Legacy: Eternal Weekend NA - Metagame Review

Hello, Legacy fans! It's time for the Eternal Weekends, which happen all over the world. These massive events happen on 3 different weekends, one in Europe, one in Japan, and one in the United States, and feature Legacy and Vintage formats. This year, the North American step took place from November 22nd to November 24th; 1155 players registered for the Legacy format, and 407 for the Vintage format!

Today, we'll review the Legacy part of the event. A tournament of this size is great because it gives us a lot of data that we can then analyze to figure out what the meta looks like. And, the best of all, we can often find the best players on the circuit competing in it, as well as collect a lot of data.

Everyone knows that Legacy, for a while now, has been heavily dominated by a certain golden Frog (Psychic Frog), and WotC might ban it soon. However, this time, another deck grabbed the spotlight: Forge Combo!

This Artifact combo deck occupied the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places after the Swiss rounds were over, and Kelvin Wallace, who got 3rd, ended up winning the entire tournament. Most curiously, this archetype wasn't the most popular deck at the event by a long shot.

As the entire tournament was registered on melee.gg, we have access to all the data (including all games). I would also like to thank Matt Chow, a YouTuber who compiled all the data and crunched the numbers. According to the information available, these were the most popular archetypes:

• Frognator – 14.55%

• Dimir Aggro – 9.00%

• Red Stompy – 7.97%

• Eldrazi Aggro – 6.06%

• Painter – 5.54%

• Nadu Midrange – 4.94%

• Cephalid Breakfast – 4.16%

• Forge Combo – 3.46%

• Jeskai Control – 3.38%

• Doomsday –3.20%

• Death and Taxes –3.20%

• Sneak and Show – 2.59%

• Lands – 2.25%

• Stiflenought – 1.94%

• Reanimator – 1.55%

• Cradle Control – 1.55%

• Other Archetypes – 24.66%

As I wanted to see what changed since 2023, I took a look at my own Eternal Weekend review from last year. Curiously, back then, the meta was also home to 16 decks that occupied more than 1.5% of it, but other archetypes occupied around 38% of it, which means 2023 was a lot more diverse compared to 2024.

The most popular deck then was Uro Control, which occupied 8% of the format - almost half what the most popular deck occupies today. This means Legacy became a lot less diverse in just around a year, and Modern Horizons 3 was most likely the main culprit behind this.

Another plus side of having access to all matches played at a giant tournament like this is that we can clearly see how the main archetypes performed. Among the 10 most popular archetypes, one deck stood out considerably: Forge Combo won over 60% of its matches, which is absurd, considering how big this event was.

As this deck is relatively vulnerable to a few sideboard cards, the main theory for this success is that players underestimated it and, in general, didn't prepare well against it. Another factor we were able to detect was that it was very effective (72.50%) against Frognator, the most popular deck at the event. Here are the win rates of the most popular decks (excluding mirror matches):

• Forge Combo: 61.99%

• Frognator: 53.10%

• Doomsday: 53.09%

• Nadu Midrange: 52.96%

• Painter: 52.88%

• Cephalid Breakfast: 52.05%

• Eldrazi Aggro: 51.55%

• Dimir Aggro: 50.52%

• Red Stompy: 48.55%

• Jeskai Control: 42.54%

I'd also like to highlight two other details: the first one is Jeskai Control's abysmal performance. This deck had a poor win rate against all top 10 archetypes apart from Dimir Aggro (as it had a 61.54% win rate against it) and, ironically, Forge combo (as it had a devastating 77.78% win rate against it!).

The other detail I'd like to highlight is that, despite being the most popular deck, and, consequently, the most targeted, Frognator still had the second-best win rate in the tournament. This usually means the metagame is still struggling to self-regulate, and that Legacy is not healthy at all. Considering how WotC has acted in the past in similar situations, I strongly believe Psychic Frog will be banned soon.

As I mentioned before, there were 3 Forge Combos in this tournament's Top 8. The other 5 decks were all different: Cephalid Breakfast, Death and Taxes, Frognator, Painter, and Nadu Midrange.

So, as you can see, there were a lot of combos and only one Psychic Frog, but please note that another Frognator and one Esper Aggro didn't make it into the top 8 because of tiebreaker criteria. The Esper Aggro was basically a Dimir Aggro that splashed white a tiny bit.

The Winner

The top 3 players after the Swiss rounds were over all used the same archetype - two lost straight away in the top 8, but the third place, Kelvin Wallace, ended up winning the entire tournament. The main difference in his list compared to what we can consider the regular version of this archetype is Candelabra of Tawnos, an ancient Artifact that can create an obscene amount of mana with Urza's Tower and Urza's Workshop. Conveniently, you can also tutor it with Urza's Saga. This list was almost an Urza Kindred.

