Blue based decks
General CB/Top Blue strategies [A1]
Threshold and UGB Sinkhole Aggro [A2]

Red Aggro
Goblins [B1]
Goyf Burn [B2]
Dragon Stompy [B3]

Combo
Ad Nauseam [C1]
Combo Elves and Survival Elves [C2]

Keep in mind I’m not going to go in-depth on any of these except for those that I’ve actually had the time and inclination to test. The single exception is Faerie Stompy, which is currently very strong, but I just haven’t been able to get the games in with it like I have with many of these other decks. So I’ll simply point out that there’s an active thread over at The Source on the deck, and to take a look if you want to play a solid Blue aggro deck that isn’t Threshold.

Counterbalance Strategies [A1]
Every Counterbalance strategy is basically just the same 24 core cards, along with a varying land count of 18-24 and some window dressing to make them seem like completely different decks. Shocking, I know… decks that are based around the same strong card are really the same despite five variations of it existing? Blasphemy! Not like that’s ever happened before with another UU card named Mana Drain, of course not. Andy Probasco (Brassman) brought this up with me during some IRC chats, and it didn’t take much to convince me that in this point he was completely correct. After doing a rundown of our Blue decks from testing, plus a few outside sources, I believe the following is the proper core for Counterbalance decks.

Brainstorm
Force of Will
Counterbalance
Sensei’s Divining Top
Ponder (often better than Brainstorm!)
Tarmogoyf / large defensive early-game creature (if you have one that does it as well as Goyf, throw it in here. Phyrexian Dreadnought sort-of counts!)
23-24 mana sources for any non-Threshold Blue deck

I think the last one is the only one remotely arguable, and for me, I can’t see running a non-Tarmogoyf Blue deck unless it involves some ridiculous early game defense. And if I go out of my way to include said early defense, why don’t I just save on space and run a set of Goyf instead? After that core, for most Counterbalance decks that leaves maybe a dozen* slots to play with, so let’s breakdown how most decks spend those slots.

* Admittedly, I know many people won’t follow this and have extra slots, but bear with me here.

Dreadstill obviously runs Trinket Mage, Stifle effects, and some amount of removal, with maybe room for Spell Snare. Dreadnought is close enough to a substitute for Tarmogoyf in many games, and otherwise people usually just dump Ponder for Standstill. Since in god knows how many games I’ve been going out of my way to find one half of my Dreadnought combo or an Engineered Explosives to stay alive, one could imagine how I prefer Ponder. My problem with Standstill is one I’ve had since playing against Landstill in Vintage. It simply doesn’t do enough, and people that aren’t scared of it can usually trigger it to be of minimal value.

Landstill basically dumps the core of this type of deck in a river and many don’t even run the Counterbalance lock, instead relying on an overwhelming amount of removal. In large part this is why I think Landstill is garbage and just not worth playing. You give up a significant amount of library manipulation and power in the deck to have a bit more game against aggro. In addition to the deck’s legitimate faults against combo and certain other Blue decks, it plods along at a snail’s pace. If your opponents refuse to scoop at least one game, more than likely you’ll be brushing up against time quite often.

Counterbalance-Goyf decks are certainly viable in the metagame and what I expect many Blue decks to look like. If you’ve read Stephen’s article earlier this week, you already know what I’m referring to, but if not, here’s a basic list.

UGwb Threshold Featured by Thomas` Monnier on 2009-03-01 (Legacy) As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/17126_So_Many_Insane_Plays_A_Birds_Eye_View_of_Legacy_The_Engines_of_Legacy.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Artifacts 3 Sensei's Divining Top Creatures 4 Dark Confidant 4 Meddling Mage 4 Tarmogoyf	Enchantments 3 Counterbalance Instants 4 Brainstorm 3 Daze 4 Force of Will 3 Stifle 3 Swords to Plowshares Sorceries 4 Ponder 3 Thoughtseize Lands 3 Flooded Strand 4 Polluted Delta 3 Tropical Island 4 Tundra 4 Underground Sea	Sideboard: 2 Engineered Explosives 3 Tormod's Crypt 1 Trygon Predator 1 Counterbalance 2 Oblivion Ring 3 Threads of Disloyalty 1 Stifle 1 Swords to Plowshares 1 Thoughtseize
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Although I dislike maindeck Meddling Mage and actively vomit at the idea of 3 Sensei’s Divining Top and 3 Counterbalance, the rest of the deck is perfectly reasonable. You basically have two ways to go if you choose to build around the ‘core’ I presented here. You can have a deck like Thomas’s and go low with your mana due to the number of one-mana card manipulation effects you have, or you can go big and play a multitude of spells that are a bit more versatile and expensive. Sower of Temptation is a good example of a card I really like running as a two-of, to beat larger creatures and really take advantage of my Counterbalances to force it though while being hard to hit from an opponent’s Blue enchantment.

