Every Scam Deck in Legacy

are you a scammer do you hate scammers hi my name is Matt and I'm a legacy scammer if you've come for an expose of magic fraud counterfeits or cheating consider yourself scammed scammed by me into learning about Legacy so let's delve into what scam is now where it came from and every scam deck in Legacy right now we'll Begin by defining scam in Magic the Gathering scam refers to a strategy of exploiting the modern Horizons 2 pitch Elementals specifically by cheating them into play for one mana and getting their enter the battlefield ability twice Fury grief and to a lesser extent Solitude are the creatures used for this strategy in modern this was achieved with an effect like undying evil or not dead after all these would be cast in response to the sacrifice trigger on a grief or Fury when they were evoked in Legacy we have a much more potent tool reanimate the play pattern of this energy Begins by evoking grief by pitching a black card from hand then reanimating the grief this results in a 32 with Menace and double thought seing the opponent for a total investment of three cards one mana and four life the scam effect isn't oppressively powerful for legacy but it is highly Mane efficient and each of these cards are powerful enough to play in a standalone fashion reanimate also opens up the door to play an additional Synergy with troll of kadom the basic land type cyclers from Lord of the Rings are playable in their own right with both lauan revealed and troll of kadom seeing Play troll in combination with reanimate enables us to present a card neutral 65 with super manace for only two mana and six life first we cycle the troll for a swamp or a black duel land then we reanimate it reanimate grief and troll make up the core of what we call the scam package when we're talking about it in Legacy as an extension of this package I typically consider orcish bow Masters and Wasteland to be components of this core when it's found in Fair and hybrid decks the grief reanimate troll core can be found in many decks that fall into one of three categories these three categories are Demir scam Decks that play a fair mid-range or Tempo game plan black-based aggressive Stompy or prison decks and dedicated reanimator decks with big creature payoffs let's start with the least Fair grief deck reanimator reanimator has been around forever in Magic and it shares the fewest commonalities with the other Legacy scam decks the first reanimation spell ever printed was animate Dead all the way back in Alpha and to this day it's still one of the best ever printed reanimator is a deck that tries to put large creatures like grizle brand archon of Cruelty or attracts a grand unifier into the graveyard this is done with cards like careful study in TB or faithless looting once that first step is complete a reanimation effect like reanimate exume or animate dead is used to put that creature back into play for much of the history of Legacy deir was the preferred color combination among reanimator players this provided interaction via countermagic and added stability from the use of cantrips in the more recent past more reanimator lists have shifted from being fully two-color deir deck to being primarily mono black with a very light red Splash for f looting compared to their Demir counterparts these decks are much more explosive and proactive I think it's important to examine the role of the scam package in this deck grief is similar but distinctly different from unmask a card that was already being played in reanimator unmask disrupts the opponent but can also be used to Target yourself discarding a threat for immediate reanimation once grief was printed and we learned how good it is when combined with reanimate which just so happens to be a core component of the deck anyways it was quickly included in reanimator grief can only discard your opponent to remove their counter spell or their interaction but it does have additional utility with reanimate and it can apply some onboard pressure the grief package provides the ability to apply a little bit of pressure giving a marginal but impactful alternate game plan dedicated reanimator has been the most played Deck with the scam package in it in Legacy over the past year or so I think this is due to it being powerful but still relatively affordable so it's a good entry point for new Legacy players the typical reanimator list these days consists of a core of enablers and payoffs playsets of inom and faithless looting are the enablers which put a payoff creature into the graveyard to be reanimated the payoffs typically consist of play sets of reanimate and then a combination of four to eight copies of some combination of animate dead and or exom the threats we reanimate have a pretty wide range but are most commonly archon of cruelty attracts a grand unifier and Grizzle brand we often see one of targets for specific situations that can be fetched within tomb these silver bullets include cards like sire of insanity Iona Shield of Amia galta Stampede Tyrant Ashen Rider and very occasionally very very occasionally Tides SP Tyrant many lists play playsets of lotus pedal and dark ritual to maximize the number of games where a turn one reanimation play is possible fast mana and initial Mana sources have a level of tension to examine when looking at stability versus speed in deconstruction the more acceleration played the fewer lands are likely going to be desired in order to avoid flooding out on Mana producers the cost of this is that it increases the number of hands where a Lotus pedal is the only initial Mana Source or where there isn't an initial Mana Source at all meaning that playing a longer game is much harder if not impossible the rest of the deck is typically comprised of play sets of grief unmask and some number of copies usually two to four copies of thies and 0 to three copies of troll of kadom apart from troll these all serve as Mana efficient ways to force through a reanimation spell or to protect a threat from a removal spell the Mana base is usually 13 to 16 lands with some number of swamps and fetches a couple bad lands and sometimes one to two dual lands that help pay Splash color costs for sideboard cards we'll touch on sideboards in a moment reanimator is a great choice for you if you're looking for a compact fast combo with the redundancy to attempt reanimation multiple times in a single game the primary reason to avoid the deck is that it's pretty vulnerable to graveyard hate out of the sideboard it is very one-dimensional in the main deck not giving you many options on how to approach a matchup or a situation the other downside is that sometimes the reanimation effect is not game-ending control de can grind through an atraxa or an archon even once it hits play and combo de can sometimes fully ignore that and assemble a kill through that anyways during pre-board games reanimator is possibly the fastest and most consistent deck in the format in tumb into reanimate is one of the most card and Mana compact combos available in Legacy to present a turn one reanimation all we need is INB reanimate a land or Lotus pedal and a piece of acceleration we can present reanimate and still have three cards remaining from a seven card hand with which to disrupt or to attempt to reanimate again this is where grief and unmask really shine having a zero Mana discard spell allows the deck to play through a single force of will very easily thies also functions as an additional piece of interaction here allowing for the same kind of aggressive lines on turn one off of an extra piece of fast Mana or a leftover Mana from a dark ritual land into Dark Ritual thies and TB reanimate is one of the spookiest things that can happen in Legacy I know it's happened to me far too many times unlike our other grief decks the scam package here is included simply due to Synergy rather than adding an entirely new dimension to the deck although the scam package significantly AIDS the postboard Beatdown plan should you decide that that's the right path depending on card choices reanimator has typically strong combo mirror matches due to being more Compact and efficient and being full of discard spells the Demir reanimator decks have especially strong combo matchups due to being both fast and having access to counter magic Stompy style decks are also relatively strong matchups it's pretty difficult to race a reanimator player so these matches often revolve around mulliganing two and then sticking a lock piece something like a chalice of the Void unlicensed heurst or lay line of the Void on the other hand Tempo decks like Delver are really tough matchups for reanimator their fast clock backed up by days and force of will is a time- tested way to beat combo life total matters resolving reanimate can cost 6 to eight life so being pressured and then casting reanimate can lead to getting burned out with lightning bolts if you're not careful in these Tempo matchups even though reanimator can assemble the combo multiple times in a game they may not have time or life to present it more times than the opponent can interact control decks can also be relatively poor matchups they don't