Hello everyone,

I’ve lurked around this subreddit for a while, but, for those I’ve never interacted with, my name is Paulo Vitor and I’m a professional Magic: the Gathering player from Brazil. Today I want to post something that I’ve been working on for a while - a Masters Series preparation/tournament report. Originally, I wanted to post it on a website, but I think it’s probably just easier to post it here.

My idea with this post is to share a little about my Legends background, my preparation for the tournaments, why I played the decks I played and how the tournaments went. Even though I spoiler alert didn’t win the tournament, I feel like I learned a decent amount, and perhaps other people can learn something from my preparation as well, or I can at least give you some insight to the mind of a professional card player. Also, I was a bit shocked at how little written content there seems to be for Legends, so I decided to write one in the hopes it’ll maybe inspire other people to do the same.

That said, let’s begin!

My first contact with Elder Scrolls: Legends was back when it was in Beta (Alpha?), when I visited my friends from Direwolf. As you may or may not know, for most of its existence, Legends was created by a company that employed several Magic: the Gathering pros, most of which are on my team. At some point, I went to Denver and stayed with one of them, and they took me to Direwolf to try their new games out. I tried a variety of things, and Legends was by far the one I enjoyed the most.

Throughout my life, I’ve tried some other competitive CCGs. In the end, they all seem like “worse Magic” to me, and since I already play so much Magic, I don’t want to play “worse Magic” in my spare time. This leads to me playing different types of games - League of Legends, Bridge, Diablo, Baldur’s Gate, Heroes 3, Path of Exile, and so on. Legends is the first collectible card game, digital or otherwise, that didn’t strike me as “worse Magic” - it was more like “better Hearthstone”.

I think that, for me, the biggest appeal was that it’s so incredibly complex in a way that is not just for complexity’s sake. Those board games that take three hours to explain, they are complex in a way that is not interesting to me. Legends is like Bridge - it’s simple, and the complexity is subtle. I think most of that has to do with the lanes, but a bit with the runes system as well, because those two make it so that anything you do is a decision that matters, even if it doesn’t look like one - so every little tiny play is a choice that can have a consequence. In Magic, if I curve one-drop into two-drop, then there’s only one possible board state - everyone who has the same hand will arrive in the same spot. In Legends, there are four possible board states after the same opening - I can place each of them in each different lane. A lot of the time the complexity will go over someone who isn’t good enough, and they will still enjoy the game and feel like it made no difference, but if you’re truly good, you’ll understand the consequences of each choice, and that’s what I like in a game.

Soon enough, I found myself playing Legends for fun, which is something I virtually never did with the other CCGs. I hit rank Legend a couple of times, played Arenas, built a collection. Then, “real life” caught up, and I had to put it aside. I started working more with Magic, writing more, doing videos, doing coaching, and I no longer had the time to dedicate to a game that was just for fun. I stopped playing, but I told myself that if there was ever a competitive scene, I’d try to be a part of it.

Now, fast forward to a year later, and the announcement of the Master series. When I read there was finally going to be a competitive tournament with real money involved, I was pretty excited. Would I want to play in them? I wasn’t sure. The game was very different than when I had left - two expansions had been released, and there were three-color decks! Maybe I had fallen too far behind?

Still, I loved the game, and it seemed like a good opportunity to pick it up again. I knew I wouldn’t be able to play all the qualifiers, but I decided that I would make the attempt.

So, the first thing I did was log back in and assess what my collection looked like. I had some gold, but almost no Dust. I quickly completed the missions and the puzzles (love those, by the way), and I bought the theme decks for each house. Then I bought a booster bundle. Overall, I spent about $100, and that would make the bulk of my new collection.

Then, it was time to figure out what decks were good. I browsed Reddit a bit, and then started playing matches and watching streams. At some point, I was lurking in a Turquoiselink stream and someone in the chat recognized me and asked if I was playing the Masters qualifiers. I said I was, but I was out of practice so I didn’t expect to do well.

