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It's rare that you'll come by a Legacy Top 8 without something interesting in the shuffle. The Star City Games Premier IQ in Washington D.C. last weekend definitely delivered on the interesting front, with Lands being the only deck taking multiple Top 8 slots. There are a slew of sweet lists in the Top 32, but the one that most catches my fancy is Jeff Mcaleer's 8th place list.
Jeff Mcaleer's Grixis Control
This deck appears Jund-eque in its nature, with it largely being a conglomeration of high-power spells. Some concessions are made for strategic coherence though, with the most notable omission from the list of "best Legacy Grixis cards" being Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Instead, Mcaleer is committed to powering out quick Dig Through Times to find the right answers at the right time for a low rate.
The trifecta of Young Pyromancer, Gitaxian Probe and Cabal Therapy is nothing new, but this is the easily the best home for it that I've seen. While Therapy can pan out worse than Thoughtseize at times and takes a good amount of practice to play well, it will often perform much better than any other discard spell. Free hand information and free-ish flashback is no joke. Baleful Strix is also extremely handy when it comes to flashing back Therapy.
The coolest element of this deck is the miser's Dack Fayden. Dack is regarded by most as considerably worse than Jace, but he does a much better job at fueling delve. Not to mention his random ability to steal a Batterskull and completely run away with a game.
The message that Mcaleer is sending with this deck is that Dig Through Time is more powerful than Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Otherwise there would be no reason to play it in his stead. Is it possible that Dig is the new face of Legacy control?
I had thought this deck would die without T Cruise. With Cruise it would power through its library at an incredible velocity. The concept stems from Eli Kassis’ deck he took to a Top 16 finish at GP NJ. I look forward to giving it a go in this new metagame.