have the ability to pressure quickly the way that Tempo can but they have many tools to prevent reanimation and their long game engines and removal spells allow them to grind through multiple successful reanimation attempts attacking the deck on multiple non-mo axes this is especially true for swords to plash Air's control decks as Exile removal prevents reanimating the target once it's removed both Tempo and control decks have countermagic to protect permanent pieces of graveyard hate something like an unlicensed Hurst or a lay out of the Void this combination could be exceedingly difficult to win through non-blue mid-range and landbased strategies are typically strong matchups as well as there are often too slow to race and they don't have countermagic to interact with the primary deck building decision in the main deck is anchored on the axis of speed versus resiliency and what tradeoffs are made in order to achieve the balance between these two depends on what you prefer I think the clearest example of this is chancellor of the annex Chancellor makes explosive lines much harder to interact with but this comes at the cost of being a much lower impact card as the game continues other examples of this include unmask versus thought Seas with the prior being much more effective on early turns deciding to play a blue version with Ponder and brainstorm provides the ability to play a much more stable long game but these require Mana investment inherently slowing the deck down blue vergins typically also include force of will and days which can provide additional resiliency versus opposing graveyard hate but they are reactive cards that do not allow you to be as explosive as you would otherwise be some players have recently been exper menting with worldly tutor plus the new surveil land this Choice also falls on the sort of speed versus resiliency Spectrum this interaction allows you to put a surveil trigger on the stack and then respond with a worldly tutor putting your payoff on top of the deck to then Mill when the surveil trigger resolves in effect it is a slightly clunkier version of the best card in the deck in TB this gives a lot of additional redundancy but it effectively costs two Mana one for tutor and one for the opportunity cost of putting the land in to play tapped reanimator has one of the widest ranges in sideboard cards played of almost any deck and sideboard construction is one of the most meaningful decisions to make when playing reanimator beyond the expected interaction for opponent's game plans we also have an additional Dynamic to consider the most pressing issue to solve in postboard games is not how do we prevent our opponent from executing their game plan instead it's how will our opponent try and stop us from enacting our game plan beating graveyard ha is a balance between being proactive and reactive reactive plans include cards like Serenity bosu and Prismatic ending to remove hate pieces like Graf Digger's cage and Leland of the Void removal spells are often a supporting piece here that can both buy time and remove creatures that interact with the graveyard creatures like containment priest or dthy void Walker proactive plans typically involve shifting gears by boarding in a non-g graveyard based strategy to beat the graveyard hate simply By ignoring it there are many transformative sideboard packages that can be played changing the combo entirely into a Wither Bloom apprentice and chain of smog package is one of the most popular plants right now alternatively transforming into a Beatdown scam Deck with orcish bow Masters Dy void Walkers and opposition agents is another option one that happens to play very well with the main deck griefs apart from those two show inel has been a popular and compact package for a while allowing you to just bypass the graveyard entirely putting a reanimation Target into play and some lists even go so deep as to play Doomsday with fos Oracle as their wi condition reanimator is a great deck if you like playing something that is fast and Powerful but don't mind dealing with powerful sideboard cards that are very potent against you or enjoy the transformative sideboard sub game the deck likely isn't for you if interaction and grind games are your preference and blowout sideboard cards put you on tilt if reanimator seems like it might be up your alley but you want something with slightly better results stay tuned for another deck later on let's look at the black-based aggressive scam decks there are many iterations of an aggressive Fair grief deck these lists are the closest relatives we have of the modern scam deck from last fall mono aggro scam has been the most popular of these decks for the better part of the last 12 months the core of these decks are comprised of the scam package of grief for reanimate and troll of kadom the supporting creature s contains orish bow Masters dthy void Walker and often opposition agent in the remaining core slots we usually see thought seizes removal spells and then a Mana base that includes Wasteland how the rest of the deck is constructed delineates which of the subcategories of black base scam we're looking at on the fair end of the spectrum this package is found in mono aggro ratos scam and orov scam on the unfair end there are a few hybrid decks Helm combo wither Bloom combo and risc minator across all of these the scam package functions to apply pressure and disrupt the opponent monol aggro is probably the purest form of the Black based scam deck this deck is trying to get you dead ASAP Trading long game resiliency for Relentless aggression the creature Suite typically contains play sets of stalactite stalker orcish bow Masters and opposition agent the scam creatures and a couple of copies of Shield fill out the creature threats removal consists of a combination of shields Ed fatal push snuff out and murderous cut play sets of tha Dark Ritual and reanimate round out the remainder of the non-land cards the Mana base consists of a playet of wasteland four to eight black fetchlands and seven or eight swamps in the sideboard we see Leila of the void and fairy mob as graveyard hate there's null rod for artifact decks we also see a few creatures with high levels of utility plague engineer for opposing bow Masters or small creature decks and torac for grind your mid-range control matchups supplementing this feed the Swarm Powder Keg and shield redict are additional removal spells to round out the main Suite in some specific matchups mono aggro is great at applying pressure quickly and combines discard with fast disruptive threats to keep the opponent off balance and attack their bottlenecks most of the threats double as lock pieces bow Masters taxis canant trips often eliminating the ability for the opponent to cast something like brainstorm at all except in emergencies Dy void Walker is a lelan of the void that has additional upside of putting your opponent's cards under the void and then being able to cast them for free later finally opposition agent prevents the opponent from searching their library with fetchlands or tutors the deck is very proactive as every non-land is either a threat or removal spell Dark Ritual and reanimate are both tools that enable playing well above curve reanimating a troll of kodom or grief or ritual out a two to three Drop Like opposition agent or orcish bow Masters are all extremely Mana efficient plays as a monocolor deck the manabase is incredibly stable and resilient to Wasteland and other non-basic land hate cards lacking cantrips or other smoothing cards the deck is incredibly dense with nearly half of the 60 cards being threats these upsides do come at a cost however the primary downside is being reliant on the composition of cards drawn lacking canant trips or other selection elements this deck is prone to flood or Screw As a monocolor non-blue deck the options for interaction are limited lacking blue means that there's a minimal amount of turn zero interaction that can be played against combo then there are very powerful sideboard cards available in other colors cards like meltdown pyrro blast and collector roof mono aggro scam is aggressive and disruptive but it does require strong sequencing the scam package provides info regarding threat sequencing as each card in the primary threat Suite has a passive ability that can encumber the opponent each of these creatures creates friction for different cards in different decks with discard providing the information to best leverage the correct tool at the correct time however if the opponent has two pieces of removal it can often be better to sandbag the important threat until they've spent the removal on the less important threat knowing that the more important threat will end the game if we can resolve it often an opponent surviving an initial wave means that other decks will out card monol in the long game either via card quality quantity or selection if we look at the the threats in the deck with their static abilities they're kind of small and inefficient this means that the static ability is deeply important to the functioning of this deck some decks like Moon Stompy goblins and rhinos can just ignore the abilities