So far, everybody seems to think that Amplify is a worthless mechanic. On magicthegathering.com they said it almost didn't make it into the set because it was too swingy. Amplify was defined as a,"fairly interesting and fun casual mechanic." I believe Amplify is still very swingy and it's definitely a tournament playable mechanic... At least in triple-Legions draft.

In Legions, there are seven common soldiers and seven uncommon soldiers. The core of the triple-Legions Stinger strategy is to take soldiers and only soldiers to maximize the Amplify effect on Daru Stinger and Aven Warhawk. The goal of this draft strategy is to have four or more Amplify soldiers and twenty-three soldiers. In this context, Aven Envoy is even playable! Here are the recommended draft orders for common and uncommon soldiers.

Daru Stinger (Stinger! - Krishan)
Aven Warhawk
Stoic Champion
Gempalm Avenger
Deftblade Elite
Keeneye Aven
Cloudreach Cavalry
Wingbeat Warrior
Swooping Talon
Liege of the Axe
Aven Envoy
Lowland Tracker
Wall of Hope
Wall of Deceit

If you can pick up a deck with four-plus Amplify creatures, you will have one ready to cast on turn 4 a good percent of the time. I have had as many as eight, at which point you drop fatty after fatty starting on turn 4 and steamroll your opponent into the ground. The basic strategy for this deck is simple: Hold all of your soldiers until you can drop an Amplify creature. Once you have dropped your first Amplify critter, you have to play according to your opponent's plans.

Against decks capable of killing your Stinger, you have to play aggressively. Skinthinner is a slow solution and you should be able to overwhelm your opponent before he gets back in the game with card advantage. If your opponent has no way to kill a Stinger, feel free to slow the game down and further develop your board with more Amplify creatures or the rest of your soldiers. If you open a hand with no Amplify creatures, or a stinger and no fourth land, cycle a Gempalm Avenger or a Keeneye Aven on your third turn. Don't take chances on not being able you cast your key card!

If you have a hand with no Amplify creatures, you can also try and swarm for the win. This is a harder route to winning - but if you are playing against at lot of morphs/bears, the Deftblade Elite/Gempalm Avenger is a potent combo.

The only sideboarding I ever do is if I am playing against a lot of 2cc, two-power creatures. I side in Walls of Hope, Walls of Deceit, or anything else defensive that can come out before turn 4. That means no Essence Sliver or Windborn Muse. I will illustrate each of these scenarios in the tourney reports that follow.

One positive aspect of this draft strategy is Amplify creatures usually go very late in a draft. None of the cards you need go first-pick, so while your opponents are picking out the Skirk Marauders and Skinthinners, you can pick up Amplify cards. In my five drafts, I was able to pick an average of five per draft (twenty-one Daru Stingers and nine Aven Warhawk) over the course of six games. Several common cards that are not playable in any other deck are playable here, like Aven Envoy and Lowland Tracker, since they fuel the Amplified soldiers. This means while other players are drafting junk, you are picking up potentially playable cards.

Now my results. I bought three Legions boosters. With those three boosters and fourteen tickets I already had, I played 7 LLL drafts. In five out of the seven drafts, I drafted the Stinger Archetype. In one draft, I went R/G after seeing no soldiers for the first five picks, and in another I meshed Stinger with elves. In the five Stinger drafts, my win loss record is 12-1 and 1 loss due to me dropping. I earned 8-4-8-8-0 in packs as prizes. The last draft was a bit of an anomaly because my girlfriend woke up after a nightmare and I had to console her. I knew I couldn't finish out the draft, nor did I want to at that point, so I dropped after winning game 1 in Round 2.

The average rating of my opponents was 1691. I played G/R, B/R, W/B, G/B, U/W, U/R, and Mono-Green. My rating is now above 1850 (KrishanLeong on MTGO).

How many drafters can this strategy support? A player needs to pull roughly seven soldiers per pack to make this all work. With seven common soldiers out of 55 commons, roughly 13% of the commons will be soldiers. That means out of 240 commons in a draft, thirty-one will be soldiers. 5 out of 45 of the uncommons are soldiers. This is 9% and means there will be six uncommon soldiers per pack. This makes for a total of thirty-seven soldiers per draft. Since each drafter needs close to twenty soldiers, it looks like this strategy probably won't support two drafters, volumewise. In terms of Amplify creatures, there should be four Daru Stingers and one Aven Warhawk per draft. I don't think this is enough to support two players, as each would need three Amplify creatures to really make the deck workable.

Winning Deck #1:
5 Daru Stinger
3 Aven Warhawk
3 Aven Envoy
2 Deftblade Elite
1 Stoic Champion
3 Gempalm Avenger
2 Swooping Talon
10 Plains
7 Island

Sideboard:
2 Lowland Tracker
2 Wall of Hope
1 Essence Sliver

Round 1 - hausaufgaben - 1669 - U/R - W
Round 2 - Clone2 - 1716 - G/R - W
Round 3 - Lime. - 1725 - W/U - W

Winning Deck #2:
4 Daru Stinger
2 Aven Warhawk
3 Aven Envoy
2 Deftblade Elite
4 Gempalm Avenger
4 Keeneye Aven
1 Stoic Champion
1 Wall of Hope
2 Wingbeat Warrior
11 Plains
6 Island

Sideboard
4 Wall of Hope
2 Lowland Tracker

Round 1 - Fathom - 1828 - G/B - W
Round 2 - redzone - 1849 - B/R - W
Round 3 - Sporetoad - 1803 - G/R - W

Winning Deck #3:
4 Daru Stinger
1 Aven Envoy
1 Cloudreach Cavalry
4 Deftblade Elite
5 Gempalm Avenger
2 Keeneye Aven
2 Lowland Tracker
1 Stoic Champion
1 Swooping Talon
1 Wall of Deceit
1 Wingbeat Warrior
10 Plains
7 Island

Sideboard:
1 Wall of Hope
2 Aven Envoy

Round 1 - Yossan - 1570 - G/R - W
Round 2 - Gasewicz - 1763 - G/B - W
Round 3 - Non - 1693 - U/W - W

Winning Deck #4:
5 Daru Stinger
3 Aven Warhawk
2 Aven Envoy
1 Cloudreach Calvary
4 Deftblade Elite
4 Gempalm Avenger
1 Keeneye Aven
1 Liege of the Axe
2 Wingbeat Warrior
11 Plains
6 Island

Sideboard:
2 Wall of Hope
2 Lowland Tracker

Round 1 - Ajaciabre - 1489 - Mono-G - W
Round 2 - Crabs - 1749 - W/B - W
Round 3 - hiyaha_dck - 1755 - U/B - W

Winning Deck #5:
3 Daru Stinger
1 Aven Warhawk
2 Aven Envoy
1 Cloudreach Calvary
4 Deftblade Elite
4 Gempalm Avenger
2 Keeneye Aven
1 Lowland Tracker
2 Stoic Champion
2 Sunstrike Legionnaire
1 Swooping Talon
11 Plains
6 Island

Sideboard:
1 Wall of Hope

Round 1 - True Sandman - 1454 - G/R - W
Round 2 - Rocky Wilson - 1615 - W/B - Dropped

That's all I have. Please write if you have any questions, contention, suggestions. krishan.leong@hotmail.com

Thanks for reading!

Krishan