the graveyard hate cards they opt to play. 

Hydroblast would be the extra card I would add to target this matchup but I think we already have enough cards to bring in.

Oops! All Spells

-2 Fatal Push

-1 Animate Dead

-1 Barrowgoyf

-1 Brazen Borrower

+3 Consign to Memory

+1 Wasteland

+1 Ghost Vacuum

This is another good matchup, but Poxwalkers is a very powerful new card, so don’t underestimate this deck. 

Normally they don’t play any graveyard hate so we don’t have to worry about that much. Surprisingly the deck I faced in the finals of the Showcase had 4x Dauthi Voidwalker, keep in a pair of Fatal Push in that case. Your gameplan should be built around trying to stop them from comboing and if you can do that you can usually find any random way to win the game. Sometimes you can reanimate their Undercity Informer and mill them out. But only ever do that if you have a counterspell to stop a flashback of Memory’s Journey and also be mindful of not losing to Pact of Negation.

Nihil Spellbomb would be the card I would add if I wanted to hard target Oops!

Sneak and Show

-2 Fatal Push

-1 Animate Dead

-1 Barrowgoyf

-1 Troll of Khazad-Dum

+2 Consign to Memory

+1 Brazen Borrower

+1 Orcish Bowmasters

+1 Wasteland

This matchup is also good, mostly because of their decks inconsistencies. Part of the reasoning behind sideboarding in Consign to Memory is that it can counter Atraxa or Emrakul triggers in addition to helping to deal with The One Ring. It is also an answer to Flusterstorm in some rare cases. Another cool play that you can make is to thoughtseize their fatty to graveyard and then reanimating it. 

I don’t think Sneak and Show is popular enough to justify adding any extra sideboard cards.

Nadu Elves

-2 Daze

-1 Barrowgoyf

-1 Troll of Khazad-Dum

+1 Fatal Push

+1 Dismember

+1 Orcish Bowmasters

+1 Wasteland

This matchup is bad and they usually run a lot of graveyard hate. Regardless you do need to rely on comboing them because the midrange plan tends to not work. Load up on removal to try to kill Allosaurus Shepherd and try to disrupt their mana with Wasteland and removal spells in general. Thoughtseize is also especially important in this matchup because it has time to take away their tutor or Nadu and also protects you against Endurance and Faerie Macabre.

I think considering playing a sweeper like Toxic Deluge or more removal like Snuff out or Fatal Push to be stronger vs Nadu Elves is very reasonable.

That is it, enjoy playing with your old cards at the Eternal Weekend or see you on Magic Online streets!