I then got a message from Eyenie saying that, if I wanted, he’d be happy to help me catch up to the meta. I had never talked to Eyenie before, but I knew of him. I happily accepted his help, and we started chatting about the format. He gave me a good explanation of what the top decks were and linked me some content. I realize it was a great privilege to have one of the best players in the game help me with this, so thanks a lot Eyenie!

Throughout our conversations, I asked him a question that I considered very important. It was about how established the meta was. I needed to know if the set had been out for a while and if everyone agreed on what was good, or if there was space for me to brew new things. Basically, were there a lot of things that hadn’t been tried, or had everything already been through the collective hive-mind? Were we at the point where, if something didn’t exist, it was because it was bad, and not because no one had thought of it?

His answer was something like “No, the meta is established, those are the decks, those have been the decks for ages”. It was a bit disheartening, since I like brewing, but it also meant I didn’t waste valuable time working on new things.

I also asked him where I could find more written resources about the specific decks. For example, should I break runes freely in the Hlaalu versus Scout matchup? Should I start attacking early in Tribunal versus Scout? Should I keep Uprising in my hand in the Scout mirror? Those were all answers I expected to find somewhere, but his answer of “no, there isn’t any content” kinda baffled me. I’m used to MTG where you can find an article for anything you want, and it was shocking to see I couldn’t find any written material to work with. Yes, there were streams/videos, but I’ve always been partial to reading - I like doing things at my own pace, skimming through information to find what I want, going back when I don’t get something, etc. In fact, the lack of written content is kind of what prompted me to write this article - hopefully it’ll inspire more people to do the same.

Regardless, I was off to test the tier 1 decks - Hlaalu, Scout and Telvani.

Scout was a deck I loved before, and I owned most of it, so it seemed a natural place to start. After a couple of matches, I found that the deck was still as good as it was before - maybe better. You had enough early game to survive versus the aggro decks, and you were really consistent at finding a leveled up Drain Vitality. You also beat all the other control decks, because Soul Tear loops were unbeatable. So, Scout was in.

I didn’t spend a whooole lot of time on my Scout list because I knew it would be good no matter what, and I had to choose the other three decks. This was what I played in the first qualifier:

https://imgur.com/a/upxss4H

The only thing I have a very strong opinion on is that you should play three Scout’s Report. The original list I saw had two, and I think it’s a huge mistake - you’re trying to find specific pieces against every deck, so the card selection aspect is huge, especially in a game where you’re guaranteed to make “land drops” every turn. This type of effect is very powerful in MTG and I think it’s even better here.

Next, Telvani. I saw a couple of Telvani lists, played some games, and soon enough three things became apparent to me:

1 - The combo version of Telvani was probably the best deck in the format, but I was unable to play it. I thought it combined an OK aggro matchup with an almost unlosable control matchup, which is a very good place to be. However, I didn’t trust my playing speed. I thought I could make decisions in time, but I wouldn’t be able to click through everything, especially since my computer lags a lot when I’m playing Legends for some reason.

This is actually really unfortunate, because I don’t think this should play a factor. Legends is a mental game - dexterity and computer speed aren’t supposed to be factored in. I honestly wish this deck didn’t exist, because I don’t like when some people can play a deck and some people cannot based on something that is not playskill. Still, perhaps if I had more time to practice it, I’d have been fast enough, but, as it was, I knew I wouldn’t be able to. If I play a tournament like this again, then practicing enough with Telvani will be a top priority, because I want to be able to play it with reasonable speed.

2 - Telvani was a chance for me to play another Scout. Obviously some of the cards were different, but I wanted to make my Telvani deck as similar to my Scout deck as possible. It’d have a potentially even better late game, but would also be less consistent, but that would still be good enough. Simply put, Scout was so amazing that “tricolor scout” was still a great place to be.

3 - I hated Tulius’s Conscription. I honestly don’t understand what that card is doing in those decks. It costs ELEVEN and is almost entirely undone by Ice Storm or Drain Vitality. A lot of the time your board in the late game is almost full anyway, since you play Necromancers and Uprisings, which means you aren’t even getting a huge advantage out of it. Yes, obviously sometimes it’s great, but, again, it costs eleven - what wouldn’t be great at that stage of the game? Wouldn’t Sotha Sil be great? Blood Magic Lord? Most of the time, I felt those cards would be better.

