I hadn't followed Pioneer enough lately to want to comment on that, but now I really like your analysis and I think it illuminates a problem that's going to resurface in the format. Expressive Iteration has proven itself to be a strong card beyond my expectations, across multiple formats. But even at its best, it's a bit of a workhorse that can only complement certain archetypes. The delve spells have a track record, and we should all know where it leads by now. Dig was probably (tentatively) safe in Pioneer anyway: it tends to scale a bit weirdly across formats. But Cruise is a problem. Banning Expressive Iteration might patch that temporarily, but how long before WotC releases another set with a card that breaks Treasure Cruise again?
Yeah, Expressive Iteration was the same for me too, exceeded my expectations. It's certainly better than I thought. But better than Cruise? I don't think so. And Dig isn't much worse because the first really problematic deck in Pioneer, UB Inverter, was a deck that played multiple Digs. They banned Inverter but Dig remains. Cruise historically better in aggressive decks and is the better card so we are going to see more of that but Dig can be an issue in combo and control decks. Both cards also benefit a lot from WotC's current design focus on spellslinging or spells matter cards as well as "graveyard as a second hand", (self)mill so it's only a matter of time before some other enabler get's printed.
Yeah, that's basically the grip I've had for a long time now, so I didn't expect change. What's frustrating is how the evolution of the format in the wake of the Philosophy of F.I.R.E. has so dramatically upended all the old conventions, and yet we still can't get unbannings. In the space of a few years, we've probably gone through metagame shakeups that are arguably more dramatic than most of the rest of the format's history. Legacy is still less than 20 years old, but if the level of change that took place in the first decade were measured and demarcated as the default for 10 years worth of change, we've probably seen 40 or even 50 more years worth of change in the course of this second, as yet unfinished, decade. Banning Earthcraft was silly in 2004, but what about the other cards. Maybe banning Yawgmoth's Bargain at the time was truly a good call to prevent it from taking over the format. Was that still true in 2010? Maybe? 2012? Probably not, but I can understand the trepidation at the time. 2014, a full decade after the creation of the format? I'd argue that it should have been unbanned by then, although I could see why someone might argue otherwise. 2022, though? 2022 is more different from 2014 than 2014 was from 2004. By a lot. Tough to quantify, but I contend there's something to it...
That's a really interesting point you've brought up about the
rate of change in Legacy (well, Magic as a whole too). That's not something I've thought about too much. Not only in the strength of cards being released but also the quantity too. Even relatively recent bans, Deathrite Shaman for example, don't look out of line in comparison to the current format. Certainly that card is an issue in Delver but as a whole I don't believe it to be an outlier overall. This is to say nothing about the cards that have been banned since the format's inception. I count 10 or so cards currently banned that range from niche to arguably the correct power level that could be unbanned.
In this format, where you can use cards going all the way back to 1993, players are taking a deck archetype that ostensibly came together in 2011 and winning with it, but more than 20% of their actual cards are ones that didn't exist before the Philosophy of F.I.R.E. The game has a 29-year history, but fully a fifth of the cards actually getting played in this deck are from the past three years. And this isn't some cherrypicked example. If I moved away from U/R Delver to other archetypes, I'd mostly get similar results. New cards are powerful. And they're everywhere.
Yeah the evolution of Delver is pretty interesting. Going from counterburn or a blue based burn deck to a more blue focused tempo deck as better creatures got printed and didn't need to lean on burn so much.
Murktide Regent essentially does for U/R Delver what Treasure Cruise used to do, but with murder instead of card advantage.
This is correct and also made me laugh out loud. Good thing I wasn't drinking! Very succinct and true! Murktide gives Delver a combo-esque feel to it.
That is a pretty significant number though if we break it down it's not that spooky (though I don't mean to imply that I think FIRE design is good or anything like that). It's mostly creatures that are being powercreeped to the point where they outclass other options. Newly printed noncreature spells are more niche or SB cards with the exception of Force of Negation, Expressive Iteration, Narset and Teferi. For reference I am referring to FIRE cards as War of the Spark to present, 2003- Ravnica Allegiance as "modern" and 1993 - Scourge as "old". Pulling all the stats from Mtggoldfish and obligatory "this isn't the full/accurate dataset yadda yadda" disclaimer. Also if any of this you think is too arbitrary, let me know!
