What is the best deck in Legacy? A simple question, but does it have an answer? How does one go about determining the best deck in a format? For most formats it is a simple task, look at the PTQs, GPs, and Pro Tours and see what wins and what doesn't. For Legacy, the task isn't as easy. Major tournaments are few and far between. The Last GP on American soil was a year ago. Can what won there still be considered the best deck given all the innovations to deck design and the addition of new decks? If determining the best deck in Legacy can't rely solely on tournament results, what measure can we use? Testing.

If we could calculate both the strength of each deck against the other decks in the field, as well as each deck's popularity, one should be able to determine the best decks in the field for any given tournament. The major decks used for this analysis were Goblins, Gro (Threshold), Deadguy Ale/ Suicide, Solidarity, Rifter/ Wombat, Angel Stompy, Loam Control, Sligh/Burn, and Survival (RGSA and Rec-Sur). These decks were chosen for two reasons. First, these decks all appear in significant numbers, at least 3% of the field at the tournaments utilized in this analysis. All other decks were group together in the category labeled Random. Second, archetypes that are very closely related and those that are likely (and indeed have) very similar winning percentages against the field were grouped together. An example would be Rifter and Rabid Wombat both of which use white creature control as the foundation for their decks. Unfortunately, we are limited somewhat in our measure of popularity as we only have two recent tournaments that posted the complete breakout of the field, the Second Dual for Duels and Kadilak's Dual Land Draft. These two tournaments form the basis of our analysis. The First Dual for Duels was deemed to be too far into the past to be valid for this analysis.

The following tables are the breakdown of the metagame at both tournaments based on the rules described above. The last entry in each table is the combination of all the decks that appeared in such low frequency that they are labeled random.

Breakout of Major Decks at the 2nd Duel for Duals

Deck Type	# of Occurances	% of Field	Top 8 Appearences
Solidarity	3	4.50%	1
Goblins	13	19.40%	2
Rifter/Wombat	4	6.00%	1
Deadguy/Suicide	8	11.90%	1
Angel Stompy	4	6.00%	1
Loam Control	2	3.00%	1
Gro (Threshold)	8	11.90%	0
Sligh/Burn	4	6.00%	0
Survival	4	6.00%	0
Random	17	25.40%	1

Breakout of Major Decks at the Dual Land Draft

Deck Type	# of Occurances	% of Field	Top 8 Appearences
Solidarity	6	10.30%	1
Goblins	6	10.30%	0
Rifter/Wombat	5	8.60%	1
Deadguy/Suicide	3	5.20%	1
Angel Stompy	3	5.20%	2
Loam Control	3	5.20%	2
Gro (Threshold)	7	12.10%	2
Sligh/Burn	3	5.20%	0
Survival	3	5.20%	0
Random	19	32.80%	1

Averaging the two tournaments together yields the following:

Expected Field at a Legacy Tournament

Deck Type	% of Field	Rank
Solidarity	7.20%	5
Goblins	15.20%	2
Rifter/Wombat	7.20%	6
Deadguy/Suicide	8.80%	4
Angel Stompy	5.60%	7
Loam Control	4.00%	10
Gro (Threshold)	12.00%	3
Sligh/Burn	5.60%	7
Survival	5.60%	7
Random	28.80%	1

The first thing to understand about the current Legacy metagame is that there is a large number of random decks that show up to any given event. While this random portion of the decks is not considered in our analysis, it is important to understand that any specific metagame deck will probably not succeed because of the randomness. Setting aside the large number of random decks there are some very popular decks in Legacy. Goblins, Gro, and Deadguy/Suicide are the 3 most popular decks in Legacy. The ability to beat these three decks will be a large factor in deciding what deck would be best in the current metagame. Solidarity as the next most popular deck happens to be the only combo deck that shows up in any significant amount. The remaining decks are less popular though still very much a consideration in the metagame.

The Matchups

The next step in the process was to determine the relative strength of each deck to each other deck in the field. This data comes mainly from the testing that we do as a group. We test Legacy decks regularly and feel comfortable with the numbers that we have assigned to these matchups. This data is also in part based on tournament data, primarily, what we have seen happen at tournaments and what we have personally experienced. The process of coming up with this data is not easy and very time consuming. We have spent a lot of time and effort on trying to generate accurate results.

Before we post the Matchup Matrix here are a few guidelines that help explain our data:

1) All mirror matchups are assumed to be 50/50.
2) All decks were generally tested in their most generic form.
3) Sideboard games were considered when possible when determining the win percentage (Again generic/popular board plans were used)
4) If there is no generic form for a deck (i.e. Goblins with mana denial, Wasteland and Rishadan Port, or with pump lands, Goblin Burrows and Skarrg, the Rage Pits) both forms were considered and averaged for a win percentage.
5) No win percentage was given for the Random decks. These decks represent such a wide variety of decks that it would impossible to assign a winning percentage for these decks against the other decks in the field.

