Fixing Legacy

by Ari Lax | posted at 2010-08-05 23:54:00
tagged: MTG, Magic, Magic the Gathering, Grand Prix, GP, Columbus, Grand Prix Columbus, Fixing Legacy, Ari Lax

First off, this article is going to sound condescending to some people. If you are someone who almost exclusively plays Legacy I want you to think about the last time you played against a competent player with Storm before this article. I mean someone who doesn’t chuck games often and who actually knows when to go off, not the kind of person who knows how to slam their cards on turn two and count to ten. If the answer is “Very long ago”, I suggest you take my Storm list from the GP and jam it against Saito’s Merfolk until you are a favorite. Bryant Cook’s will also do, but discount wins specifically related to Wasteland.

This year the nature of the Legacy format has been brought into question, especially with the banning of Mystical Tutor. This is something that needs to be addressed directly in order to secure the future of the format.

The current strategy of a hands-off approach to the format is something that will eventually be broken. People don’t seem to understand this, but combo is the best archetype in Legacy and it isn’t even close. The only things holding it back are a resistance to playing it, poor builds that lose to fair interactions like Wasteland, and poor play. At GP Columbus last weekend I played Storm, and I didn’t lose a single game to a fair deck that wasn’t my fault. The hate isn’t strong enough and the viable combo decks are too varied to beat them all without your own degenerate lock or combo. Wizards can probably leave the format how it is for now and have a decent amount of time with a format that looks fair, but the eventual storm is brewing. Mystical Tutor was just a stall tactic to buy them one GP results worth of time.

That said the combo-centric format is still reasonably in check. It just isn’t remotely fun. Every single game someone isn’t actually playing.

Why does fun matter? Wizards has shown that they don’t plan to support Legacy on a competitive scale. Two GPs a year says this. It is also impossible to support the format on a larger scale due to card availability issues.

While non-interactivity or borderline degeneracy is fine for a competitive based format as people accept that fact before showing up to a PTQ (see Dark Depths last Extended season, Dredge and CB-Top a few years before, etc.) is this really what you want for a format based on ~30 person weeknight events?

If you want a combo format, go to Vintage. That format does combo right to the extent the interesting interactive decks are the combo ones.

The market Wizards is (or should be) catering the format to are the “Legacy players”. Not to say that other people don’t play Legacy, but the format is based around a group of people who almost exclusively play it. The gentleman’s agreement Tom Lapille talked about is entirely true: these people play the same deck for years with marginal innovations because they just want to play what they like and know.

The problem with this is that as I stated before, Legacy is not actually a format where you can do that.

In order to try to secure this feel for the format, I believe a round of bannings is in order. The goal of these bannings is to make inherently fair strategies viable without them relying on poor deck building like they do now. Combo decks are still fine to exist, but they should be things fair decks can interact with and win against without necessarily having hate or be something that is appropriately fragile.

One other side effect of the banning will be an increase in interactive play decisions in the format. While Legacy is very skill-intensive now, there is a difference between “How do I set up my combo around them having Card Y with this Brainstorm?” and “How do I set up my draw steps with this Brainstorm such that I can win if they have threat X in play and reach Y and Z in hand?” Hopefully the latter also helps bridge some of the gaps between “Legacy” and other players.

These first six cards for banning constrict diversity in the format greatly and generally only lead to un-fun, non-interactive game states.

Lion’s Eye Diamond: Every single match this card is involved in one player is not actually playing. Either the LED player doesn’t get to play spells, or nothing the other player does besides hope and prayer actually matters.

Entomb: No one has ever done anything fair with Entomb. Not much more to say on that. It also violates the Tutor rule.

Sensei’s Divining Top or Counterbalance: Realistically the oppressive card is Counterbalance, but Sensei’s Divining Top is logistically worse for tournament play. The problem with this combination is that it combines with Counterspells to create a scenario where playing low-drops is unacceptable, but playing high-drops is just as unacceptable. Also known as playing Magic is unacceptable.

Life from the Loam: Loam has fair uses, but all it currently does is rapidly lock the opponent out of the game. While the same can be said about most control win conditions, Loam does so with minimal set up and a level of interactivity that is not healthy.

Wild Nacatl: Simply put, the current power level of Zoo is unacceptable. The only reason it isn’t oppressive is that the degenerate decks being banned above are more linearly overpowered than it. Wild Nacatl is the problem card, as without it the deck loses a lot of early game potency (2 power vs. 3 power) or late game consistency (Steppe Lynx vs. a real creature).

Survival of the Fittest: I’m not sure what will happen with this card if the format is allowed to evolve without the above cards. What I do know is that it will be nearly impossible to beat. The only thing holding Survival back is the speed at which the set up takes place compared to the overpowered combo decks.