of these creatures and focus on executing their primary game plan I think the main deck is pretty set at this point but players have explored different Mana base options and we still see them from time to time sometimes we see ancient tomb and urza Saga lists this increases the power level significantly but at the cost of the Mana base being less able to produce black Mana resulting sometimes in monocolored color screw which is a lovely sentence to say I've also seen lists with lotus pedal or chromax this gives the deck more explosive power but at the cost of long game stability additionally non- dark rual fast Mana is easier to play around leaving up a single black Mana can represent opposition agent or orcish bow Masters at instant speed off of a dark ritual forcing opponents to decide what to play around the removal Suite likely has the most flexibility of choice here efficient removal like fatal push or snuff out balanced with broader answers like Shield edict those are my preference when looking at these decks but you can play whatever combination of removal spells your heart desires many players opt out of playing broader answers like Shield zict leaving them cold to something like a merit Le or a troll of kadom mono black aggros scam is a fantastic budget Legacy deck it has a great track record on the highly competitive Magic Online metag game where many players are choosing mono black aggro even though they could afford other decks and have the ability to play something else it's a great choice for players who like aggression sequencing and playing on a Razor's Edge you should likely avoid this deck if you want tools to answer any situation enjoy can trips and counter spells or if you lean towards go big decks now that we've examined reanimator and black-based aggressive scam decks let's examine the final category of scam based decks Demir based scam decks all combine the proactive scam package with a reactive and stable blue shell comprised of force of will days Ponder and brainstorm compared to the mono or heavy black lists Demir scam typically trades off threat density and acceleration for a wider variety of interaction spells and mid to late game stability via card selection one of the biggest weaknesses of discard spells in general is that they can't interact with the top of the opponent's deck your opponent will always draw the best card possible and you die forceful in days provide ways to interact with the opponent drawing that must answer threat brainstorm and Ponder allow the deck to find the right number of spells and lands as the game progresses mitigating the possibility of drawing too many or too few lands these decks often fill the role of a Tempo to control deck depending on the situation and texture of the draw as with the black aggr lists there are many flavors of deir scam decks we've got classic Demir scam a more aggressive version playing Delver there's a hog scam deck deir gaminator and salti scam I like to think of classic Demir scam as the parent of the Demir scam category it isn't as popular now as it once was but most of the other Demir scam decks evolved out of this original shell the classic version of this Arc Type relies primarily on Grief orcish bow Masters troll of kadom and merte region as sort of wi conditions or threats looking at the core of the deck we have playsets of troll grief and reanimate the rest of the creature Suite consists of orish bow Masters two to three copies of merde regent a Brazen borrower and sometimes Dy void Walker as threats with additional utility Ponder brainstorm and force of will are typically four ofs most or many lists play four copies of days but this particular list only has a single copy there are many options in terms of interaction this list is playing two copies of stifle alongside drown in the lock force of negation fatal push and snuff out other main deck cards I've seen from time to time include Shield edict dismember whale of the Forgotten animate dead and thought Seas traditionally these lists also played some form of card Advantage like sauron's Ransom to pull ahead in the long game this Mana base is 16 lands including seven blue fetch lands play sets each of underground sea and Wasteland a pair of Basics an island and a swamp and a Mystic Sanctuary lists are now sometimes including a copy or two of unders City sewers the new surveil dual land I've seen lists go as high as 18 lands with a copy or two of lauan revealed on top of that classic scam sideboards almost always include something like hydroblast surgical extraction dress down and null Rod the rest is usually a selection of removal and counter spells for specific matchups along with some utility cards like plague engineer or paler of warthon in this case there are two copies of fatal push alongside a plague engineer force of negation naret parter veils shielder edict and powder keg with a wide range of interactive tools and threats the deck can pivot between proactive and reactive plans as required by the situation this list in a similar Dynamic to salti beans has a wide range of options that forces opponents to decide what to play around versus play into unlike salti beans there's no way to completely out card the opponent like up the bean stock can this means that control matchups are typically poor and we see the deck underperform against salti and b-based beans decks due to their ability to answer all the threats and then out card classic scam in the late game grief reanimate and countermagic all backed up by wastelands make this deck a nightmare matchup for combo players reanimator is a particularly good matchup due to the interaction of allowing the opponent's in Tomb effect to resolve then countering the reanimate effect and then casting your own reanimate to reanimate their payoff classic scam relies on canant trips to find the needed cards and it has less removal than a control deck this leaves the deck vulnerable against aggressive ancient tomb decks like turbo goblins that can cut off many cards with a challeng the void or a Blood Moon all while applying a lot of pressure trinisphere is probably the weakest of these lock pieces against classic scam because of the quantity of trolls played this allows us to ensure that we hit land drops without having to spend three Mana to ponder or brainstorm in order to try and find lands against grixis Delver while being less threat dense in the early game the four copies of reanimate result in a favorable bow Masters parity in scams Advantage the deck doesn't have a consistent enough aggressive game to force the opponent into playing into days which is why I think we only see one copy in this particular list in classic scam lists our options are wide ranging in what threats and answers to play traditionally lists issued the delies for card Advantage uh something like Sauron Ransom which allowed them to have some ability to grind this has fallen out of favor but it is still an option the remov and Spell suite also has a high degree of flexibility like I mentioned earlier we see anything from stifle or spell Pierce to drown in the lock or murderous cut some players opt to play a third color purely for red or green sideboard cards like meltdown collector oof P blast or carpet of flowers now that we've explored the base versions of each category let's explore some of the spicier flavors of the scam decks we've already covered reanimator in depth along with most of the variations of that deck most of the variations are in the sideboard cards and sideboard plans so we're going to look at the versions of the black-based scam decks and the Demir based scam decks each of these versions build on the Core Concepts and strengths of the underlying Arch type but either add an additional angle of attack or focus on a specific Dynamic to increase consistency and power or they try and Shore up a weakness of the category hybrid versions that add an additional Dimension are mono helm rapose raminator and golgari wither Bloom combo scam deira gaminator is also a hybrid deck but it's almost its whole own entire category the other versions that hone in on a specific Focus to improve consistency are Delver scam and gx's Delver scam salai scam is probably the most controlling version of scam leading heavily into a late game Focus hog scam and orov scam are both heavily synergistic Decks that maximize some aspect of the deck ratto scam is possibly the most Fair scam Deck with card choices to mitigate weaknesses and play a more well-rounded game we've also got deir death Shadow which is maybe its own category but it's kind of closest to a Dover scam deck or a classic scam deck one of the best decks on Magic Online in the past few weeks deira gaminator is a hybrid deck sort of partway between classic scam and reanimator due to its current prevalence there are a wealth of lists to examine but we'll look at the list that BOS and roll played to a fifth place finish at an scg con 5K Legacy Event pretty recently he also has a tournament report on his YouTube channel if you want to hear about his experience with the deck this deck essentially takes the classic deir scam core and swaps out Flex slots and some of the creatures