On August 26th, 2024, Wizards of the Coast banned [[Grief]] out of Legacy. This was fairly expected and was the last major change that Legacy would receive going into North America Eternal Weekend. This gave about three months of testing for everyone attending that tournament. Removing [[Grief]] from the format sped it up. Decks no longer had to be built as redundant as possible to withstand getting double [[Thoughtseize]]d on turn one. Red Stompy, Mystic Forge Combo, Eldrazi, Painter, and the two Dimir decks were the archetypes we were most concerned about beating during our testing process. We knew that this meant that graveyard hate, [[Consign to Memory]], [[Vexing Bauble]], and potentially [[Null Rod]] effects would be the most common pieces of sideboard hate to beat. The deck that we had sculpted to beat the [[Grief]] reScaminator decks was not going to be the right tool to win Eternal Weekend. It needed to be faster, and more resilient to disruption, and win when windows were given to it.
Urza’s Saga
The first place The EPIC Storm team started was with [[Vexing Bauble]]. Several members of the Storm community had been trying it out in various Storm flavors before the ban and liked what it did to the deck as extra protection and disruption against other combo decks. Playing [[Vexing Bauble]] yourself gives you more control over when it affects the game. [[Vexing Bauble]] ensures that [[Veil of Summer]] resolves in order to play through the artifact. The desire to play [[Vexing Bauble]] as a one mana [[Defense Grid]] brought back conversations about [[Urza’s Saga]]. [[Urza’s Saga]] being a deterministic tutor for mana in the form of a Mox or [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]], a piece of protection in [[Vexing Bauble]], and a backup threat while just providing mana on its own seemed very attractive. Previously, The EPIC Storm was essentially two A+B combos in one deck: [[Dark Ritual]] + [[Beseech the Mirror]] and [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]] + [[Echo of Eons]]. [[Urza’s Saga]] worked well with the [[Beseech the Mirror]] half of the deck by providing extra Bargain-ables, but supercharged the [[Echo of Eons]] half. [[Urza’s Saga]] was pushing the deck in the right direction.
Every addition causes a subtraction. To gain [[Urza’s Saga]], this pushed [[Ponder]]. [[Ponder]] was that original glue card, allowing each of the two plans to be smoothed out after getting hit by a coupe of [[Grief]] triggers. Without [[Grief]] and with the potential power level upgrade that [[Urza’s Saga]] offered, [[Ponder]] was much less attractive. [[Ponder]] and [[Urza’s Saga]] had some sequencing conflicts as well. Both cards wanted to be played as soon as possible. This is not a format where one can play an [[Urza’s Saga]] on turn two and hope to get to turn four to finish all the chapters. In most games, especially game ones, the constructs rarely mattered, but resolving chapter three did.
The team did test some extra [[Urza’s Saga]] targets beyond [[Vexing Bauble]] and our normal mana artifacts. Graveyard hate targets tended to be too slow and not effective. Creature removal was mediocre because the creature that needed to be removed the most was [[Collector Ouphe]]. There are no cards found off of chapter three that can answer [[Collector Ouphe]] yet. The most useful extra target we found was [[Haywire Mite]], borrowing from some of the Golgari Saga Storm lists. Answering [[Chalice of the Void]], [[Leyline of the Void]], and occasionally opposing copies of[[Vexing Bauble]] were the most important targets for the insect.
Playing with Saga
The team learned quickly that attempting to get extra value out of [[Urza’s Saga]] by waiting to make constructs gave opponents more time to find a [[Wasteland]] to answer [[Urza’s Saga]]. Even if there was not a clear plan for what chapter three would find when [[Urza’s Saga]] was played, playing it as soon as possible was almost always correct. The goal of [[Urza’s Saga]] was to be a piece of mana occasionally, but mainly to resolve chapter three.
Getting to chapter three is face up for you and your opponent. They know something is coming, but you get to choose what does come. Planning for what you are going to find off of chapter three is important. If you need protection, play out all of your zero mana Artifacts before [[Vexing Bauble]] enters the battlefield. Even without a [[Veil of Summer]], [[Burning Wish]] can still find an engine such as [[Echo of Eons]] or [[Peer into the Abyss]] to win the game.
Issues
The primary issue with this build of the deck is [[Wasteland]]. Getting any land removed by[[Wasteland]] off of a colored source has always been bad, but when an entire game plan revolves around a land living for three turns, that can be hard to achieve in this format. While this challenge is not insurmountable, it was one of the lower power points of the deck. The mana became more challenging to build because [[Urza’s Saga]] was taking up so many land slots.
The card that became obvious that it was not good enough for this format was [[Galvanic Relay]]. [[Urza’s Saga]] already asked the deck to play more turns and put more lands (read misses) in the deck. Casting a [[Galvanic Relay]] that needed to win the game only to find cards that needed even more turns to win the game was disappointing. We also noticed that we were relaying for fewer and fewer cards because of the [[Urza’s Saga]] play patterns. [[Consign to Memory]] becoming a sideboard staple did not help [[Galvanic Relay]] either. While it is possible to play around, the combination of [[Urza’s Saga]] and [[Galvanic Relay]] added too much strain to the sequencing of the deck.
ENTER GAMBLE
While testing [[Urza’s Saga]], the team noticed that [[Echo of Eons]] became the primary engine and it was a powerful primary engine. Primary [[Echo of Eons]] decks are not new. The EPIC Gamble by Tony Scapone has been a deck for years at this point. We still believed in the power of [[Dark Ritual]], [[Beseech the Mirror]], and most importantly [[Veil of Summer]]. However, TES needed something faster than [[Galvanic Relay]]. Given that [[Echo of Eons]] was becoming a more focal part of the deck, [[Gamble]] seemed like a natural inclusion. While testing [[Gamble]], TES felt the most powerful it has felt in a long time. It was fast and consistent. [[Gamble]] was the missing piece for this metagame.
