As legacy decks become leaner and more efficient, the various Delver of Secrets variants are stretching the mana bases and mana curves further than ever before. That’s put Miracles into a dominant position in the metagame, which has in turn created space for various Ancient Tomb aggro decks that can fight through Terminus and Counterbalance. Once such variant which put up an exciting performance at Eternal Weekend in both Europe and North America was Soldier Stompy:

Soldier Stompy - Legacy | TLK

• Creatures (30)
• 4 Ballyrush Banneret
• 4 Captain of the Watch
• 4 Daru Warchief
• 4 Enlistment Officer
• 4 Preeminent Captain
• 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
• 4 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
• 2 Palace Jailer

• Spells (12)
• 4 Chalice of the Void
• 4 Chrome Mox
• 4 Suppression Field

• Lands (18)
• 8 Plains
• 4 Ancient Tomb
• 4 Cavern of Souls
• 2 Karakas

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Armageddon
• 2 Crackdown
• 1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
• 1 Holy Light
• 2 Oblivion Ring
• 1 Palace Jailer
• 2 Phyrexian Revoker
• 2 Ratchet Bomb
• 3 Rest in Peace

Buy This Deck

The core of this style of deck remains unchanged. You want to lead off with a Sol Land or a Chrome Mox to get a Chalice of the Void in play on turn one. You also have the potential to lead off with Suppression Field, which helps shut off fetchlands and Sensei's Divining Top. You can also play some number of Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Thalia, Heretic Cathar to add to the disruption suite.

However, this deck also needs a way to apply quick pressure to capitalize on the early disruption. Enter Preeminent Captain, which can let you cheat Captain of the Watch into play. Of course, you won’t always have that combination, which means you’re going to need some way to sculpt your draw and grind out card advantage when you can’t steal games early. Enter Recruiter of the Guard and Enlistment Officer. These cards function similarly to Goblin Matron and Goblin Ringleader in the Goblins deck, giving you the ability to tutor up various singletons or just chain together Enlistment Officers and bury your opponents in value.

The strength of this deck is in its ability to fight through removal and sweepers. The combination of Recruiter of the Guard and Enlistment Officer makes Terminus seem awfully silly. That combined with Palace Jailer give you the ability to out-card decks like Miracles, Stoneblade, and various Shardless variants.

If you’re looking for a deck that combines efficient, brutal disruption with resilient creatures and card advantage, then this seems like a great place to start. There’s all manner of interesting interactions, and the strength of this tribal card advantage engine shouldn’t be understated. As long as the format is tending towards decks that can be blown out by the quick disruption this deck offers, or ground out by chaining card advantage creatures together, this is an archetype that’s worth exploring.