for a reanimation package we have playsets of brainstorm Ponder force and days sort of as our expected blue package of cantrips interaction play sets of inum reanimate and animate dead are the center of the reanimation plan while animate dead provides additional consistency for grief or troll lines as part of the scam package the creature Suite consists of playsets of grief and troll with three copies of orage bow Masters but some let's play Four to pair with in TB and reanimation spells we see one copy of archon of Cruelty and one copy of attracta grand unifier due to trying to fit in two disperate strategies into one deck there isn't much space for removal or Flex slots this list has a single whale of the Forgotten and one Brazen borrower both of these choices are great in the main deck being catchalls to interact with most non-land permanence boun spells also play really well with the grief scan package because bouncing something Troublesome and then discarding it from their hand can be an effective way to answer pretty much anything the Mana base is pretty stock with seven blue fetchlands a play set of underground sea one UND City sewers a pair of of basic lands and three copies of wasteland some let's display four the sideboard contains the Beatdown plan we would expect from a classic scam deck three copies of Dy void Walkers the fourth bow Masters in this case and a second copy of brazen borrower we also see a wide array of interaction to bring in four specific matchups there are two copies of force of negation and dress down along with a null Rod a hydroblast an unlicensed HST and a dismember the addition of the reanim package allows the deck to attack on multiple axes while still playing a fair strong game with disruption wastelands and bow Masters being able to threaten and TB into reanimate can be difficult for fair decks to play around especially when sideboarding this can often result in an opponent overboarding or under boarding depending on what they saw in game one typically in Fair blue mirrors Players Board out force of will as there aren't opposing threats worth spending two cards to answer and card Advantage is typically a higher priority here but reanimating an archon or an atraxa is definitely worth stopping with force of will even at the cost of two cards this is really intention with the desire to board out force of Wheels often how this plays out is that the opponent is forced to keep them in and often board in additional graveyard hate while the raminator player Boards out their force of Wills this dilutes the opponent's deck and improves raminator FAIR Plan in Fair or pseudo Fair mirrors this can often become a leveling game where the opponent has to guess which plan is going to be be utilized in each postboard game in over theboard player inperson paper play this is definitely a deck where I am shuffling my entire sideboard into my deck during sideboarding to mask the number of cards I board in and out having access to unders City sewers has a pretty big impact basically for free it can be used to bend atraxa or archon when used in combination with Ponder or brainstorm this provides additional redundancy to the reanimation plan lines involving the surveil land either involve having it in hand and then playing it after casting a cantrip or responding to the surveil trigger with a brainstorm to put an A traxa or archon back on top which can then be milled once the trigger resolves the reanimation package can also really help in some of the bad matchups that classic scam has it's a fantastic tool against Decks that traditionally prey on Fair blue decks decks like turbo goblins lands and non-blue fairish decks like cradle control due to the addition of the reanimation package in this deck it has increased exposure to graveyard hate cards like L line or hearse but it isn't cold to it in the same way that something like oopsa spells or reanimator would be deira gaminator isn't a turn one fast deck like dedicated reanimator is so cards like surgical extraction and fairy mob they're still good but they are vulnerable to being discarded by grief while also only being able to hit one to two cards at a time this deck has the ability to easily put targets into the graveyard between inmb grief Troll and unders City sewers this can overload single Target graveyard hate like surgical extraction I think the key cards to play in terms of graveyard hate would be something like unlicensed heurst or Lil out of the Void something that can stay in play and continuously have an effect outside of dedicated graveyard hate Exile based removal and card Advantage are both strong against this deck if you can blank their duplicate reanimation spells with something like swords to PL a Solitude or line binding that can go a long way to reduce pressure being able to recoup Card advantages traditionally one of the best ways to beat discard effects and discard based decks due to these two Dynamics I think there's probably a version of like a b beans deck that's probably quite favored in the matchup this might also be why we see the esper raminator lists now as they can leverage this dynamic in the mirror matches I really like these esper lists the first list I saw was from a pilot Uber duub on Magic Online their list was pretty standard except for the manabase and the slideboard the primary goal of the white Splash is to get G access to swords to plers and Triumph of St Catherine these are cards that are part of the fair plan in postboard games to support these White cards the metabase has been adjusted to include a scrub land and a tundra in exchange for two underground Seas the fair plan POST Board in these esper lists is a play set of Dy and three copies each of Swords to plow shares and Triumph of St Catherine I think this plan is excellent Triumph and swords are each excellent Tools in Fair mirrors like Delver they also Al have the upside of being able to for the most part ignore graveyard hate like lay line or surgical extraction the white Splash also gives the deck access to other powerful white sideboard cards cards like Serenity obviously the white Splash comes at a cost of being less stable in terms of its Mana base creating vulnerability to Wasteland or blood moon cutting off access to White Mana whether the white Splash is worth it will be something to keep an eye on I think the biggest Dynamic when playing with or against deir gaminator is to play the player across from you because the deck has such a high degree of flexibility between pre and postboard games there is no real correct sideboard plan or one key card to break the matchup open you probably want to play this deck if you want to play what is likely the best hybrid deck in Legacy right now it might even be the best deck in Legacy right now full stop do not play this deck if you don't like sideboard mind games or you want to rely on simple heris when making decisions like if you've got a sideboard guide and you just want to stick to that sideboard guide this is not going to be the right deck for you let's look at the other unfortunately much worse raminator deck ratos or mono raminator is like mono aggro and reanimator had a baby or if like reanimator played the sideboard Beatdown package in the main deck we start our main Deck with the small reanimation package in the form of one atraxa one archon four intb four reanimate and two animate Dead next is the less efficient but more versatile enabler toies of currency convert murder this deck also has a play set of dark ritual which gives it a lot of explosive power there is a scam and Beatdown strategy consisting of full play sets of grief troll Dy void Walker and orish bow Masters there are two copies of Shield Rd and one hog the hak is interesting because it can be intuned for and then cast via Delvin convoke supplementing the two strategies is a playset of thoughts EAS and one cabal therapy for disruption plus a molten collapses removal three copies of urza saga are the changes in the Mana base these provide an additional angle of attack while finding a currency converter to help grind in the long game the sideboard contains some powerful red cards allowing the deck to go fully Fair post board if needed Fable of the mirror breaker and Shadow spear are Fantastic Tools in mid-range mirrors Magus of the moon is another off-axis threat that can pressure multicolor decks along with land Centric decks like you know 12 post or uh Lance similar to deir gaminator the hybrid nature of this deck leads opponents to having difficulty sideboarding due to the tension between how to balance being good against unfair versus Fair portions of the deck postboard graveyard hate like rest in peace and lay line of the Void are less effective against this deck because there are supplemental threats Like Fable of the mirror breaker and Magus the Moon that are not impacted by the graveyard lacking selection via canant trips means that the pilot has less agency in how to approach each game you might draw a reanimator hand or a fair hand but you're unlikely to be able to Pivot away from that if the situation calls for it the other cost of this deck construction is that it's less stable than its