Ultimately, if I was to play a Counterbalance deck at the Grand Prix, it would likely look close to this:

Counterbalance Top Featured by Josh Silvestri on 2009-03-01 (Legacy) As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/17137_Deconstructing_Constructed_A_Legacy_Mini_Primer_for_Grand_Prix_Chicago.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Artifacts 4 Sensei's Divining Top Creatures 3 Sower of Temptation 4 Tarmogoyf 2 Trygon Predator Enchantments 4 Counterbalance Instants 4 Brainstorm 2 Daze 4 Force of Will	Legendary Creatures 3 Vendilion Clique Sorceries 3 Firespout 4 Ponder Basic Lands 9 Island Lands 4 Flooded Strand 4 Polluted Delta 3 Tropical Island 1 Tundra 2 Volcanic Island	Sideboard: 3 Ethersworn Canonist 2 Ancient Grudge 4 Blue Elemental Blast 3 Krosan Grip 2 Umezawa's Jitte 1 Firespout
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If Natural Order is really a big deal, then I’d board in Commandeer over Ancient Grudge and add Meekstone in there, perhaps over the Jitte. If I expected a major Survival revival along with equipment decks like Faerie Stompy, then Pithing Needle would also be in here. Otherwise it’s a pretty standard CB deck; you try to keep the board position from becoming too one-sided, get the CB lock, and then take over and win. Trygon Predator is a bit of a question mark in my mind, it might be better as something like Engineered Explosives, or the 4th Sower and a miser’s Jitte or something.

Threshold and Team America [A2]
For Threshold, the biggest change that might be brought to the deck is the use of Natural Order, for either extra threats in the maindeck or a sideboarding plan against decks weak to a quick Progenitus. That evil bastard Doug Linn (Hiiii Val!) beat me to unveiling that particular addition earlier this week, but I’ll repost just to be complete.

Progenitus Order Featured by Alix Hatfield on 2009-03-01 (Legacy) As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/17132_Legacys_Allure_Cheating_with_Cheetahs.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Artifacts 4 Sensei's Divining Top Creatures 3 Nimble Mongoose 4 Tarmogoyf 3 Werebear Enchantments 4 Counterbalance	Instants 4 Brainstorm 4 Daze 4 Force of Will 4 Swords to Plowshares Legendary Creatures 1 Progenitus Sorceries 3 Natural Order 4 Ponder Lands 2 City of Brass 4 Flooded Strand 1 Plateau 2 Tropical Island 2 Tundra 2 Volcanic Island 4 Wooded Foothills Land Creatures 1 Dryad Arbor	Sideboard: 1 Empyrial Archangel 4 Krosan Grip 4 Red Elemental Blast 2 Submerge 4 Pyroclasm
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Note that Dryad Arbor, because it’s the centerpiece of abusing Natural Order in a deck that normally wouldn’t have enough green creatures to support it. Of course the drawback to this approach is that your creatures in the main have to remain green, instead of the cornucopia of colors you saw in the above listings. Another notable thing is how his deck runs so many 4-ofs, all of which are under the main core philosophy and backed by another free counter and the best removal spell ever printed. All that in the deck and it runs Natural Order in there. This may be the best deck for the Grand Prix, although I’d need to test it more to be sure, but at the moment I absolutely love the deck except for the finicky manabase.

The flip-side is taking the original Threshold concept of a few cheap guys plus counters and mana disruption and updating it for the current day. That’s effectively what Team America is: GUB Gro with a combination of discard, mana disruption, and counters to backup a few efficient threats. The closest to a consensus list seems to be Carl Dillahay’s deck from earlier this year.

