Legends: Round of 64
Series Preview
Ground rules for this tournament.
Round of 128 results here.
Whew! That was a lot of bad creatures (read: Legends, Walls, and Wood Elemental). What gets me is how impossibly slow so many of these games felt, even after bypassing the inherent restrictions of those three-color, quadruple-pip mana costs. Still, the awesome names and the art definitely make for the slog of pathetic match-ups we had to sit through.
I feel like we’ll need at least a few more rounds to cull out all the chaff, but we have already seen some of the more well-known legends stand out from the rest: Angus Mackenzie, Dakkon Blackblade, Sol’kanar the Swamp King, and Rubinia Soulsinger all scored impressive victories – and all could be in the running for the title in a crazy set like this. Or it could go to some other random legend, one of those Kobold Lords, or that Grizzly Bear Ape…I wouldn’t be surprised.
Note: Hover over the names to see card images.
Round of 64
(1)
Wait, that ability of Angus Mackenzie shuts down all attacks from the opponent? Now I understand why he is the most expensive creature ($180) in this twenty-five year old set.
Don’t want to speak too soon, but I think we may have already identified our champion here. Especially since he’s the first seed; and what I’ve seen so far doesn’t suggest to me that anybody else is going to be fast enough.
(2)
Now this one is a little closer.
The tougher Drake holds off the Thunder Spirit, so it can’t win by damage here. So the Reserved List poster-child needs to be able to hold off that Core Set common staple for fifty-three turns to avoid a huge upset here.
And it does. Even if the Drake waits until the last possible moment to attack, Thunder Spirit can just double-block a bunch of attackers (with the first strike keeping both Spirit blockers alive), chump the rest, and still come out ahead in terms of creatures. And if the Drake tries to attack with almost all of its creatures…the Spirit would just counter-attack for the kill.
(62)
Evasion against a Wall guarantees victory, even for an overcosted 1/1 Faerie.
(68)
Evasive one-drops typically outspeed 1-power creatures for two. And with that, the Bats are the second super-low seed in a row to make it to the Top 32.
(5)
The non-legendariness of the Manticore means that the Satyr becomes nothing but a feeble 1/1 for four. It loses, as expected.
(59)
The one-drop Clergy are just too fast.
(71)
Note: Not fully solved.
This one comes down to some pretty tricky combat math.
We know Taskmaster can’t win by attacking, since they can only trade with Apes (at best).
Apes, however, does have the opportunity to get damage through in the long-term: if there is only one Taskmaster on the battlefield, it can’t trade with an attacking Apes, so it has to let the attack through.
Thus, it’s advantageous for Apes to get to that long-term state where Taskmaster has only one blocker. Problem is: to get there, they need to somehow have a combat (or combats) where all the other Taskmasters and Apes have died.
Apes can try to achieve that on the early turns – before they’ve realized their 1-card advantage – by attacking one Ape a turn. Problem with that is that Taskmaster can always counter-attack for more damage (since one high-power Taskmaster will be unblocked). So that method is not sustainable for those multiple early turns.
Apes can wait until they’ve realized that 1-card advantage to start attacking (while still having enough blockers to stop all Taskmaster counter-attacks). But at that point, Kobolds can keep trading and the Apes aren’t making any progress turn by turn.
Finally, Apes can try attacking with two creatures once the advantage is realized. Problem there is that Taskmaster can just let that through and come back with 11 damage in the counter-attack (given the huge swarm of creatures, with one being unblocked). Apes have no way of making that difference up once they’ve reached that long-term state described above.
In short, Apes have no way of getting the needed damage through without dying themselves.
Who knew a battle involving a vanilla 2/2 could be that complicated?
(8)
Their stats are the same, and Umezawa is cheaper and on the play. So she wins it.
(73)
A stalemate that Ramirez stalls out to win by default.
(10)
The Dervish overwhelms with its green protection and rapidly accumulating +1/+1 counters.
(11)
Even with unblockability, Evil Eye can’t damage Dakkon nearly as effectively as the massive Blackblade damages it. The 7/7 attacker (Turn seven), two 8/8 attackers (Turn eight), and three 9/9 attacks (Turn nine) are more than enough to overwhelm the Eye before it can make too much of a dent.
(12)
The Wurm can’t attack unless it’s already blocked, so the Kobolds wisely don’t attack and win by default.
(13)
The Master is too small and too expensive. The Lady overwhelms him and his Wolves of the Hunt buddies eventually.
(51)
A 2/1 for two with downside is not supposed to be good, at all. But costing six mana less than your opponent is good enough here.
(15)
The much bigger Swamp King takes over this one.
(49)
A cheap flier will always beat a clunky, expensive legend.
(17)
Note: Not fully solved.