Forge Combo already had potential in this format, and, before MH3, I had a bad feeling it would become this powerful soon. After MH3 came along, this deck got what it needed: Glaring Fleshraker, and, in most lists, Planar Nexus. Fleshraker can end the game very quickly by creating Eldrazi Spawn tokens that will drain your opponent's life and create even more mana for you.

With Mystic Forge and The One Ring, you'll easily destroy your opponent's life points all at once. It is particularly strong with Kozilek's Command. As for Nexus, it is quite explosive with Urza's Tower and also can create colored mana even if Null Rod is in play. This Weatherlight artifact simply ended the game for this deck before MH3, but, now it has answers, such as Wastescape Battlemage, Boseiju, Who Endures, and Portable Hole.

Runner-Up

When Nadu, Winged Wisdom was revealed (one of the biggest design mistakes of all time, in my humble opinion), there was a clear home for it in Legacy: Cephalid Breakfast already used Nomads en-Kor, so adding Nadu and getting a lot of value from its extra effect was very natural.

Soon, many players realized how big of a threat this little MH3 bird was, and, instead of playing it as a plan B in a combo deck, they started using it in another structure: in the weak Elf shell, so bullied by Orcish Bowmasters and recycled in Cradle Control.

That's how Nadu Midrange was born. As we can see from the Eternal Weekend data, it performed better than Breakfast itself. Bailey Sarkis managed to turn around a great disadvantage (he had to go second in top 8 and top 4) before he finally lost against the big villain of the tournament.

Top 4

Two combo decks managed to get to top 4. Max Deresh, who was 4th at the end of the Swiss rounds, brought Cephalid Breakfast, so that was the second Nadu, Winged Wisdom deck at the semifinals. It was a bird fight.

Cephalid Breakfast is as old as Legacy itself, but has been reborn many times throughout the years until it stabilized with Thassa's Oracle (in my humble opinion, another great mistake in terms of card design). This deck performed very well, which should bring even more attention to Nadu.

Another player in the top 4 was Pro Tour veteran Ari Lax, piloting Painter. His list, besides including a plan A with Painter's Servant + Grindstone combo, also included Agatha's Soul Cauldron + Phyrexian Devourer.

This archetype also uses Blasts (Pyroblast / Red Elemental Blast) in the main deck in a sea of blue decks. However, you can get caught in the crossfire with it, considering that, as an answer to Forge's great performance, we should be seeing more Artifact hates in the format.

Top 8

Out of the two other Forge decks that didn't get past Top 8, John Barber's list (who got 1st place), was practically identical to the list that won the tournament (1 card in the main deck was different, a few others in the sideboard were too). As for the 2nd place, Joshua Cronk, he didn't bring Planar Nexus and Urza's Tower. His build was what I call lower ceiling, higher floor - it is less explosive but also doesn't give you hands that can't activate Urza's Tower. It is also more vulnerable to Null Rod.

For a while now, many Death and Taxes lists have incorporated a second color to support its overall strategy. However, unlike most players, who prefer the Orzhov version, AJ Franklin brought a Boros version.

Red gives this deck Broadside Bombardiers, one of the strongest creatures ever released in Legacy, as Red Stompy proved. Globins are particularly efficient when combined with Ajani, Nacatl Pariah. It also gives you the opportunity to use Magus of the Moon and Chainsaw in the main deck and Pyroblast in the sideboard. I thought this version was fascinating.

Finally, our last deck in the top 8 is still the leader of the format, Frognator, piloted by Dominic Vernazza. The list he used is the most standard version possible, which is a sign this archetype can no longer be refined. However, this deck might need to invest more space in its sideboard against Forge, considering it lost frequently (75% of the time) to it.

The 3rd Eternal Weekend will happen from December 6th to December 8th in Prague. It will be the last big tournament of the year before we get more ban announcements on December 16th, which should, unarguably, affect Legacy.

Many of us expect Forge to become more popular, considering its excellent performance, but anyone who plays it would not like that. After all, it tends to prey on formats in which artifact hates are not that prevalent. Nothing indicates Frogs will become entirely irrelevant, but they'll certainly be less popular.

Jeskai and Red Stompy, which didn't perform as well as expected, might lose space, though many players are placing their chips on Jeskai precisely because of its excellent performance against Forge.

Only time will tell whether the results from the last weekend will influence WotC's decision regarding bans. Frog is a safe bet, but many players have brought up that Vexing Bauble could also be leaving the format soon. Nonetheless, the fact we were able to access such a vast database, one that only a tournament of this size could provide, is exceptional.

What about you? What did you think of this tournament? Tell us your thoughts in our comment section below.

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!