Legends: Elite Eight, Final Four, and Championship
Series Preview
Ground rules for this tournament.
Sweet Sixteen results here.
We’ve finally made it to the finish line for this insane set! Starting from a field of 151 creatures (our largest yet) – which included a disturbing amount of seven- and eight-mana vanilla legends, offenseless Walls and Kobolds, and fatties with horrible upkeep costs – here we are, in the Elite Eight:
- Only two legends have made it this far. And not surprisingly, they not only come with both come at the actually reasonable cost of three mana, but also have a powerful ability that can either shut down combat (Angus Mackenzie) or pick off the opponent’s creatures (Tetsuo Umezawa). Looking at the rest of this top eight, these two have to be the odds-on favorites here.
- We’ve also got our three triple-digit seeds: Fire Sprites, Vampire Bats, and Clergy of the Holy Nimbus. The set of all three can be had for a dollar…yet they’re all here. Each of them making full use of their cheap mana costs to blast through five rounds against much fancier legends.
- Two of the participants – Thunder Spirit and Kobold Taskmaster – may be the only creatures in the entire set that could reasonably see print in a set today (Reserved List notwithstanding) and be somewhat useful.
- And then there’s Crimson Manticore. I don’t know how it managed to make it this far. But it did, because it’s Legends we’re talking about here.
Elite Eight
(1) Angus Mackenzie defeats (8) Tetsuo Umezawa
A quarterfinal face-off between the two legends left from Legends.
And this one is actually somewhat of a challenge for old Angus, as Umezawa can actually interact with him – using her ability to destroy him after he uses his ability.
However, all Angus needs to do is build an army until six mana (taking 9 damage along the way), at which point it can establish a continuous loop. Each time Umezawa attacks, one Angus will use its ability to stop the combat. From there, the tapped Angus gets killed by Umezawa’s ability. But then, on the next turn, a new Angus can be cast to replace the one that just died; while leaving three mana open for one of the remaining Anguses to do its magic the next turn.
And so, once again, Angus stalls all the way to a default win.
(2) Thunder Spirit defeats (71) Kobold Taskmaster
An extremely tight battle between two relatively simple creatures.
Thunder Spirit, with its first strike, has got the strict advantage in combat here. But at the same time, the Taskmaster can do a huge chunk of damage with some extra attackers. So the best strategy for the Spirit is to hold on until it can go for a massive one-shot kill in the air.
So the question is: can Taskmaster push enough damage through before then?
Turn 5 is the earliest Kobolds can try to attack, since the creation of 2 Taskmasters on Turn 4 means they have one extra attacker. But there, it’s losing all but one Kobold for 7 damage. Bad idea.
The first chance Kobolds has to get two attacks through is Turn 8, where it’ll win them the game since each attacker will have 12 power (12 x 2 = 24). Question is: can Thunder Spirit somehow sneak enough damage through before then? (Specifically, 6 damage before they attack with 14 in the air for their Turn 8).
And for that, it makes sense for Thunder Spirit to attack early, since any counter-attacks early on won’t be as powerful.
If Spirits attack on Turn 4 (2 damage), Kobolds can counterattack with 2 Kobolds; losing 1 and doing 4 damage. Kobolds won’t counterattack because they’ll be down net one with minimal damage dealt.
Then if two Spirits attack on Turn 5 (4 damage), Kobolds can counterattack with four Kobolds. Three will be unblocked, and each one will deal 6 damage (6 Kobolds on the battlefield). Not enough for lethal. This would bring Spirit down to 2; however, the next time Kobolds would have one extra attacker (given that they lost one in that attack) is Turn 8 – the turn after the Spirits can swing for 14 lethal.
So, if Thunder Spirit attacks with all available attackers in Turn 4 and 5, it’ll put itself in a position to barely win by Turn 8.
The Reserved List poster-boy prevails in an instant classic.
(123) Clergy of the Holy Nimbus defeats (133) Fire Sprites
Here it is. The epic showdown you’ve all been waiting for, for a spot in the Final Four.
In any case, the fact that Clergy comes down earlier and demands that all-important mana payment every time Fire Sprites (who is on their heels from the start) wants to trade – means they quickly overwhelm the 1/1 fliers.
(60) Crimson Manticore defeats (132) Vampire Bats
Vampire Bats, as always, can do some quick damage to start. However, once the Manticores start rolling in, they can establish a wall of pinging Manticores that shut down the Bat assault before their life total is in any serious jeopardy.
Later in the game, the Manticores are more limited in their ability to ping away, but still have a large army of blockers to handle the rest (with the Bats requiring two activations to trade). More than enough to hang on until the default victory.
Crimson Manticore in the Final Four. Who would have guessed?
Final Four
(1) Angus Mackenzie defeats (60) Crimson Manticore
After that small scare last round, Angus Mackenzie shuts down the Manticore attacks pretty early and rolls to an easy default win.
(2) Thunder Spirit defeats (123) Clergy of the Holy Nimbus
The Clergy will rush early on, getting some extra damage in thanks to its ability limiting the number of blocking Spirits than can kill them.
However, the Thunder Spirits eventually reach a stable state where they have 3+ mana to kill Clergy attackers, while continually casting a blocker every turn to match a Clergy attacker. The Clergy’s two-creature advantage throughout this is thus unable to bring the Spirit much further below its 9 life remaining.
Eventually, Thunder Spirit will assemble its army of ten fliers; which can fly straight over the whole Clergy army for the kill.
Championship Match
(1) Angus Mackenzie defeats (2) Thunder Spirit
Pretty ironic, huh? After an entire tournament of low-seed creatures pulling off big upsets – including three of them making an appearance in this top eight – the finals comes down to a clash between between the first seed and the second seed. Just like we all expected.
And the match is totally trivial. Angus shuts things down before Thunder Spirit can get going at all, and he cruises to a default victory.
And thus, Angus Mackenzie proves that there were at least some good legends in Legends, by wrapping up a dominant tournament with the set championship.
The best creature in 
is Angus Mackenzie!