The next cards I am not necessarily sure should be banned but would have to be watched closely. The decks they fuel might be reasonably paced for fair decks to compete with or relatively easy to interact with, but they might still be too good or format warping.

Show and Tell: The main problem I have with this card is not putting a 15/15 or 10/10 into play; that is a threat people can deal with or in the later case just race. The issue comes when it is a Ritual that also protects against counter magic, such as in Dream Halls or Hive Mind. This makes a fair combo overly difficult to interact with without the deck needing more set up as it would for something like a Duress or Orim’s Chant.

Hypergenesis: The concern here is the combination of speed and consistency, though the deck design required to play this card is definitely limiting enough to be almost reasonable.

Imperial Recruiter: The issue here is consistency plus relative speed. Four mana is so much less than five for Dream Halls. If Recruiter was not around, the deck would still be strong but it would have an Ad Nauseum style of inconsistency to keep it from being over powering.

Goblin Lackey: This card would likely stay as it is easy to beat with cards that have useful outside applications, but it is definitely worth watching. The power level of the card is undeniable and it usually wins the game if uncontested on turn one.

Dark Ritual: It is possible that Storm combo is still too good without Lion’s Eye Diamond. If so, this is where I would start, as if Storm isn’t close enough to fair then it never will be. Anything faster than Turn 3 (no back up)/Turn 4 with Duress is a definite no, and even that is borderline.

Things that are not on this list:

Aether Vial: This card is key to letting non-green creature strategies compete. Aether Vial doesn’t raise any speed concerns and requires the decks that run it to reduce threat density. Even if it centralizes non-Tarmogoyf green decks around it, the decks will divide into unique, interesting archetypes.

Dream Halls (or any other similar two card combo): Two card combos are fine. The issue is finding an appropriate speed where they can exist but still play close games against aggressive decks. As of now the only reason the games of combo against aggro look close is because the Storm player makes it that way.

Wasteland: This card is easily beaten as long as you don’t go crazy or get lazy in deck building. You can also still play some wacky Five Color Control deck so long as you understand the implications of this card.

Brainstorm: Banning Brainstorm would weaken the top three definite ban archetypes without completely removing them from the metagame, which also helps keep the other three in check. The issue is that people want to play with Brainstorm. This isn’t a Mystical Tutor that helps only the degenerate decks. Banning Brainstorm would drastically weaken a large spectrum of fair decks as well.

Enlightened Tutor: The inability of this to find utility cards like Force of Will or Duress keeps it from ascending to Mystical Tutor heights, which was for all intents and purposes just Vampiric Tutor that cost 2 fewer life and could be pitched to Force. For this to be Vampiric Tutor you have to play Enchantress.

Anything from Dredge and non-LED cards from Charbelcher: These decks are easy to beat if you want to. Dredge might need a second look without the need for it to be all-in on aggressive starts with the lack of fast combo, but as of now the deck can easily lose to fair strategies. Charbelcher would still exist, but it would be even less consistent and even more fragile than it is now.

Tarmogoyf: People have complained about Goyf in the past, but it is actually fine. The card is actually protection against the Zoo deck as it is a threat from other fair decks that forces Zoo to deal or stops the assault at an aggressive price. Tarmogoyf is also easier to beat in a non-green creature deck simply because it is a slower threat. Being drastically outclassed on turn one from a Nacatl is much more difficult to combat than being outclassed on turn three, especially when there are actual ways to answer Tarmogoyf in a manner that generates tempo.

With these changes, Legacy would start to progress more towards what the Legacy community has embraced for the format rather than the current reality. Combo would still exist, but in order to play it you would have to mean it and lose to interaction or play a slower combo deck where you play actual games.

The main problem I can see with this is that the Legacy community might not actually want it, especially as the goal of these changes would be to cater to them. None of these things are a problem because they are contained by outside factors, specifically the people playing in events. As I said before I believe the bubble will eventually burst. It was going to at GP Columbus had Mystical’s banning not scared people.

It’s also possible that my personal experience with Storm is biasing my opinion or that only the Storm deck is the real problem. My counter argument would be that I played many other things before the list I settled on for the Grand Prix, and these factors were too hindering to consider them playable.

Legacy is a glacially slow format in terms of evolution, so there is definitely time to consider things before action. I just want this out there. I am definitely not the only person that believes this; most people I have talked to are at the least receptive to the list if not in straight up agreement. These people are from both sides of the Legacy metagame. Stop, give this idea thought, and then tell me why it’s bad or what I missed in balancing the resulting format.

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