Among the many reasons MTG players dislike the Reserved list is the sheer financial barrier it places on competing in official tournaments for CEDH, Legacy, and Vintage; just one playset of dual lands will set you back over a grand, and a single Gaea's Cradle could cost you over $2,000. But on November 30 Tommaso Ciampolini proved that Reserved list cards aren't essential, with a first place finish in the 950 player Eternal Weekend Europe Legacy Championship using his Affinity deck '8 cast' - and not a Reserved list card in site.
It says something about the power level of recent MTG sets that one of the key cards powering the deck is barely four months old: Pinnacle Emissary. The Emissary is fantastic in Affinity decks, thanks to its triggered ability that creates a 1/1 Drone artifact creature with flying whenever you cast another artifact spell.
You can cast the Emissary on turn one for its Warp cost of one blue or red mana, and though it'll exile itself at the end of turn, you can empty your hand of free artifacts like Lotus Petal, Mishra's Bauble, Chrome Mox, or Urza's Bauble to generate a turn one air force, which can also act as ramp.
You can find the full deck list on 4SeasonTournaments' Twitch stream from the event. The main wincon is Kappa Cannoneer. The turtle has Metalcraft, which means you can tap your artifacts to help pay for its mana cost - such as the flurry of free artifacts and Drones you generated on turn one. Once the Cannoneer is on the board it's extremely durable thanks to Ward 4, and whenever you play an artifact it gains a +1/+1 counter and becomes unblockable for the turn, making for a very short clock.
The deck also main decks the cheap, ward protected Patchwork Automaton for another grow threat, plus four copies of Urza's Saga that can generate Construct tokens that get bigger the more artifacts you have in play. The Saga also allows you to tutor up the main deck's singleton copies of Pithing Needle or Shadowspear to deal with specific problems, or any of the one mana problem-solving artifacts in the deck's sideboard that you might have swapped in for the second game of a match.
The deck runs a playset of Ancient Tombs for yet more mana acceleration. Despite the aggressive stance, it has some longevity - Emri, Lurker of the Loch lets you recur artifacts from the graveyard, while Force of Will and Chalice of the Void protect critical spells and disrupt the opponent's game plan.
Despite not having a single Reserved list card, the deck is only cheap when compared to the rest of Legacy. It runs four Ancient Tombs, four Chrome Mox, four Force of Wills, and a pair of Force of Negations in the sideboard, which start at $50 a card and go up from there. Kitchen table gamers looking to replicate the experience should probably look at proxies, buy into the deck in MTGO, or just play pauper (it's great!).
What do you think - would this deck be even better with some reserved list cards? Have you had any successful experiments with genuinely budget Legacy decks? Let us know in the Wargamer Discord community. To stay up to date with all the latest MTG news and features, make sure you subscribe to the Wargamer newsletter.