Team America Featured by Carl Dillahay on 2009-03-01 (Legacy) As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/17137_Deconstructing_Constructed_A_Legacy_Mini_Primer_for_Grand_Prix_Chicago.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Creatures 4 Tarmogoyf 4 Tombstalker Instants 4 Brainstorm 4 Daze 4 Force of Will 2 Snuff Out 2 Spell Snare 4 Stifle	Sorceries 4 Ponder 4 Sinkhole 4 Thoughtseize Lands 1 Bayou 2 Bloodstained Mire 2 Flooded Strand 4 Polluted Delta 4 Tropical Island 4 Underground Sea 4 Wasteland	Sideboard: 3 Tormod's Crypt 2 Yixlid Jailer 3 Engineered Plague 2 Diabolic Edict 3 Krosan Grip 2 Reanimate
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Not my favorite kind of deck, but a good opener from this deck will destroy the majority of Legacy strategies. God forbid you play against a Red deck though, not with this sort of set-up and so many cards that cost life. I wouldn’t recommend it, but I would definitely be familiar with this type of denial plan.

Goblins [B1]
Goblins has been around since before there was a Legacy format, back when it was simply known as 1.5. It’s been one of the most consistent performing decks in the format for years, despite its lower power level and distinct quality of being non-Blue.

Right now, Goblins is well positioned for the Grand Prix metagame. Yes, people know the deck is coming, and many people will play it simply because it’s the best deck within their budget constraints. Regardless, the deck has a naturally solid game against many of the Counterbalance strategies the format possesses. Not only does it have two one-drop accelerants which help to deck side-step the CB lock, it also features varied casting costs with legitimate tutoring and drawing options. It has numerous answers to huge threats like Tarmogoyf and Phyrexian Dreadnought, which range from simply swarming it with guys and Goblin Pyromancer, to killing it with Gempalm Incinerator or Warren Weirding, and even the possibility of bouncing it with Stingscourger.

Combo is a pretty pathetic match-up on its face, especially game 1 where there’s literally nothing for Goblins to do except cry or cast a turn 2 Earwig Squad. Post-board you at least have options like Pyrostatic Pillar, Duress, Cabal Therapy, Thorn of Amethyst, etc. So at least you have a shot post-board, although if you play Goblins you already think combo isn’t going to have much of a presence at Chicago. For most Goblins players, the biggest thing to know is how to deal with Tarmogoyf at various points of the game and learning chains of plays that don’t lose to post-board sweeper spells. It sounds rather obvious, but too many Goblin players seem to flounder if they don’t have the Ringleader in their hand at a given moment.

If I was going to rock Goblins at the Grand Prix, this would be my base list:

Goblins Featured by Josh Silvestri on 2009-03-01 (Legacy) As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/17137_Deconstructing_Constructed_A_Legacy_Mini_Primer_for_Grand_Prix_Chicago.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Artifacts 4 Aether Vial Creatures 2 Earwig Squad 2 Gempalm Incinerator 4 Goblin Lackey 4 Goblin Matron 4 Goblin Piledriver 1 Goblin Pyromancer 4 Goblin Ringleader 4 Goblin Warchief 3 Mogg Fanatic 2 Siege-Gang Commander 2 Stingscourger Tribal Sorceries 2 Warren Weirding	Basic Lands 3 Mountain Lands 4 Badlands 3 Bloodstained Mire 3 Rishadan Port 2 Taiga 4 Wasteland 3 Wooded Foothills	Sideboard: 1 Earwig Squad 2 Goblin King 3 Krosan Grip 4 Pyrokinesis 4 Cabal Therapy 1 Warren Weirding
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Pretty standard, so I won’t bore you with details. Feel free to ask if you have questions though. Again, although I’d prefer playing one of the Elf decks or a Counterbalance deck, you can’t go wrong with the Goblins, especially consistency-wise. Plus the past is on your side, Goblins always seems to make the Top 8 of the U.S. Legacy Grand Prix tournaments.

Goyf Burn [B2]
Much like the above, I don’t think this is the ‘best deck’ by any means; rather, I think it’s just here to prey on the supposed metagame of Blue decks and midrange stuff. The core of the deck is basically the same as Naya Burn in Extended: super efficient Red and Green creatures backed by a smattering of high powered burn. Here’s my current version of this type of deck:

Goyf Burn Featured by Josh Silvestri on 2009-03-01 (Legacy) As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/17137_Deconstructing_Constructed_A_Legacy_Mini_Primer_for_Grand_Prix_Chicago.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Creatures 2 Jungle Lion 4 Kird Ape 4 Tarmogoyf 4 Wild Nacatl Enchantments 3 Sulfuric Vortex Instants 3 Fireblast 1 Flame Javelin 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Lightning Helix	Sorceries 4 Chain Lightning 4 Lava Spike 2 Unwilling Recruit Basic Lands 2 Mountain Lands 4 Bloodstained Mire 3 Plateau 4 Taiga 4 Windswept Heath 4 Wooded Foothills	Sideboard: 3 Relic of Progenitus 2 Vexing Shusher 4 Pyrostatic Pillar 3 Krosan Grip 3 Pyroclasm
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Other options for the board include Pyrokinesis, Ancient Grudge, Price of Progress, Gaddock Teeg, Path to Exile, and other general utility.

