Carmen Klomparens said:
It's been a few months
since we last took action in Legacy. Back in March, the only real way to engage with the Legacy format was by playing a form of combo, prison, or Eldrazi.
Carmen is mixing narratives a bit here. Back in March, the story from WotC was that Legacy was "emulating" a healthy format. The prior announcement had invoked the concept of a combo-prison duopoly, but WotC never actually claimed that there was a combo-prison-eldrazi triopoly before. And I can't believe that I have to explain this, but once you have a "triopoly" in a Magic format, you're balanced. If archetypes A and B are both so powerful that they shut out all competition, then they can devote sideboard slots to each other and create a miserable time for anyone trying to play anything that isn't A or B. A 60-card format with 15 card sideboards and the Eternal card pool can't realistically extend that to a triopoly because if A needs to account for both B and C, B needs to account for both A and C, and C needs to account for both A and B, then multiple rogue deck builds and "second tier" dark horses can potentially navigate weaknesses in the system. It's difficult to impossible for any one of three of the archetypes in a triopoly to effectively shut out dark horses and it's even more implausible for all three of them to pull it off at the same time. Historically, I can recall that the "triopoly" concept was successfully attacked in the Extended format and even in Standard. The idea that three decks could be balanced against each other while also successfully shutting out all other comers in Legacy is comical in comparison.
A Legacy dominated by a triopoly of decks is farfetched, but it's also not what Carmen actually mentioned, I guess. Yeah, "combo" and "prison" aren't decks or even deck archetypes. They're more like meta-level concepts? I have to give Carmen a pass on "Eldrazi" since there have been times in Legacy when there was really only a single viable deck matching that description and other times when there were multiple "Eldrazi" decks. But let's get at the crux of the problem here. A "prison" deck is essentially a kind of "control" deck. Other forms of "control" are possible, but it's not 1996 anymore and no one is sitting around playing "draw-go" or "permission" or whatever because cards are too strong for that nowadays. Cat's out of the bag, I'm sorry. But you can still take on a control role in Legacy with a "prison" deck and there are a few different ways to do it. Likewise, traditional "aggro" just hasn't been practical in Legacy for a long time. It has too many bad matchups and gets shut down too easily. You can still basically play "aggro" but it's more like "tempo" or "aggro-control" or is some sort of tribal synergy deck or hyperfast Burn deck or whatever. Eldrazi was the most prominent feature in this part of Legacy's overall map for a while, then it wasn't, then it was again, then it wasn't again, then it was again. I think I got the order right there.
Carmen has basically told us that in order to play Legacy, you had to be playing either aggro or control or combo. Aggro got oversimplified to "Eldrazi" and "control" got renamed "prison." But fundamentally, it's the same statement. If you'd told me 20 years ago that this would be the complaint about the Legacy format, I'd have been very, very confused. "If you want to compete, you've got to play combo or prison or this third thing that isn't either of them." I'd have thought, "Oh, so the format's pretty healthy then?"
At the time, our intent was explicitly to remove the negative play patterns of Sowing Mycospawn and take Dimir Reanimator down a peg. Thus far, the results have been mixed to positive.
If you don't even like Legacy at all, why are you the one talking to us about it? Wait, why is a member of the Play Design team even involved in ban list decisions? Partition this stuff, WotC! Seriously, I get that employees are expensive, but the people making decisions regarding format management should just not be the same people helping to make new sets. Whatever else is going on, surely WotC can at least hire enough people to make that happen. I know that this problem isn't new, but I guess I've lost my patience for it or something. Seems like the most obvious and easiest thing in the world.
Since the banning of Sowing Mycospawn, Eldrazi decks have more or less vanished from the metagame, with Mystic Forge artifact combo taking its place as the most popular colorless deck. Dimir Reanimator, on the other hand, has remained the most played deck in the format, albeit at a lower win rate and smaller share of the metagame. In a lot of ways, this is the process working as intended.
Oh. Good?
