It's true what you hear – Legacy does have multiple viable decks because of the vastly deeper pool of cards. Nonetheless, the usual classification of aggro, control, combo applies to this format though there's more blurring of the boundaries.
Aggro
Unlike Vintage, Legacy is effectively a format about creatures. With more powerful cards interactions, the Legacy format is faster and aggro decks typically goldfish turns 4-5. Turn 3 kills are also achievable with a good hand.After all that's said, Zoo, Goblins, and Aggro Loam are the only aggro decks that you need to be worried about. If you're interested in knowing more about these decks that just crash and burn, take a look at the intro articles to Zoo and Goblins.
Some day, I'll write an intro article on Aggro Loam. Even then, you don't have to worry about it much as 1) it has a 3 colour manabase with multiple duals susceptible to Wasteland, 2) it's dependency on Life from the Loam and its graveyard makes Relic of Progenitus (which you usually have in your sideboard) very relevant, and 3) there's a reason why it's not doing well in the Star City Games Legacy Open and the higher intelligences will give you the answer that may have eluded me.
To give a more comprehensive survey of the Legacy format, fringe aggro decks do exist. These include the Standard White Weenie and other random decks that your deck should be able to handle.
Control
Control decks are not the same as those you see in Standard formats. It's true that there's always a UW control deck in any format though the faster goldfish turns of Zoo and Goblins place a fundamental limit to control decks.Can that Wrath of God really help you turn the tide when the next top-deck is a Tarmogoyf/Knight of the Reliquary/Goblin Ringleader/Tombstalker? To add on, control decks rarely play accelerants like signets for reasons that elude me. Perhaps cards like Engineered Explosives and Firespout make them unnecessary? Let me know by commenting if you know the real reason why!
As of now, there are 4 main types of control decks, 2 of them revolving around the Legacy Pillar Counterbalance: Counter-top blue-based control (e.g. Supreme Blue, Counter-top Thopters), blue-based control without counter-top (e.g. Landstill), Ancient Tomb/Chalice of the Void based Prison decks (e.g. Mono-white Stax and other Stax variants), and Lands based Prison decks. Of these, prepare only for Counter-top Bant if you don't have time as plainly, the other 2 don't perform that well from the looks of the SCG Open Series.
Lands is exception here as it crushes aggro decks rather consistently. However, you'd probably not face it often as 1) you have to rob the bank to build it from scratch, 2) you'd have to be on the pro-tour to pilot it sufficiently well, and 3) I need a third reason to complete the series of 3. Head out to my intro article if your area happens to have such a player.
Oh, and if your area is filled with budget or older players, you might face Pox. Try not to laugh too hard as it'll be embarrassing if you lose.
Combo
Finally we have arrived at my favourite genre: Combo! Oh yeah! The adrenaline rush you feel when you draw half your deck and end the game within a single turn.If you're unfamiliar with Legacy, rules are different from the Standard format. Although it does happen sporadically, Combo decks usually don't piece 2 or 3 cards together and win the game in this eternal format. The default kill for combo decks is the Storm mechanic, i.e., combo players win in 1 big turn where they play upwards of 5 spells and cast Empty the Warrens/Tendrils of Agony/Brain Freeze/Grapeshot. This usually happens on turns 2-3 though the mythical turn 1 kill is not so mythical as they put it.
Almost all Storm combo decks revolve around the Legacy pillar of Lion's Eye Diamond. Of the Storm combo decks, all you've have to worry about right now is some variation of blue-black Tendrils (TES/TPS/T-whatever-S) and perhaps Belcher. High Tide combo decks are recently hyped about due to the unbanning of Time Spiral though it's unlikely they will see a resurgence in performance due to the its slower speed coupled with the absence of better tools against Counterbalance. Thus, prepare for Tendrils, and Belcher if you have the time.
Also remember that Elves is lurking for a chance to spring out when Engineered Plague is absent.