dedicated counterparts in reanimator and mono aggro drawing the wrong half of the deck is something that can happen can lead to a failure rate for example drawing reanimation spells and no enablers we've only seen a few non-blue raminator lists succeed since the original top eight of this deck in Prague so I think there's a lot of room for adjustment here this deck could be good if you like the postboard games of the three animator where you can attack on multiple angles pressuring their life total while threatening them with archon or atraxa I would probably avoid this deck if you want to prioritize efficiency and power level over versatility on the other hand you know this deck can be pretty powerful and pretty fun yeah I don't know what this next deck is called so I'm just going to use every descriptor I can think of goari Wither Bloom Apprentice combo scam is another hybrid deck that combines mono aggro scam with wither Bloom apprentice and chain of smog in sort of this hybrid aggro combo deck starting with a combo there's a place at each of the ab combo B's wither Bloom apprentice and chain of smog the scam package is slightly adjusted to include a pair of Jenner scent the forest cycler that conveniently also blocks Delver secrets and other small Flyers orcish Masters is the other primary proactive creature and there's a pair of one ring in addition to silven safekeeper to protect the combo we see a playset of thought sees as additional disruption and three copy I of veil of summer as protection there's also a Summoners packed as a fifth copy of Wither Bloom Apprentice this deck has lots of acceleration there are playsets of dark ritual and Lotus pedal there's even a copy of Elvish spirit guide as a ninth piece of fast Mana the metabase is six fetches three Bayou three Wasteland an underground Mortuary the black green surveil land and a pair of basic lenss one swamp One Forest the sideboard contains a fair plan in two opposition agents and an endurance these additional threats are supported by a pair of fatal push a shield D edict one snuff out two pick your poison and a veil of Summer all round out these broadly useful cyboard cards there is also some dedicated graveyard and artifact eight in the form of two surgical extractions one force of vigor and a null rod in the same way as other hybrid decks function it can be difficult for opposing decks to balance playing a fair game while also playing around the combo of all the scam decks we see this one may be one of the least reliant on the graveyard meaning that it has the ability to much more easily ignore something like line or other graveyard hate this deck is extremely powerful and fast with a significant amount of interaction to protect the combo it definitely skews closer to the combo end of the spectrum and likely does not have the mid-range game to win a fair creature mirror without the combo the fast Mana is a big contributor to this dynamic as the deck has 24 Mana sources outside of the land cyclers which do have additional utility with reanimate but in total brings the total sort of like Mana sources up to 29 combined this is almost half the deck being mana in some form or another potentially leading to situations where flooding is a significant possibility this deck is much more Allin than some of its relatives due to the quantity of fast Mana meaning that Mulligan decisions and early sequencing are likely the most important decisions to make when playing this deck because of this if the opponent can survive the initial wave it's likely going to be pretty hard to rebuild without drawing a one range the Beat Down plan is solid with bow Masters grief and troll or ENT but wither Bloom Apprentice is a notable downgrade from Dy if you know obviously a chain of smog cannot be found this deck has lots of tools to beat countermagic between grief thought seas and veil of Summer veil of summer is also great against the black removal spells and opposing discard it's not a popular deck so I haven't really played with or against it yet this deck seems like it's a more powerful but less Mana efficient and less consistent than reanimator but it does Dodge a lot of the graveyard hate that you know obviously hits reanimator my first impression is that this is more of a metagame choice than a deck that is likely to have a lasting impact or staying power I think the other possible Flex slots to play around with might be something like the silven safekeeper Elish spirit guide Summoner packed and and maybe even the one ring but I'm not sure about that one this deck could be good if the scam combo decks are your preference but there's a lot of graveyard Hate in Your metag game I would avoid this deck if you hate having to Mulligan aggressively this deck is a very high density of fast Mana which means that you're likely going to see a lot more Mulligans mono black Helm is the final hybrid combo scam deck that we see in the metag game right now the helm combo of this deck combines Helm of obedience with either lay line of the Void or Dy void Walker that Mills out the entire opponent's Library currently the deck plays K as extra copies of Helm and these combo pieces are supported by disruptive threats the same ones that we see from mono aggro scan here's a current list of mono Helm it looks pretty similar to Mono aggro with a creature package including the scam core of grief reanimate and troll orcish bow Masters and opposition agent disrupt and apply pressure play set of Dy void Walkers along with three hel of obedience four K the great Creator and four lay line of the Void represent the combo elements of this deck Chromo and dark ritual provide acceleration to power out threats and combo pieces the Mana base is based on soul lands to play cards ahead of curve supported by a pair of herborg three swamps and a takon numa agadeem Awakening is functionally a swamp that can be pitched to Chrome walks this sideboard has a wide range of silver bullets to wish for with K mono Helm has the advantage of being a redundant combo Deck with lots of main deck graveyard hate while also having proactive threats that encumber the opponent the downsides are that it is reliant on draw texture does not have access to removal spells or selection and is one of the least Mana efficient combos available in Legacy life total management is really important with this deck between agadeem Awakening ancient tomb and reanimate players may need to maximize the use of each point of life to cast spells without dying obviously the main deck contains playsets of Leila of the void and dthy providing a high degree of disruption for opposing graveyard decks this is incidental but effective hate against opposing scam decks not to mention archetypes like reanimator dredge and to a lesser extent besee storm decks with gas will and decks like lands with life from The Lone there is a dynamic where the deck is always threatening a kill when there's a lay line or a dthy in play this can lead opponents to being incentivized to interact with the a+b combo instead of the onboard pressure in the form of orcish bow Masters and opposition agent the deck lacks meaningful interaction outside of the creature lock pieces and the car wishboard this leads to weaknesses against decks like Del and turbo goblins if you want to play a scam Deck with a wishboard and a combo package this could be the right deck for you it's also great if you wanted to destroy graveyard decks with eight main deck layan effects if you've got a local dredge player and you just are tired of them yeah this could be a good deck it's probably not a great choice for players who like interactive decks I first saw Delver scam in mid January and at the time lumped it in with classic scam this is a deck that focuses on one Dynamic of classic scam and attempts to be much better on that specific angle it's only six to eight cards different from classic scam but it feels like a drastically different deck we start with the same core cards and make a small number of swamps to drastically change the play patterns and matchup Dynamics the scam package contributes to the deck on multiple angles troll enables a lower land count while grief and reanimate provide disruption and aggression Delver stalactite stalker and orcish bow Masters provide aggressive Mana efficient threats one self-respecting Delver deck doesn't play at least a couple copies of merti regent we see this standard blue package of brainstorm Ponder force and days to provide selection and interaction the removal Suite is on the lighter end with two copies of snuff out and two copies of fatal push due to the lower curve and troll of kadom the deck is able to play a lower land count while still fitting in two basic lands and a play set of wastelands the sideboard remains mostly the same as what we'd see in classic scam with narrow and Powerful tools for specific matchups the addition of Delver Andor Staite stalker makes this deck much more consistent in its aggressive draws especially compared to Classic scam Mana efficiency is the name of the game here with every card in the main deck costing zero to one Mana except for orcish Bell Masters merti Regent and I guess hard cast grief I