Originally, I started with 3 Conscriptions. Then I moved down to 1, so I could search for them with Laneth or Sun-in-Shadow if I had no board in the late game. Then, after finding out that I never wanted to search for it, or draw it, I decided to cut it altogether.

Now, don’t get me wrong - it’s possible that I am just mistaken and the card is great for some application that I am not seeing. In fact, it’s very likely that the hive mind is right and I am wrong. But, given that I couldn’t identify what that application even was, and I strongly disliked the card, I decided not to play it. If you have compelling arguments for it, I’m all ears.

Here’s the Telvani list I played:

https://imgur.com/a/S515n3j

Then, came Hlaalu. I only had to play a couple of games on the deck before I was sold on it - it combined a lot of aggressiveness with staying power, which is a rare combination. Most of the time, if you have a deck that’s this bursty, it’s going to lose if it gets to the middle or late game without a board - Hlaalu can actually get the game back. It felt the best Aggro deck to me by a lot. I wasn’t sure of the specifics I should play, but I felt finding a fourth deck was more important than finding the best Hlaalu list - I figured the difference between an average and a great Hlaalu deck wasn’t that meaningful, whereas the difference between an average and a great fourth deck would be.

The list I played was mostly standard, except I guess I liked more Silencers than other people. I saw some lists that had zero, and I had four, three Hlaalu Sharpshooters and one Earthbone Spinner.

This is what I played:

https://imgur.com/a/o413DJS

At this point in time, I feel that those three decks are the clear tier 1 in Legends. Of course things are going to change, since there are some nerfs and buffs coming, but, right now, I feel that these decks are so far ahead of the competition that it is a mistake to not play all three in the tournament (unless you have some crazy conquest strategy that relies on targeting a deck). Obviously you don’t have to play the same versions I did, but you should have a version of Scout, a version of Telvani, and a version of Hlaalu in your arsenal.

Now, Inb4 someone says “this person just placed this and this in the qualifier with not those decks, so clearly you’re wrong and stupid” - well, that’s the nature of card games. This isn’t chess, and margins aren’t that high when it comes to playing the best decks versus the second or third best decks. You can win making a 48% choice the same amount you win with a 52% choice, this doesn’t mean the 52% choice isn’t right. Of course I could just be wrong and those three decks could be a suboptimal choice, but it’s not going to be because someone placed well with a different strategy.

The fourth deck was a bigger problem. First, I tried a variety of things that I liked from before the new set - Crusader aggro, Assassin aggro, Prophecy Battlemage, Midrange sorcerer. All those decks seemed lackluster. Then, I started experimenting with the tricolored decks. At this point, I was already out of dust, gold, and easily dustable cards, so I had some trouble actually building new decks - for example, I tried out a Redoran deck I saw in links stream without any copies of Aundae Clan Sorcerer, because it was expensive and I didn’t know if I was going to play it. Obviously I’d craft it if I had to, but I didn’t want to craft three of a card, play the deck once, and then immediately dismiss it (shout out to you, Halls of the Dwemer, you looked so much better in my mind).

An aside on dusting cards - I think people are, overall, very conservative when it comes to dusting. I think the fear of “I’m going to need this card at some point and I’ll have to craft it for three times as much” dominates, when in fact you should just think of it as, say, renting a card. Yes, I might dust a card now that I’ll have to recraft later, and I’ll lose currency in the exchange, but I also got to play with the deck that I wanted in the meantime, which is obviously worth something. Except that, at that point for me, I was really low on dustable cards altogether, so I actually had to be conservative.