Combination decks that put 2 cards into a I-Win situation also exist. Some of the often heard ones are: Dreadstill (Phyrexian Dreadnought + Stifle/Trickbind), Painter-Grindstone (Painter's Servant + Grindstone), Show and Tell (Show and Tell + Emrakul, the Aeons Torn/Progenitus/monster), and Reanimator (Reanimate/Exhume + Iona, Shield of Emeria/Sphinx of the Steel Wind/monster).
I'd recommend new players to ignore these decks when preparing for a tournament as decklists tend to be largely similar to blue-based aggro-control decks (Daze + Force of Will), and you'll be preparing for those anyway. Trying to prepare for all of these will burn you out.
The honorably mentioned award goes to the combo wannabe – Burn. This bolt-bolt-bolt.dec tries hard to win a tournament and it should try harder.
Lest I forget, there's the oddball Dredge that mandates 3-4 sideboard graveyard hate in the form of Tormod's Crypt/Relic of Progenitus and other black cards (if you play black). And if you meet any Dredge players, remember that you're not really playing Magic at all.
Aggro-Control
Now this is the most important genre you should prepare for. Most decks in legacy now include some forms of disruption in them to slow faster combo deck. For these decks, disruption comes mainly in the form of free counterspells (Daze and Force of Will) or discard (Thoughtseize, Duress, and Hymn to Tourach). Removals tend to be the cheap but omnipresent Swords to Plowshares/Path to Exile, Lightning Bolt, or black spells like Snuff Out, Smother, or Diabolic Edict. I'd be honestly surprised if you see cards not in this short list.Also present in all of these decks is Wasteland. A large segment of this genre also include the Legacy Pillar Aether Vial.
Decks in this genre are split according to the type of disruption packed and include counter-based Merfolk, aggro Bant, Fish (non-merfolk with creatures like Meddling Mage), New Horizons (Stifle, Tarmogoyf, Knight of the Reliquary), Uw Tempo (a Fish variant with Weathered Wayfarer, Serra Avenger, Jotun Grunt), and discard-based Eva-Green (Tarmogoyf, Tombstalker), Deadguy Ale (Dark Confidant, Nantuko Shade, Hypnotic Specter), and Rock (Dark Confidant, Vampire Nighthawk, Gatekeeper of Malakir).
Noteworthy is that Team America (Tarmogoyf, Tombstalker, Stifle, Sinkhole, Hymn to Tourach, Force of Will, Daze, Snuff Out) is perhaps the only deck to include disruption of both types.
In this genre, you'd better be testing against Merfolk and Rock at the bare minimum, especially the former as it's relatively cheap to build yet performs consistently well. Vince, a friend of mine, just went 6-2 with Merfolk to a 10th place finish (missing top-8 due to tiebreakers) in New York despite playing only limited for a considerably long time. And this is his the first time playing Legacy. FYI, he beat Goblins, Loam, Lands, another Goblins, Team America, and Uwb Fish, losing to 2 Tendrils deck along the way.
If you have the time, playtest against Team America or whatever's popular in your area.
Others
There are still decks which are not mentioned in the above genres such as the control-combo Enchantress, combo Aluren, and Survival of the Fittest (just joking) but this should be sufficiently succinct information for the new Legacy player.If you do face other rogue decks, do take note that they are likely to revolve around one of the pillars of Legacy (Aether Vial, Counterbalance, Life from the Loam, Lion's Eye Diamond, and Ancient Tomb/Chalice of the Void) and thus their strategy doesn't differ much from the archetypes mentioned in this article.
Summary
If you're a player new to Legacy and doesn't know which archetypes to playtest against, here's the gauntlet: Zoo, Goblins, Counter-top Bant, Tendrils combo, Merfolk, and Rock. These will give sufficient coverage across aggro, control, combo, and aggro-control decks in Legacy mtg.If you have more time, you can add these to the list: Aggro-Loam, Landstill, Lands, Belcher, and Team America. Ignore oddballs and have 3-4 graveyard sideboard hate and you should be fine in your first Legacy tournament.
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