don't Envision this deck ever really having six Mana to cast troll of kado Doom fatal push snuff out force and days are are the most Mana efficient interactive spells available as a result of lowering the curve and including these cheap additional threats Dober scam is a much better Wasteland days deck than many of its other deir scam counterparts possibly with the exception of deir gaminator the cost of lowering the curve and increasing threat density means that this deck is no longer able to effectively operate on multiple axes quite as effectively as some of its counterparts it can still decide to be a control deck or the Beatdown deck but it's much more likely to take on the role of Beatdown having access to an additional eight proactive turn one plays gives the deck a lot more game against combo and ancient tomb decks initiative is a lot less popular than it once was but being able to contest the board and trade damage goes a long way in that particular matchup presenting a clock is an essential component of beating turbo goblins and moon Stompy as well the deck building choices to be made consist of what interaction to play and which threats to play deciding what split of Delver stalker and dothy to play is one of the big decisions recently players have moved away from stalactite stalker and doy opting for more removal and interaction in the main deck obviously this compromises some of those aggressive draws some players opt to play other interaction like spell Pierce whale of the Forgotten force of negation or drown of the lock instead of some amount of removal this deck is great if you like the aggressive play patterns of scam it's probably not so great if you want to take on the control Ro speaking of the control role this salai scam deck trades away some of the early game for longer game engines in oo and wither Bloom command in addition to more interaction I think this deck was originally pioneered by Pok Moi as this list is the first one I could find but it has also seen significant success in recent weeks the creatures and threats played are play sets of grief reanimate and orcish bow Masters we see two copies of troll and two copies of oo Titan of Nature's wrath we see the full cantrip suite and a copy of lauran revealed for selection and ensuring that we hit land drops in addition to lauran revealed we also see One S on RM to provide some extra card advantage in the long game traditional interaction consists of two fatal push two Shield edict and a play set of force of will drawing inspiration from their salti beans deck Pok Moi plays a two two split of days and stifle to keep the opponents guessing forcing them to decide which one to play around the last main deck inclusion is three copies of Wither Bloom command which has a high degree of vers ility and can interact with almost every deck in the format it's often also card Advantage the Mana base is similar to Classic scam but with two Tropical Islands and a bayou as green sources needing to support green green blue blue for oo in the sideboard we see some of the same cards that we would see in a classic scam list but with the addition of powerful Green cards hydroblast spell bomb veil of Summer and surgical are all highly efficient interaction for specific strategies then there are some broadly powerful tools like leovold pernicious deed and dress down rounding out the rest of the sideboard there is a carpet of flowers a dismember a powder keg and both force of vigor and despair this deck takes the opposite approach that the Delver scam decks do it's extremely powerful in the long game oo and wither Bloom command in addition to lauan revealed and sauron's Ransom provide significant amounts of card Advantage as the game progresses there's a pretty reasonable degree of synergy here with wither Bloom command filling the graveyard for oo and potential reanimation targets wither Bloom command is a very powerful and versatile card it's a choose two card with four modes the first mode Mills a player for three and then you return a land from graveyard to hand the second mode destroys a non-land non-creature with Mana value two or less the third mode gives a creature minus 3 minus one and the fourth mode drains the opponent for two life the combination of two of these effects is typically worth one and a half to two cards meaning that wither Blom command is often going to be a two Mana divination it answers a wide range of cards from orcish bow Masters to chalice the void or beanock allinone while providing card Advantage this list also has a wide array of interactive options to ensure that these card Advantage engines have time to come online having access to Green increases the power level of available sideboard cards Shoring up many of the poor matchups the downsides of this list are primarily a result of being a more controlling three-color deck being three colors means that the Mana base is slightly less stable in producing all the colored Mana needed and blood moon might be highly effective the other downside is that this shift towards a more controlling style comes at the cost of being less threat dense and having fewer aggressive draws as with other scam decks there is a degree of vulnerability to graveyard interaction this is especially true here as oo almost always has to spend a turn in the graveyard before being escaped into play this deck has some real card Advantage engines and it is likely favored in many Fair blue mirrors it is able to interact with and disrupt the opponent on many different axes removing the faster threats means that this deck doesn't really have a nut draw so to speak and every Victory will be grindy and skill testing in terms of card choices and flex slots I don't know if there's a lot to play around with in the main deck you could probably play around with quantities of stifle days fatal push and shield DS edict but I do really like how well-rounded that selection is out of the sideboard there's a wealth of options to attack any specific matchup so if there's something that you find difficult you add an extra couple sideboard cards for just that matchup I think this is ideal for disciplined blue mid-range and control players and it may not be the right choice if you just enjoy jamming threats going back to the more aggressive end of the spectrum gx's Delver scam is very similar to Delver scam but it trades off some consistency and the basic lands for dragon's rage Channeler lightning bolt and molten clamps this list is from Jake TMS who went 31 in a prelim the deck deck manages to fit most of the grixis Delver shell and most of the Demir scam core both of those packages into one single deck we see the scam package of troll grief and reanimate this package is backed up by Delver DRC and orcish bow masters of course we see the play sets of brainstorm Ponder force and days this particular player opted for six removal spells with a range of efficiencies and flexibility two lightning bolt two snuff out and two molten collapse the metabase is only 14 land supplement by the play set of trolls two volcanics and a bad lands are the red sources notably there are no basic lands which does increase vulnerability to Wasteland when compared to the other Demir decks in the sideboard we see a few high impact red cards in addition to the standard Demir Fair red blasts and meltdown are both extremely potent efficient cards at attacking either blue spells or artifacts price of progress is a great way to pressure the more controlling decks often dealing six or eight damage in one go blue blasts force of negation surgical extraction and null Rod are sort of to be expected in this kind of a sideboard this deck takes ideas from the Demir Delver scam deck and dials it up to the next degree getting on board quickly and applying multiple types of pressure via scam or Delver style draws gives this deck an incredible early game similar to other Delver style decks this list is super low to the ground powering up days in Wasteland to a degree that is pretty hard to match snuff out is one of the most efficient playable removal spells which supplements this same plan I think it's hard to overstate the power of dragon rage Channeler in scam decks it's an efficient threat which plays nicely with the rest of the game plan but it also provides incidental card selection which helps a lot to prevent flooding out in the mid game I'll revisit this in a little bit when we look at another deck later comparatively this deck has a higher ceiling than I think the Demir Dover scam list does with a wider selection of tools I'm not sure if this is a deck for me in the long term but it's certainly a strong choice if you want to play the most aggressive possible blue scam deck it may though not be a good choice if you prefer stability over power level orov scam is maybe the most scam Focus scam deck in Legacy there's a real major focus on leveraging Grief via scam effects in this deck Matias hard style has been the primary pilot of this particular deck achieving several 5 leak results this deck shares a lot of cards with mono aggro scam we start with a pair of trolls and play sets of grief and reanimate the remaining creature threat are play