While the team initially expected [[Gamble]] to push the deck further towards [[Echo of Eons]] through the natural synergy of tutoring it and [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]], it actually helped the [[Beseech the Mirror]] plan as well. [[Gamble]], unlike [[Entomb]], can act as a full tutor and assemble [[Beseech the Mirror]] and [[Dark Ritual]] with a bit of luck. [[Gamble]] can also act as a tutor for sideboard removal spells. It adds an element of smoothing at the disadvantage of randomness and card disadvantage. The card disadvantage does not matter as much because the deck is constantly casting [[Echo of Eons]] to refill.
[[Echo of Eons]] became more consistent because the deck had more action spells. When there are eleven tutors, two other copies of [[Echo of Eons]], and four copies of [[Brainstorm]], it is much harder to draw seven cards and have nothing to do. Assuming that an [[Echo of Eons]] has been used and there are a couple of mana cards out of the deck, there is above a 90% chance of having another action card in the new hand.
Issues
[[Gamble]] did not make the deck perfect, but it was a large improvement over [[Galvanic Relay]]. Because it was another red action spell, it stressed the mana even more. Asking the deck to produce and and in a combo turn while having blue mana around for [[Brainstorm]] and playing several colorless lands is too much even for [[Mox Opal]] to fix. The EPIC Storm with [[Gamble]] had strict color requirements and any mana base that the team came up with did not solve all of the problems.
The other issue with [[Gamble]] is that it wants to be the first spell cast in a chain to give the best odds of keeping the card that one tutors for. [[Vexing Bauble]] wants the action spell to be one of the last cards played to not interfere with any of the Artifact mana. Adding another sequencing issue to the deck was not what the team wanted.
The final issue that this iteration of The EPIC Storm was having was unrelated to [[Gamble]]. Because it was so successful at casting [[Echo of Eons]], we found that we were drawing too many lands after resolving [[Echo of Eons]]. While the odds of having an action spell were excellent, having the mana to cast those cards was harder.
ETERNAL WEEKEND
All of the ideas and strategies in the deck were excellent. The problem was that the deck could not execute, ie cast, all of the cards in most sequences. The colorless mana from [[Urza’s Saga]] was too much of a strain on the mana base and it had to give. Even when casting [[Echo of Eons]], drawing lands that were colorless hurt more than expected. The team had also started to conclude that [[Construct Token]]s did not mean that much in combat. [[Psychic Frog]] and most Eldrazi creatures outscaled them quickly. Removing [[Urza’s Saga]] lowered the exposure to [[Consign to Memory]] as a card that could interrupt mid combo rather than at the end. We had hoped that cutting [[Galvanic Relay]] would remove this weakness, but opponents would still counter chapter three from [[Urza’s Saga]], which was problematic. [[Gamble]] provided the flexibility that we wanted out of the first [[Urza’s Saga]] builds. It could find protection, removal for hate pieces, [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]], and anything else needed in a particular spot.
During testing, the fact that rang true over and over is that Legacy is fast. Everyone is playing at least a hybrid combo deck capable of ending the game on turn two or three. Disrupting opponents matters as much as protecting our own combo pieces. [[Thoughtseize]] was being boarded in in most matchups, to begin with. Moving it to the main deck made a lot of sense. This change opened up actual interaction slots in the sideboard. The deck that The EPIC Storm could gain the most equity by interacting with was Dimir Reanimator. The best sideboard card against Dimir Reanimator is [[Faerie Macabre]]. We chose to play [[Faerie Macabre]]. We did not choose to play more answers that could be found by [[Burning Wish]] for much the same reason. Most opponents did not give enough time to cast any answer found by [[Burning Wish]]. This is also why the second Surveil land was cut.
Going into Eternal Weekend, the list was performing well in leagues. We decided that we did not want the list published and dropped many leagues at 4-0. However, this performance did not translate into the event. The team had middling results. This does not mean that all the testing is flawed or that the list was bad. Bad events happen and Legacy is supercharged with powerful cards at the moment. The Mystic Forge deck had a late surge into the metagame that some players caught and added more sideboard cards for, and the team ran into some of them. Bryant mentions in his Post Eternal Weekend recap that he did not actually find that [[Faerie Macabre]] was all that powerful or useful. To bring it all full circle in deckbuilding, this might be the spot where [[Galvanic Relay]] (the first card we cut!) comes back over the main deck copies of[[Thoughtseize]].
Looking to 2025
Legacy remains a dynamic and fast-paced format, requiring constant adaptation and innovation. The EPIC Storm’s journey through the post-[[Grief]] meta highlights the importance of testing, flexibility, and resilience in deck building. While our Eternal Weekend results did not fully reflect the deck lists’s potential, the insights gained — both successes and failures — will fuel our future iterations.
As we await the December 16th ban announcement, we are optimistic about what lies ahead for Legacy and for TES. The team is already brainstorming adjustments to address the metagame’s demands, and we are excited to see how the deck list evolves in the coming months.
Stay tuned for updates and new innovations as we go into 2025 with lots of tournament data and a fresh meta Patreons always get articles and information first. The team will post testing updates in the member’s channels in the Storm Discord. The EPIC Storm team has moved onto BlueSky! You can follow the website and me there.