Ultimately, Eternal formats are a place where people want to feel like they can put a bunch of time into collecting all of the cards for a deck and know that it will be viable for a long time. Given that the most recent Legacy Showcase on
Magic Online had an extremely diverse Top 8, with the lone copy of Dimir Reanimator going out in the quarterfinals, it feels like Legacy players have directions to go if they want to be successful without playing Daze and Entomb together. It is hard for us to disentangle if the reason that Dimir is showing up at a high rate is because it is the best deck or if Legacy is delivering on its promise of allowing players to play with the same cards year over year.
Look, if this is all just because you personally hate Dimir Reanimator, then you've got to let it go. Actually, as I've made clear already, you should be the one let go. You should be free to do Play Design if that's what you're good at. But keep your grubby paws off the Legacy ban list and let someone with some sense take over. Preferably me. I'm like, not even half-joking at this point.
One divisive topic in Legacy is the existence of the Oops! All Spells deck.
Shouldn't be divisive at all.
Oops! All Spells is a deck that exists on the back of technicalities and technically complex rules interactions.
As someone who has followed this archetype since it made a splash on MTGTheSource back when the
Gatecrash set was being spoiled all the way to the present day, I want to push back on this and say, "not really." I'm no Magic judge, nor even a rules guru. I struggle with some technically complex rules interactions. Everything in every iteration of this deck that I can think of is pretty tame. It was never really a deck for beginners or whatever, but Legacy was never really a format for beginners either. So what gives?
The deck gets its name by not playing any cards that are lands on their front side, then maximizing what it can get out of that restriction.
Get off my lawn. The deck gets its name from a joke about breakfast cereal. It certainly doesn't get its name from anything to do with whether a card is a land on is front face or not. The name predates MDFC lands. I played it in tournaments myself before MDFC lands existed.
In its initial configuration, it uses Balustrade Spy or Undercity Informer to mill its entire deck, recur some creatures like Narcomoeba and Poxwalkers, and use those creatures to fuel the flashback cost of Dread Return, targeting Thassa's Oracle to win immediately. After sideboarding, the deck can dodge graveyard hate by using Goblin Charbelcher to reveal 40 or 50 cards and kill the opponent in one giant shot. As the deck has evolved over time, cards like Jack-o'-Lantern and Memory's Journey have helped the deck become more resilient to interaction.
It's glorious, but why is this in a B&R explanation? This archetype isn't remotely close to dominating. Why are we here again?
To some, this deck can be particularly frustrating to lose to as it feels like it's abusing Magic's game engine more than it is playing a game of Magic. To other people, it's an illustration of why Magic's game engine is cool. The deck is doing a bunch of things that "shouldn't" be allowed and rewards having a deep knowledge of the rules and cards in Magic. It puts us in a difficult position of trying to arbitrate whether we think it has a positive or negative impact on the environment.
Oh, go eat a bowl of pig
MOO. You festering pile of cow
OINK. This is the biggest load of chicken
QUACK I've ever read from WotC. A cool niche deck in a format functions in a way that some crybabies don't like, but the deck is doesn't put up numbers that even make it worth discussing, so you'll bring it up anyway? I don't care that you haven't banned anything from the deck yet and I don't even care if you ultimately end up agreeing with me about this deck. Keep it out of the B&R announcement because it doesn't belong here. You come into my house and waffle over whether my deck should be allowed to exist?
BAWK you and the horse you rode in on.
Unlike other archetypes, so much of why this deck exists is because of one-of-a-kind cards that run the risk of killing the deck completely if we were to address the archetype. For now, the deck is showing up at a range that is acceptable for decks in the format and has a win rate that is within permissible ranges, which has us reluctant to make a change. Given the strong negative reaction some players have to playing against this deck and how hard it can be to adapt to, the bar it has to clear for us to take action against it is lower than some other decks, but for now, we're happy to let such a unique deck have a place to exist within Magic.
There's nothing wrong with Eternal format management that me overthrowing these clowns and ruling as a tyrant-king wouldn't solve. I mean, I've thought so for a long time, but I'm saying it now. I didn't think I wanted the job before, but now I do. Tyrant-king, WotC. Post the position. I'll apply. We can make this happen.