Ultimately, Redoran seemed fine but unexciting. I decided to move on to Dagoth. I knew from looking at the list I wouldn’t like it, and boy was I right. Some of the cards in the deck are very early-game centered, some are mid-game centered, and some are late-game centered, and it’s just too much to ask to draw the right ones at each point in time with 75 cards in your deck. The deck just didn’t have a strategy, which is a problem that a lot of midrange decks have - is it trying to win early or late? I don’t really know, depends on the game, I guess, but in the end I think you end up winning less both early and late. I tried it more, since I knew some good people liked them, but ultimately Dagoth and I just weren’t made for each other.

That left Tribunal. I played a bit with it, and it was interesting - it was a full control deck, but not like Scout - actually more controllish, but somehow with a worse late game, which is another testament to how good Scout it. It seemed unexciting, but was probably the best I had. Then Eyenie linked me to a Chanter version of it that had won some tournament, and I decided to try that out. To my surprise, I liked it a lot more than the non-Chanter version, which I really wasn’t expecting because I hated that card before - I think the combination of Betray with early drops you actually want to get late in the game (e.g. Indoril Mastermind) made it much better.

I played the deck more, and I decided I liked it. The biggest hurdle to overcome was that it seemed like an inferior version of Scout and Telvani, and it feels bad to play a bad something else, but I didn’t like midrange, so I felt I had to end up either playing a bad Telvani or a bad Hlaalu, and I thought the bad Telvani was better. I also thought that, against Dagoth especially, Tribunal was actually better than Scout, since you had so much targeted removal.

At first, I tried the list with one Blood Magic Lord. Then, once I decided I liked it, I bit the bullet and crafted Sotha Sil. This is what I played:

https://imgur.com/a/TD8j6I4

Going into the tournament, my strategy was to just ban their most controllish deck, which, to me, was Telvani, followed by Scout. I think Scout is better than most Telvani decks against an open field, since it’s better versus aggro, but I had three control decks, so I wanted to get rid of the most powerful late game. This also led to tuning my decks more to face aggro than to face control, because I expected to always ban a control deck anyway.

The day before the tournament, I got a message from Ksedden, whom I had added from my first time playing. He explained some Conquest strategy, and what he said made sense (about targeting one deck and trying to 3-0), but I simply didn’t have time to change my lineup drastically, and I didn’t feel like I knew enough to do something like that. Instead, I opted to just play the four decks I considered objectively the most powerful.

The tournament

The first tournament started well. I started with a 3-0 win, followed by another 3-0 win. Obviously it doesn’t matter if you win 3-0 or 3-2, but it’s a good confidence boost. I felt like I was playing very well, and my strategy worked - I always banned their Telvani, followed by their Scout. I beat someone who was apparently famous in round 2, though I hadn’t heard of them before (but then again I’ve been disconnected from the scene for a year).

Then, in the third round, everything came crashing down. I banned a Telvani deck, but that left my opponent’s Hlaalu, Scout, and Dagoth. They banned my Tribunal.

I decided to lead with Scout. Normally, I would lead with the aggressive deck - I do this because aggressive decks are more self-centered, whereas control decks are reactive. So, if I’m playing, say, Hlaalu versus Warrior, I sort of want to keep the same cards in my hand whether it’s combo Warrior or Orcs. But if I’m playing Scout versus Warrior, then knowing what deck I’m facing might change my decision, so I’d rather be in that matchup once I already have more information. However, in the actual tournament, we had decklists, so I didn’t feel like that made any meaningful difference.

Our first match was Scout versus Hlaalu. He had the ring, and went turn two Haunted Manor, turn three Haunted Manor. I fell too far behind and couldn’t recover.

I again opted to run Scout, and he ran Dagoth. He had an early Mournhold Traitor and an Ash Berserker that I couldn’t contest and I kinda just, uh, died.

For the third match, I chose Hlaalu (I was tired of Scout) and my opponent picked their remaining deck - Scout. I thought I was going to win for sure, but then a sudden Drain Vitality combo stalled me enough that my opponent made a comeback.

