Legacy Deck Tech - Lands, an Old Classic Revived!

Good morning, good afternoon, good night! Here we are again with another Legacy Deck Tech! This time, we'll revisit one of the most classic Legacy decks, a deck that, even though it didn't receive new tools, adapted to form a face that is well-known by Vintage fans. We're talking about Lands with Sphere of Resistance!

This deck's base exists since Legacy was created: Mox Diamond, Exploration, Crop Rotation and Life from the Loam are useful to abuse the extensive land options available in this format. We'll control our opponent's mana with Wasteland and Ghost Quarter, hold off attackers with Maze of Ith, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale and Karakas, and create cards with Horizon Canopy. As the time went on and new cards were released, we added the Dark Depths Thespian's Stage finishing combo, ways of dealing with problematic permanents through Blast Zone, and Boseiju, Who Endures, and a true toolbox via Urza's Saga.

For years, this deck stood on a delicate balance between having positive games against the several Delver versions, and breaking a sweat to deal with combo decks. The possibility of summoning Marit Lage helped this deck finish games faster, but it was still disadvantaged against even faster decks. The most recent version of this deck pulled the 4 Sphere of Resistance from the sideboard to the main deck, and this deck started to show more consistent results.

This deck mulligans well, because, with more than 30 lands, mana being an issue is rare (even if you have to go to 6 or 5 cards), and Life from the Loam provides a great way to recover from card disadvantage. Therefore, it is more than common to return hands with no action to try and find something better.

Hand examples:

Unless you know you're facing a deck that is severely impacted by the Needle, this is a hand to send back: it doesn't have acceleration, nor any action. Verdict: Mulligan against almost everything.

This is a hand with a small number of lands, but it has basically everything you need. You can both rely on drawing one of your many lands and play the sequence of Forest - Exploration - Saga on turn 1, Crop Rotation into a fetchland, tap it, and Life from the Loam to recover both lands and play the Sphere. Verdict: This is the hand this deck is always looking for.

This is a risky hand, but it takes off after you find a single green mana. To make it even better, it can buy you some time, and it is likely that this deck will find a colored mana soon afterward. Verdict: Risky keep; a bet on drawing a green mana source.

This hand already threatens to play Marit Lage at the end of turn 2, but it has no other protection or any other action. Verdict: Risky keep if you don't know what you're facing. If you do, keep it against decks that have no answer to Marit, mulligan against decks with counters.

In our sideboard, we have the traditional Haywire Mite (to pull it with Urza's Saga), Endurance and Surgical Extraction (as turn 0 answers against graveyards), and Deafening Silence (to try and make your matches against combo better). Something that was recently added was Torpor Orb, an excellent card against Initiative and Goblins, two decks that are popular right now. Completing our sideboard, we have the fourth Swords to Plowshares, Choke to catch that Blue opponent off guard, and Force of Vigor so that Blood Moon doesn't ruin your day.

Other common options for the sideboard are Mindbreak Trap, Grafdigger’s Cage, Soul-Guide Lantern, Thorn of Amethyst and Veil of Summer.

Grixis / Temur / 4C Delver

Facing these tempo decks is still what's most attractive about this Lands deck because they have a limited number of Wastelands and Force of Wills. This deck, like Thanos, is inevitable: the Life from the Loam engine will, sooner or later, bury them under an avalanche of resources. The fact this deck also has Swords to Plowshares in the maindeck complicates their life even more.

Post-side, you remove the Spheres, which, even though useful, are not included because of this opponent, and some Saga targets, which are also useful to face other opponents.

In:

Out:

Reanimator

Out of all combo decks, this is the one you're most prepared to face because Bojuka Bog and Karakas through Crop Rotation and Soul-Guide Lantern through Urza's Saga offer answers in the main deck already, and Maze of Ith prevents Atraxa, Grand Unifier or Griselbrand from connecting attacks. The problem is Archon of Cruelty, so your Swords to Plowshares shine here. Unlike other combo decks, Spheres don't affect them much because they don't need to play a critical mass of spells.

In:

Out:

Stompy (Red Prison and Boros Initiative)

Blood Moon / Magus of the Moon / Archon of Emeria are the cards you definitely don't want to see in front of you. The Moon's effect can be a double-edged sword, in case you have a way of removing them with Dark Depths on the board. Chalice of the Void is annoying, but can be circumvented.

If (most likely when) they resolve the Initiative, you basically have no ways of regaining control of it, and that is important to recruit Marit Lage as soon as possible. Just like the Delver matchups, you remove cards that aren't useful in this matchup to bring cards that are more adequate.

In:

Out:

Uro Control

This game is a battle of resources, and you already have ways in the main deck to resolve their main tool, Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath. It is good to be careful because Force of Negation is useful to deal with Life from the Loam. The way to victory rarely goes through Marit Lage, but the option is there. Sphere isn't great against them, but it can help force out threats like Choke if they are struggling with mana.

In:

Out:

Doomsday

This is the other side of the coin, which means, it is the type of opponent that tends to destroy you. With the Sphere of Resistance, you have a shot of delaying them enough to eventually finish the game with Marit Lage. Curiously, Torpor Orb, originally added to the sideboard because of Initiative, can be your ace in the hole to win the game post-side.

In:

Out:

Even though this isn't the incontestable Tier S leader in this format, we have 2 "Delver" (even if they don't use Delver) decks among the strongest decks currently. This is the type of scenario that attracts Lands, and this deck performed relatively well at the Eternal Weekend events, which are a true test for Legacy decks. I hope you enjoyed reading this deck tech.

See you next time!