You might wonder what advantages this deck has over something like Goblins, especially in the face of Counterbalance decks, which is an engine that can completely shut this deck down. Well, there are three reasons to consider this deck versus the other Red decks.

1. This deck has a surprisingly solid control match-up, despite the low curve and seemingly zero real answers to the soft-lock in game 1. You deal so much early damage by making a one-drop and then either another creature and a burn spell or double burn spell on turn 2 that you can have the opponent down to 10 life when untap for turn 3. At this point, even if they have the CB soft lock out, they’ve probably left themselves open to any non one-mana spell, and they have yet to address your Ape / Nacatl, which gets more unimpeded attacks in.

2. This deck does lose to turn 1 Top, turn 2 CB, just like most decks. However, this assumes that the Blue deck is on the play and they actually get the lock together. Most Blue decks don’t even run the 4/4 split of CB and Top to maximize their chances to get the lock out. Instead, the Blue match usually plays out like so – You drop almost your entire hand on the table over your first three turns, they spend five turns attempting to stabilize, and then you have trumps to various defenses like Sulfuric Vortex and Unwilling Recruit. Early Tombstalker and Phyrexian Dreadnought dropped as giant walls look a lot worse when on the Green player’s side, attacking the control guy.

Many games will come down to just a few life-points, where Flame Javelin and Fireblast come in handy as burn that demands a Force of Will. Post-board you have Vexing Shusher and Krosan Grip to force through your spells and make the lock ineffectual, while still keeping the valid plan of playing some early dorks and burn and just forcing them to try to stabilize without playing the lock out.

3. Just to really drive this into people’s minds: there’s something like a 21% chance the opponent will even get CB/Top by turn 2. Odds obviously go up if you run Chrome Mox and you get a Top activation in or cast Brainstorm / Ponder, but people tend to highly overrate the odds on seeing the local early enough to completely shut you out of the game without any real fight. What this deck does against pretty much any CB deck is force them into a position where it becomes actively bad to try to get the soft-lock in play versus trying other options to stave off death.

Combo decks are also surprisingly okay to play against with this deck as well, despite the lack of real disruption. Many builds are running Ad Nauseam as the main combo enabler now, and knocking off 10-12 points of life is the same as killing them many times. Sure, they can work around it and use a small Ill-Gotten Gains loop to ramp up enough to kill you, but many combo variants can’t do this easily. If truly worried about it, you could also use a varied selection of anti-combo cards in the sideboard in addition to Pillar. Again though, you would pick this deck largely to beat up on control and midrange decks moreso than combo.

Dragon Stompy [B3]
The deck is trash; do not play it if you want to win. I’d sooner run the Extended version of All-In Red before playing such a horrible underpowered and inconsistent deck.

Ad Nauseam [C1]
Literally all of my testing (and my friend’s testing) has led us to believe that combo had major problems with Blue players who know what to do in the match. At first I couldn’t really wrap my head around this, but it seems that Force, Daze, and Counterbalance is simply too much for many Ritual combo decks. In addition, the ones featuring cards like Thoughtseize or Meddling Mage just add even more hoops to jump through before actually winning the game.

It’s possible we just don’t have a good enough handle on the match from the storm side, but I doubt it. The deck is so quick that it beats most of the non-Blue field for free. I’d include a list, but I literally cannot find one that isn’t 2 months old. Just go around The Source and pick and choose.

Glimpse Elves and Elf-Survival [C2]
For a combo Elves deck, you know the drill by now unless you’ve been living under a rock for this Extended season and Pro Tour: Berlin coverage. The main things that change for Legacy are you now gain a legitimate Plan B against control decks via Natural Order into Progenitus or Regal Force. Otherwise you can race a huge number of non-Blue decks, either killing them on turn 2 / 3, or you lay half a dozen men on the table and ask them to deal with it.