Matchup Matrix

-	Solidarity	Goblins	Rifter	Deadguy	Angel Stompy	Loam Control	Gro (Threshold)	Sligh	Survival
Solidarity	50%	65%	80%	40%	65%	80%	20%	65%	75%
Goblins	35%	50%	25%	65%	30%	30%	50%	70%	45%
Rifter/Wombat	20%	75%	50%	50%	60%	30%	45%	70%	30%
Deadguy/Suicide	60%	35%	50%	50%	40%	25%	30%	50%	25%
Angel Stompy	35%	70%	40%	60%	50%	30%	50%	70%	50%
Loam Control	20%	70%	70%	75%	70%	50%	40%	60%	50%
Gro (Threshold)	80%	50%	55%	70%	50%	60%	50%	60%	50%
Sligh/Burn	35%	30%	30%	50%	30%	40%	40%	50%	40%
Survival	25%	55%	70%	75%	50%	50%	50%	60%	50%

Legend
Yellow = 50%
Green = >50%
Red = <50%

The Matchup Matrix contains a great deal of information, but some very important observations jump out at us. Gro has no unfavorable matchups in the current metagame. This does not mean that Gro is favored against everything but rather the decks that may have the advantage over Gro are not seeing play in the metagame. Goblins, the most popular deck, has multiple unfavorable matchups. Deadguy Ale/Suicide is strictly worse than Gro against the field. Solidarity benefits greatly from having so many decks that it is heavily favored against. Rifter/Wombat, Angel Stompy, and Loam Control have very good matchups across the field, but all of them have a very weak game against Solidarity. Sligh/Burn has so many unfavorable matchups that prevent it from doing very well in the metagame.

Obviously these percentages aren't written in stone, and we have found that they can vary wildly depending on playskill. If our tested results disagree with your results it could be the result of minor card choices, a wider difference in play skill between the pilots of the two decks, or a simple case of having too small a test sample. We have tried to get the most accurate numbers possible, but we realize that card choices, tactics, and boarding strategies are constantly changing and the Matchup Matrix can be easily adjusted to follow these trends.

In order to determine the strength of a deck the following formula was used

S = Σ(wi * fi)
S = Strength of deck
wi = the win percentage of the deck against deck i
fi = the frequency of deck i

So for example, the strength of Solidarity would be its win percentage against Goblins (.6) times the frequency of Goblins (.2) plus its win percentage against Rifter (.8) times the frequency of Rifter (.101), etc. If you would like more information on this calculation John Beety wrote a recent article about this that explains it in more detail. For the frequency of each deck the Random category was removed given percentages as follows

Deck Type	% of Field	Rank
Solidarity	10.00%	4
Goblins	21.10%	1
Rifter/Wombat	10.00%	4
Deadguy/Suicide	12.20%	3
Angel Stompy	7.80%	6
Loam Control	5.60%	9
Gro (Threshold)	16.70%	2
Sligh/Burn	7.80%	6
Survival	7.80%	6

Deck Type	% of Field	Rank
Solidarity	56.00%	3
Goblins	46.17%	7
Rifter/Wombat	51.17%	6
Deadguy/Suicide	40.16%	8
Angel Stompy	53.44%	5
Loam Control	57.06%	2
Gro (Threshold)	57.33%	1
Sligh/Burn	37.83%	9
Survival	54.44%	4

Gro comes out with the highest winning percentage and this is not a surprising result given that Gro is the only deck with no unfavorable matchups. Loam Control coming in second is a strong contender based on its positive matchups against most decks, but its poor Gro and Solidarity matchup hurt it. Solidarity comes in third yet suffers from a lack of popularity in the metagame possibly due to its unfavorable Gro and Deadguy matchups. On the other end of the spectrum Goblins is still the most popular deck despite its estimate win percentage being near the bottom. Goblins is hurt by large number of decks that are designed to or have been updated to have positive matchups against it.

What is the best deck in Legacy? Gro. However, Loam Control, Solidarity, Survival, and Angel Stompy are all strong contenders in the field. These decks all represent very good choices for the current metagame. Any player planning to attend a major Legacy tournament should consider playing any of these decks. We do not want to imply that these decks are the only viable decks in the format, but rather that these represent the best choices of the decks that are currently seeing play. New decks, as well as decks that are not seeing play, can change the dynamic of the field... especially if they are successful and become more popular in the metagame.

We would like to thank everyone in our play test group that helped us gather the data for the Matchup Matrix.

Brian Diefendorf
EwokSlayer on The Source, StarCityGames Forums

Anwar Ahmad
AnwarA101 on The Source, StarCityGames Forums