Really not sure about this one. In general, it seems that Carrion Ants is very tight in having enough mana to: (1) cast multiple Ants; (2) present an offensive threat to the Villain; and (3) hold back a defense for a Villain counter-attack – especially since these Ants are essentially useless without any pumps.
Across various permutations, the Ants struggled a lot with getting any serious damage through in the early to mid turns without facing lethal at the hands of multiple Spinal Villains. And if the Ants couldn’t do it early, there is no way they they’d be able to do it late, as the mana tension only increases with every turn.
This one just feels like a win for the 1/2 Mantis-Lizard thing. Though I’m the furthest thing from certain on that.
(18)
Definitely not the most impressive second-round match-up. Yet here we are.
First strike means Ur-Drago can handle any offensive assault. However, it has some trouble getting the damage through to Ramses…
Since Ramses was able to strike for 4 early and always has one more attacker than Ur-Drago blockers; Ur-Drago can only attack with at most two creatures at once – so that it has enough blockers to survive a counter-attack. (Ur-Drago can attack with three creatures if it’s threatening a kill – i.e. forcing a Ramses block and death – but can’t if it’s not. Any attackers beyond that would just be met with chump blocks.)
The problem is that by the time Ur-Drago can attack with two creatures, Ramses has already assembled four blockers: i.e. they can double-block and trade two-for-two, bringing the board back to a previous state with no damage being done.
Hence, despite its superior stats, there’s no way for Ur-Drago to get enough damage through without dying itself.
(46)
Another fun battle.
The first striking Gabriel comes down just in time to deter any further Tobias attacks (Tobias would lose two plus creatures, while Gabriel would lose one creature and take 4 damage).
Tobias needs to wait until it hits ten mana and can attack with two extra creatures the next turn – enough to kill Gabriel since it’s at 8 life. Unfortunately for the them, the turn before they can attack, Gabriel can give all of its five Angels flying and strike in the air for a lethal 20.
(45)
The bigger Johan dominates this one.
(85)
Beasts overpower the Druid.
(22)
Evasive damage for the single pumped Bee attacker just barely outspeeds the horde of Yeti.
(87)
Protection from red saves the Guardians again.
(24)
It’s another close confrontation between two obscure legends. Halfdane is bigger, but Tuknir’s pump ability allows it to win the battle as a blocker. Of course, the mana cost of activation puts a clock on how long Tuknir can maintain this defense; though its evasion means that it’ll eventually reach a point anyways where it can swing with its whole army in the air for a win.
On defense, Tuknir will cast a creature every turn (to keep pace) while leaving enough mana open to pump. After getting through 6 damage in early on, the optimal time for Halfdane to strike again is the turn before Tuknir is able to set up three pumped blockers (and three turns before it can alpha strike).*
That attack will lead to three dead Halfdanes, one dead Tuknir (from the un-pumped double block), and 9 damage. From there, Halfdane will never get opportunity to push the remaining two attackers through, before Tuknir hits back with its sufficient attackers in the air.
*During the time Tuknir has only one pump-able blocker, Halfdane only has one extra attacker. Losing a creature for 3 damage isn’t a worthwhile proposition. Also, if Halfdane waits until the turn before Tuknir alpha strikes, it can attack for 12. But by losing net three creatures, it’s unable to get any more damage in before Tuknir re-assembles its attackers for the kill.
(89)
Sir Shandlar is bigger and eventually takes over.
(26)
Caleria is just too expensive, as she falls to the army of reasonably-costed 2/2s before her first creature can even be cast.
(27)
Each Rubinia steal is a two-creature swing. And while Xira can match that at first by casting two creatures a turn for a few turns and then using that card draw ability to cast two creatures every second turn thereon, Rubinia eventually stabilizes at 5 life before two of them come down on Turn ten and effectively end things from there.
(28)
It’s six mana to cast Hunding, and four mana to bounce it. Time Elemental takes control all the way to a default victory.
(29)
Evasion and higher power mean the Phoenix wins this race.
(30)
The high toughness of Jacques means that Runeaxe needs to triple-block to kill. But thanks to Jacques’s advantage in numbers and some early damage shots, Runeaxe can only afford to do the triple-block once before its life total gets too low. From there, Jacques can just continually push some damage through the stalemate each turn until it wins.
(31)
Torsten is just too big. The fact that it kills The Wretched upon each block means that the take-control ability never applies
(32)
Livonya dominates the Efreet in battle. While in theory the Efreet could activate its ability each turn and steal a Livonya from their hand, in practice the odds of them hitting enough of them to make a difference is essentially zero.
Livonya can always keep a hand of just lands, and only draw their creature for the turn on their draw step. Thus, each draw Efreet can sacrifice to have a 1/6 chance of grabbing a Livonya (the other five cards in hand will always be lands). Meaning that in the long-term, the ante creature has no way of keeping up with the number of bigger 4/4 first strikers that make it onto the battlefield.
Onto the Round of 32…