sets of Dy void Walkers orcish bow Masters opposition agent and a pair of Shield the apocalypse Dark Ritual and ephemerate both serve as acceleration with dark ritual being a familiar tool to power out bow master or opposition agent and ephemerate allowing for additional turn one scam hands the deck plays three copies of thies as additional disruption and there's a playet of Swords to plow shares with three copies of touch of the spirit realm as removal in addition to being removal Touch of to the spirit realm enables additional scam hands at a slightly less efficient two Mana invested the Mana base includes some fetchlands playsets of scrub land and Wasteland four basic lands and a copy of Caracus as a hybrid white source and utility land in the sideboard we see some additional Creatures two copies each of plague engineer torac dread Cantor and Solitude going pretty heavy on graveyard hate there's a play set of surgical extraction we also see two copies of Serenity and void mirror in addition to a single copy of no Rod supporting reanimate ephemerate and touch the spirit realm both enable a larger number of scam hands providing a total of 11 scam effects this massively increases the likelihood of cheating a grief into play White removal spells are a big upgrade in this deck allowing it to more easily beat an opposing troll or Merk Tide while also having utility against cards like o Gras is also basically a free slot that can be very good against some matchups and in some situations the downsides of a list like this are that it's got less consistent Mana than its mono cousin with some added vulnerability to Wasteland and blood moon effects in the same vein as mono aggro the deck does not have any filtering or selection in the long game especially when paired with fast Mana in dark ritual the deck does have a reasonable chance of flooding out with a greater focus on Grief via ephemerate and touch of the spirit realm the deck loses some of the explosive power when it doesn't draw grief this list is heavily C synergistic while I haven't played it my initial thought is that these synergies Empower a higher power level ceiling but may have a higher failure rate if the deck is unable to find grief ephemerate adds additional utility being able to Blink grief in the opponent's draw step or otherwise Reby some enter the battlefield abilities it can also function as a two for one or a three for one when used to blank a removal spell Solitude out of the sideboard shares all of these lines when pling against creature decks I think this deck likely has a SIM matchup spread to mod black but with significantly better creature matchups the options when looking at an orzol scam deck come down to how deep into white you want to go I did see another list that 5 OED that had a playset of Staff of the Storyteller and a stone Forge Mystic package with cauld and g a list like that likely has an even higher power level but that does come at some of the explosiveness and some Mana based stability if you want to get them dead and go all in on Grief but you don't want to lose to creature decks this might be a good choice for you it's likely a poor choice if you don't want to be disciplined with your Mulligan decisions or are frustrated by drawing situational cards like ephemerate death Shadow has gone through many iterations in Legacy and predates the printing of the scam package since then though the deck has evolved to be pretty similar to the Delver scam lists focusing on Mana efficiency the scam package is similar but notably different from the other decks we've looked at today we don't have any troll so Street wraith serves the same role in combination with reanimate while having the upside of being being synergistic with death Shadow there are three copies of grief and a playet of reanimate of course you couldn't play Death Shadow Without a play set of death Shadow it's the namesake card we also see a play set of stalactite stalkers three copies of orish bow Masters and two merti region these function is the threat suite for the deck providing some degree of aggression before the death Shadow comes online there are the expected playsets of brainstorm Ponder force and days one Brazen borrower and two copies of snuff out serve as the interaction for creatures and other onboard threats the manabase is a little different it's comprised of three watery Graves two underground sea eight blue fetches and a play set of wasteland watery grave is important for enabling death Shadow against Decks that don't pressure life totals like control decks or some combo deck this sideboard rounds out the threat package with a playet of Dy void Walker alongside an additional copy of brazen borrower and an additional copy of forish bow Masters there is some additional removal and Broad sideboard cards in Shield edict a pair of fatal push a dress down and a basic swamp for matchups where blood moon or Wasteland are of particular concern the rest of the board consists of a narrow but high impact selection of cards hydro blast spell bomb null rod and Powder Keg beyond the obvious budget benefits there are some other upsides to playing death Shadow death Shadow is a card that can be difficult to play against as it can unexpectedly grow from a street wraith during mid combat with only four reanimates and a pair of merti Regent this deck is one of the most resilient versions of the Demir scam decks against graveyard hate despite being a giant and Mana efficient threat late in the game death Shadow can be kind of clunky with the street wraiths and shocklands these cards are independently not really powerful enough to play in a fair Legacy deck and only really serve to empower death Shadow specifically death Shadow is also pretty hard to cast until a few turns into the game barring some specific draws with a lot of Street wraiths Charles the void has particular efficacy against this deck as it has a much greater emphasis on One Drops especially one that can't be frequently cast on turn one so cast underneath of a chalice swords to plow shares is also awkward it's often a two or more for one against multiple copies of Death shadow in play unlike the Del variants death Shadow is often more about trading cards and then having a big death Shadow after the dust settles to close the game your life total is a resource and managing it is much more complex here as we both need to reduce it below 133 without being so low as to be in danger of dying this gets really interesting when playing against lightning bolt decks and it's often great at racing because taking damage from opposing creatures grows Shadows to often crack back for lethal against control decks and combo Decks that don't pressure the life total can take some time to get Shadow online though Shadow players uh feel free to get salty in the comments but I don't really think this deck is it I don't think the benefits of Shadow outweigh the downsides of shock Lans unless you're on a budget and this is what you can afford to build if you are constrained by a budget death Shadow is ideal for winning the ground game in creature mirrors and it's a powerful classic Legacy style Xerox deck at a fraction of the cost for any similar deck if that sounds attractive it might be a good fit at the end of the day playing Legacy on a budget is much better than not playing Legacy at all so feel no shame and jam some Shadow it's a perfectly competitive deck and your play skill can more than overcome any downsides from playing shocklands looking at another black-based scam deck ratto scam is a take on mono aggro scam that drops Dark Ritual opposition Agent Shield DD and trims some of the removal spells for a dragon's rage Channeler Misha's Bobble package and red removal this deck has a slightly adjusted scan package with only three trolls four grief and the play set of reanimate but there's a single anime dead Dragon rage chanler and cacti stalker are each some of the best one drops in rose colors they are efficient and each provide additional utility three copies each of Dy void Walker and orcish bow Masters have powerful utility effects while clocking the opponent we have some additional interaction in the form of lightning bolt thought Seas molten collapse seal of fire Shield edict and snuff out closing out we've got four mish's Bobble and one Lotus pedal Mish Bobble does a surprising amount here functions is a pseudo cantrip when combined with DRC or fetchlands it's an extra card type for delirium and it can trigger descend for stalactite stalker the one of lotus pedal is interesting it's fast Mana that can be played out proactively with dragon Channel and play to get a surveil trigger sometimes it just gives the deck a little bit of extra early game speed in the sideboard there's surgical extraction fairy maob force of Despair and then some big red blowouts in meltdown and blood moon or maggus of the Moon there's also a couple copies of pyrro blast or red blast I think this deck has a lot of upsides when compared to Mono black aggro it's consistent and aggressive dragon's rage Channeler with mish's Bobble and fetches gives us zero Mana card selection so it's almost like the deck gets to play a bunch