Elves Featured by Josh Silvestri on 2009-03-01 (Legacy) As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/17137_Deconstructing_Constructed_A_Legacy_Mini_Primer_for_Grand_Prix_Chicago.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Creatures 4 Birchlore Rangers 1 Elvish Spirit Guide 3 Elvish Visionary 3 Fyndhorn Elves 4 Heritage Druid 4 Llanowar Elves 4 Nettle Sentinel 2 Quirion Ranger 1 Regal Force 4 Wirewood Symbiote Instants 1 Brain Freeze 4 Summoner's Pact Legendary Creatures 1 Progenitus	Sorceries 4 Glimpse of Nature 4 Natural Order Basic Lands 14 Forest Legendary Lands 2 Gaea's Cradle	Sideboard: 4 Thorn of Amethyst 3 Viridian Shaman 4 Krosan Grip 4 Umezawa's Jitte
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Or if you run fetches for multiple colors and risk the Wasteland screw…

4 Thoughtseize
4 Umezawa’s Jitte
4 Burrenton Forge-Tender (One of the few ways to beat Pyrokinesis)
3 Krosan Grip

As a valid point someone raised in response to Steve’s mention of Elves a few weeks ago: "He, however, did not mention how the deck beats Counterbalance and Chalice."

To sum it up, you either:

A. Win before it matters
B. Get enough of an Elf presence down where you at least have a shot at taking the game, though this is about 1000x easier with Jitte.
C. Find and use Viridian Shaman (Obviously only for Chalice) or Krosan Grip
D. Resolve a Natural Order

Glimpse Elves has a vulnerability to an early CB lock, but it does have valid options to play against it and, much like storm combo, it can just blow out non-Blue decks before they have a chance to do anything. Unless you happen to be playing a very burn-happy deck or Landstill, almost all Legacy decks lack major quantities of removal. In fact the average seems to be within the 4-6 slot range and typically is only one-for-one. Although I don’t think Glimpse Elves is anything like, say, Flash was last year, it’s a valid option, and especially if you happen to be on a budget. Just practice with the deck; there are even more options than the original!

Elf-Survival isn’t quite as combo-oriented as Glimpse Elves, but still retains a very combo feel to it, being able to explode from a very small board position to 7-10 elves in play with multiple Lords making your army quite significant and, of course, with haste from Anger. The deck itself was lifted from Colin Chilbert (Di on The Source) after finishing in the top eight of a large Legacy tournament in Syracuse about 6 weeks back.

The EPIC Elf Survival Featured by Colin Chilbert on 2009-01-11 (Legacy) As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/16947_Unlocking_Legacy_Elf_Survival.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Creatures 1 Anger 4 Elvish Champion 3 Elvish Spirit Guide 3 Fyndhorn Elves 4 Imperious Perfect 4 Llanowar Elves 2 Mirror Entity 4 Priest of Titania 2 Quirion Ranger 4 Sylvan Messenger 1 Viridian Zealot 3 Wirewood Symbiote 1 Wood Elves 1 Wren's Run Packmaster 2 Wren's Run Vanquisher Enchantments 4 Survival of the Fittest Basic Lands 5 Forest	Lands 3 Savannah 3 Taiga 3 Windswept Heath 3 Wooded Foothills	Sideboard: 3 Thorn of Amethyst 1 Magus of the Moon 2 Choke 4 Krosan Grip 4 Orim's Chant 1 Gaddock Teeg
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If you want more details on the construction or how to play the deck, I suggest reading Adam Barnello’s article on the subject.

Note that this type of heavy-duty Green deck is also a perfect home for Natural Order – Progenitus. Not only can it take full advantage of accelerating Order out on turn three against blue, but it even can help the natural play of the deck by trading a random mana elf for a Sylvan Messenger or Elvish Champion. This modified Survival plan of using a specific tribe gives increased resiliency against the normal plan of simply stopping the Survival of the Fittest and picking off one or two threats, as well as stabilizing the mana base.

In exchange for giving up some explosiveness, you gain a better Blue matchup, so depending on how much of the metagame you expect to be Blue this could be a more compelling option than the Glimpse model. Of course, as with any Survival deck, this deck is very difficult to play, and I highly suggest you get started with it as soon as possible if you want to play it over 15 rounds.

I’ve hit the ten page mark, and I’m pretty much dead from coughing, so I’ll cut it off here. Hopefully this properly portrays some of my views on the format.

Josh Silvestri
Team Reflection
Email me at JoshDOTsilvestriATgmailDOTcom