I was a bit disappointed at the outcome, because obviously I wanted to win, but it was hard to complain - I had lost very convincingly, including losing both sides of the Hlaalu Scout matchup. I think that in game 1 I was just stone dead to double Manor, but games two and three were interesting, and I could probably have won with better play. One thing I love about this game is that, almost every time you lose, you can go back and find a bunch of mistakes that you made. This is probably the most skill intensive of all the CCGs, and the fact that the same people do well over and over is strong evidence of that. Take, for example, Magic - my win rate in tournament is lower than 65% and it’s one of the highest ever. What’s the win rate for someone like Link, or Eyenie, or Traitor Joe? Probably a lot higher than that. Of course this should normalize more as more people get better, but even in ladder you often see 80% winrate sessions which in other card games is very rare.

So, all in all, I didn’t really expect to qualify - I think I am decent at Legends but by no means a top player - so I still had fun with the result and I was looking forward to play the next qualifier.

I ended up having to skip the second qualifier, but I had a week to prepare for the third one. Unfortunately, life got in the way of my preparation, and I had almost no time. I felt somewhat confident with the decks I had chosen for the first qualifier, so I decided to just run them back, since I wouldn’t have time to practice with anything new anyway.

I ended up submitting the same Tribunal list and the same Hlaalu list. In the Scout deck, I changed a Hallowed Deathpriest for a Crushing Blow, to have better game against Ash Berserker. In the Telvani list, I cut the three Sly Marshblade for two Barrow Stalker and one Reverberating Strike. I thought Marshblade was good when I had Conscription, but I didn’t need it in the late game, and in the early game I liked Barrow Stalker more.

I started the second tournament with a bye, and then for round two I was paired against someone whose decklist was in Spanish. Now, I speak a decent amount of Spanish (it’s very similar to Portuguese), and I could figure out what some of the cards were based on picture or context, but there were cards I had simply never seen. For example, my opponent had a deck with two seven-magicka Intelligence spells and I couldn’t even find them on google, so I had to play the matchup without full knowledge of my opponent’s list, which was a bit awkward. I asked the staff if there was any rule demanding decklists in English, but they said there wasn’t - I think there should be. Otherwise, what’s going to happen if someone who is not Russian plays against a Russian opponent, for example? They can’t even google the cards because they’ll be in a different alphabet.

Regardless of that, my opponent never drew their 7 mana mystery spell (I later on found out it was Mighty Conjuring) and I was able to dispatch them in three games.

After that, I had to wait about over two hours for my next opponent, and I eventually got paired versus Fierceinfinity, who was at the time (and I believe still is) the top points earner in the qualifiers. I was also contacted by Plzdonhakme because they wanted to cover our match in an unofficial capacity, which made me kinda nervous. I’ve done a lot of feature matches in Magic, but in Magic I have nothing to prove and I know I am good - in Legends I knew my plays would be scrutinized based on my Magic success, not my Legends success, which would probably ask for a standard I wasn’t able to meet.

My opponent had Scout, Assassin, Dagoth and Telvani. As per usual, I banned Telvani. They banned Hlaalu.

Our first match was Scout versus Scout, and I know that this one was covered, though I’m not sure where you can find it. It was a very interesting match that I think perhaps I could have won with different play.

If you watched the match, my approach to it must have looked weird, or flat out wrong. I was actively assuming an aggressive posture and breaking runes, which is not the way this matchup is usually played. At one point, I just played a Giant Bat and swang for two, for example. I did this for a couple of reasons:

I had access to decklists, and thought my opponent had a slightly better late-game than I did.

2) My hand was particularly badly suited for a long game at the time.

3) My opponent had a slow start, with cantrip creatures (in card game terminology, cantrip is a card that replaces itself, so, for example, Idoril Masterminds or Camels) that they were playing in lanes opposite my own creatures. They always had a high number of cards in hand and, to me, avoiding combat meant they were setting up for Ulfric Uprisings.

Simply put, I looked at the game state and I thought I was going to lose if I just set back - my turn would simply be “go” and my opponent’s turn would advance their game plan by a lot, and the same would just repeat the following turn, so I decided to be aggressive. I figured my opponent would end up burning cards anyway, since all they did was cantrip, and I could perhaps punish them for a greedy hand or a greedy approach to the game.