of considers without having to play any blue Mana red removal is fantastic in this deck both molten collapse is a versatile and Powerful spell and lightning bolt which adds a whole new dimension in regards to being able to burn the opponent out as a two-color deck the manabase is a little bit more vulnerable to was lands but as long as a basic swamp can be found there is very minimal exposure to blood moon effects this version definitely doesn't have the same explosive power that the mono Black Version can present via Dark Ritual into opposition agent or bow Masters but it is significantly more consistent and still has some nut draws overall I like the deck because it's more stable and has stronger interaction than the mono black versions some lists go much deeper on red including cards like broadside bombadiers Fable of the mirror breaker and sometimes even Fury the other change I sometimes see is whether or not to include fast Mana Lotus pedal is often the accelerant of choice when playing Dragon rage Channeler because it can be played when selection is needed instead of when the Mana is needed Dark Ritual doesn't have this same kind of optionality cromox is also something that I guess could be considered in this deck having access to Red sideboard cards is also a pretty big deal blood moon meltdown and Pyro blast are all really high impact cards in specific matchups I think this deck is pretty good if you want to get the opponent dead but still want to have a wide variety of interactive spells and a higher level of stability eing out small advantages in a non-blue deck I probably wouldn't recommend this deck if you don't like to play on a Razor's Edge with small creatures or if you want to be able to go big or if you like playing you know actual can trips we're going to close on maybe one of the spiciest deir scam decks hak scam hak scam relies on hak as the top end instead of merti regent hak requires a significant amount of support to be able to cast but it's got huge upsides we see the standard scam package troll grief and reanimate the other creatures are Stitcher supplier which supports hak for orcish bow Masters and a play set of hak as the beefy top end as expected we've got play sets of brainstorm Ponder force and days the removal and interaction Suite is a little on the light end with two Cal therapy and three copies of snuff out dad Arbor is an interesting addition to the Mana base as it helps to cast hak from the graveyard to support DED Arbor we see seven green fetchlands and there are no polluted Deltas in this deck the rest of the Mana base is a playet of underground Seas a single swamp and a pair of wastelands the sideboard has many cards we would expect from a Demir based scam Deck with spare copies of wasteland and Kabal therapy for matchups rather good I think the biggest upside to this deck is how powerful hak is it wins almost any ground game and it can be repeatedly cast from the graveyard with a high level of synergy this deck has a level of consistency that I think is going to be hard to match this is a much more graveyard oriented deck than some of the other scam decks though opening itself up to heightened levels of vulnerability to effects like lilon of the Void dothy void Walkers and surgical extraction I am especially concerned with the fact that a single surgical extraction can Exile all four hoga leaving the deck with no top end it also doesn't have any answers to permanent pieces of graveyard hate outside of Powder Keg which can be pretty slow this deck compromises on its quality and quantity of interaction resulting in a slightly lower level of survivability Flyers are also a potential vulnerability for this deck merti region often fills an important role for deir scam decks in establishing Air Supremacy or in contesting opposing merchite Regents this deck is somewhat linear and attempts to execute its game plan to kill the opponent but it may have difficulty playing the control role against some combo decks or those decks with Flyers control decks may have difficulty managing hak but Exile based removal winds up quite well so white based beans decks likely have a pretty good matchup here due to how much of the deck is required to support hak there aren't that many Flex slots to play around with I would definitely look at some sideboard cards that can more efficiently interact with opposing graveyard hate bounce spells like Brazen borrower or whale of the Forgotten interact really well with cabal therapy bouncing a relevant card and then naming it with therapy this deck is powerful and synergistic if you miss hak summer in modern if you're like the one person maybe this deck can scratch an itch for you it's probably not a great call right now though because it'll get hit by all the splash hate that players are packing for deira scammin no matter what flavor of scam you encounter or play there are some key components to remember grief is not that powerful on its own it's not really worth evoking without reanimate anime dead or ephemerate if you end up in a situation where you might have a grief in hand and no reanimate consider if it's worth waiting to cast it for four Mana instead of just evoking it remember it does have an alternate casting cost of two black black playing against scam it's important to remember that prior to the use of a scam effect evoking grief is card disadvantage because of this it's usually not correct to force of will grief when it's evoked unless there's a specific card in your hand that must be protected for a combo or if you have another answer for the reanimate or you just have to dodge the reanimate in order to win sometimes that's your only option you just got to dodge reanimate I think reanimate is actually the glue that holds these decks together and it's quietly the most important card reanimates an extremely card and fair decks both by enabling powerful plays with grief and troll but also by being redundant copies of cards already in the graveyard orcish bow master mirror matches have this Dynamic where the person with the last bow Master standing often wins the game because bow Masters bow Masters bow Masters there's a tension where you want to wait until you can bow Master their bow Masters all this bow mastering is going on at the same time as each player is hoping to resolve theirs in response to a brainstorm reanimate breaks this bow Master's tension in an important way way if playing against salti beans or grixis stver the opponent has a play set of bow Masters but a scam deck functionally has eight copies or more of bow Masters due to reanimate and animate Deads due to Mana efficient combinations of cards scam will often have an advantage in the early game but it may not be able to compete effectively in a longer game if the opponent can pull ahead with card Advantage if beans especially of the B variety stabilize they're going to be very favored as the game progresses I don't think scam is going anywhere it's a powerful engine that supports many distinct decks deira gaminator might be the best deck in Legacy right now especially with the newer white Splash that allows them to mitigate graveyard hate I think we're going to have to wait and see how the metag game progresses but I do definitely think that deck is beatable grixis Dover and B beans are both likely favored in the matchup beating raminator is a leveling game where each player tries to guess how the other one will sideboard and then board accordingly to blank that plan this means that it's a particularly skill testing deck to both play with and against the other scam decks I like the most are the grixis or Demir Dover scam decks salti scam as these decks all focus at being really good at one game plan and they all truly succeed at it I think classic scam is outdated it just doesn't have the same power level as some of these other versions if you want to play a scam deck without blue I really like the ratto scam deck mono black and orzo scam are both excellent if ratos isn't aggressive enough for your tastes the hog scam decks and non-blue raminator decks are both powerful but they are more likely to be hit by a graveyard hate directed at deir gaminator dedicated reanimator has fallen off in popularity as Demir gaminator is basically doing everything it can do but better especially after sideboards hopefully this has helped you to identify what flavor of scam your opponent's playing or which one you want to play while I didn't go through each matchup of each scam deck hopefully this breakdown helps you to understand how each of these decks has their own bottlenecks and weaknesses to be attacked or how best to leverage the advantages that they each have if you enjoyed this breakdown and are curious about the state of Legacy week by week check out my playlist last week Legacy And subscribe if you want to see more of my work as I make it thanks for spending this time with me and stay scammy

Channel: Matt Chow

Views: 2,489

Keywords: Magic the Gathering, MTG Legacy, MTG Scam, Dimir Rescaminator, Dimir Scam, Rakdos Scam, Sultai Scam, Legacy Metagame

Id: jpZQDDULUl0

Length: 69min 31sec (4171 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 20 2024