I don’t always recommend this approach, but I think it’s better than people give it credit for. Most of the time, people NEVER attack. I think it’s correct to rarely attack, but sometimes you should still attack, because it gives you a chance to randomly win with Soul Tears plus Bats in the mid-game. I think you need a combination of two things - you have to have a need to attack, and you have to be able to attack.

If you have good late game yourself, or a good late game hand, then you don’t need to attack - you can sit back and play the long game. So, for example, if you play a turn three Galyn the Shelterer on Paarthurnax, you know you will be able to win the late game, and therefore, there’s no reason to be aggressive, even if you’re able to.

To be able to attack, you need a fast draw from yourself and a slow draw from the opponent. For example, if the opponent has already ramped and played defensive cards, you’re not going to beat them by being aggressive, so you have to take the game long enough that those things are equalized. So, in a spot like this, it doesn’t matter if you have to be the aggressor, because you can’t.

In my actual game, however, I felt like I had the combination of the two things - I had the reason to be aggressive, and I also had the means to do it, which is why I went for it.

Unfortunately, we got to a turn where my opponent played double Word Wall in what I knew was a Drain Vitality, which halted off my entire offense. I felt that I had already spent too many resources and reached the point of no return, though, so I kept pressing. I could still win after that, but that would require some bricks from them, and they didn’t brick, so I lost the Scout mirror.

I’m still not sure what I should have done. Should I have sat back and tried to equalize the game after a while? It’s possible. I don’t think I would have succeeded, but I also didn’t succeed in being aggressive, so maybe waiting it out would have given me better odds.

I won the next two matches with Scout and Tribunal, and then all that was left was beating Dagoth or Assassin with my Telvani.

My first match was against Dagoth. It was very close, and I felt that I again could have won with different play. I think there were two key moments in the match where I potentially messed up.

The first was when I played a Shrieking Harpy in the field lane instead of in the Shadow Lane. My opponent had a creature in the Field Lane that I wanted to contest, which is why I played it there, but it gave my opponent the chance to attack it and kill it before I could play Ulfric’s Uprising, which ended up costing me three or four life. In a game that was so close as the one I played, I felt that could have made a big difference.

The second play was when my opponent had a 2/2 in the field lane and I had a 3/3 and my own 2/2. I attacked it with the 3/3, which is the usual play, since it leaves me with 5 power on the board, ready to contest whatever my opponent plays. The problem is that they played Cradlecrush Giant, which left me with nothing, whereas if I had just traded 2/2s, I’d be left with a 3/1, which could have been used to kill the Giant in combination with the Sorcerer’s Negation that I had. I think this was a spot in which I should have recognized the Giant threat, and deviated from the usual play just to keep a three toughness creature alive in that lane.

The final game was Telvani versus Assassin. I had my back to the wall the entire time, and if I ever got one turn to breath I think I would have won, but I never did. The nail in the coffin happened when my opponent played two Suran Pawnbroker and hit Daggers in the Dark to increase the clock by enough that I had to react, and then Lesser Ward to protect his 5/4 in the Shadow Lane that was facing a Lethal creature. I think that, if either of those is something like a Calm, a Curse or an Improvised Weapon, then I probably win, but the combination of two extra damage per turn with my not being able to kill their creature that turn meant I just fell too far behind. Once I had to start reacting immediately every turn, then I couldn’t execute my own game plan, and so I lost.

This was more disappointing than the first loss, because I had much bigger expectations for it - I was up 2-1 and could reasonably have won either of the remaining games. It was also disappointing because I knew this was my last chance to qualify - I have a family thing next Saturday and won’t be able to play the last qualifier. But, still, I enjoyed the tournament a lot, and I think I learned a lot too.

Overall, I have to say that I still enjoy Legends just as much as I did before, and I’m very happy to see the professional scene growing. If tournaments like this continue to be a thing, then I’ll be sure to play them again.

I hope you enjoyed reading this, and if you have any questions or comments feel free to comment here reach me on twitter @PVDDR.

Thanks for reading,

PV