Most commonly played Magic: the Gathering spells in Legacy.
www.mtggoldfish.com
11/50 are FIRE spells and only 1 in the top 10.
Most commonly played Magic: the Gathering creatures in Legacy.
www.mtggoldfish.com
23/50 are FIRE cards. Almost half with the top 10 being 7/10 FIRE cards.
Obviously creature spells are far easier to powercreep because not only have they been really bad overall until about Invasion-Onslaught where they started making them better with cards like Kavu Titan, FTK, Meddling Mage, Spiritmonger, Shadowmage (Tog was mostly an accident so not including it here), Ravenous Baloth, etc. (random side note, from Mirrodin forward was also when we started getting really powerful fatties too!) That trend continued to about Innistrad where that was an inflection point for, well, everything that got insanely powerful and a bunch of cards got replaced(this would be neat to expand upon at some point but I'm already rambling). Also Mirrodin was one of those inflection points too. Actually it's probably more accurate to say the powercreep for creatures from Invasion era continued to about War of the Spark. Then everything got crazy with "this creature gives you lots of value for nothing". I don't think creatures are anywhere near the power level of spells but they have gotten to the point where I look at them and think "wow this card is nuts" Did Ragavan really need Dash? Did Murktide need to get pumped by other Murktides? Don't even get me started on DRC with Ponder and Brainstorm. I don't think these cards are inherently problematic since they're basically fine in Modern but in Legacy with all the free interaction + 1 mana cantrips really pushes the blue shell over the line. Of course this points to the blue shell being the problem not the creatures.
On the other hand it's basically impossible to powercreep the most powerful spells. How do you print a better Force of Will or Swords to Plowshares? And those are "fair" cards! What about something like Dark Ritual? Hell, they will never print a red Dark Ritual because the card is fundamentally broken much less printing a better one.
Looking over the creatures, the old ones that see
any (and I mean any) play (or banned) I think can be categorized into 3 categories:
1. Oops this is inappropriately costed/mistake/broken: Lackey, Recruiter, Hermit Druid, Mom, Goblin Welder, Crystalline Sliver, Hibernation Sliver
2. Synergy/Tribal cards: Quirion Ranger, Wirewood Symbiote, Birchlore Ranger, a bunch of Goblins, Argothian Enchantress, Veteran Explorer and Ornithopter
3. Combo cards: Sylvan Safekeeper(sorta), Nomads en-kor, Cephalid Illusionist, Cavern Harpy, Arctic Merfolk, Academy Rector, Xantid Swarm, Anger, Putrid Imp, Basking Rootwalla, Phyrexian Dreadnought, ESG, and Tinder Wall
Birds of Paradise is the odd bird (hehe) out because it's mostly a one-of in the 4C Blue Zenith decks. Also some of these cards can go in multiple categories. Pulled info from here:
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/legacy/full#paper
I used to gripe that I didn't think decks like Czech Pile or Vengevival didn't really warrant getting hit by bans. But that's all old-hat now. Those decks are not even close to being on the same level as what's available now. It's not proof that any one card is a safe unban, but I do think it should strong lead to some sort of approach to revisiting old bans.
RIP black cards. One of the more unexpected effects of the really intense powercreep is how bad black has gotten, more specifically discard. When everything in your opponents hand is good or amazing, discard feels really bad. This compounds all the normal problems discard has when used as disruption when compared to countermagic. Discard is still good in combo decks because you only care about a few things and you're typically going to end the game right now or next turn. But black as a color is still really shallow. It has only gotten a few cards recently and even the creature power creep has mostly passed it up. Archon of Cruelty is a decent reanimation target. Opposition Agent and Dauthi Voidwalker are decent hatebears, Hexmage is just a combo card for Depths decks, Rotting Regisaur is a nice card for Reanimator to SB in to dodge GY hate and Dark Confidant is probably the best universal card... but it was printed in 2005! There isn't any REALLY powerful 1 drop in black which also hurts it a lot too. Oh and Plague Engineer too but that's also just a SB card.
But speaking to your greater point, I agree. Both at the time and also now. Those decks look positively tame. But any of the actual broken blue decks I think would be a huge problem even today. Mystical Tutor powered storm decks would insane, as would Miracles with Top and don't even get me started on Flash which played all of the aforementioned cards! Or even something more tame like TC Delver would be nuts. Again, I think this speaks to a larger problem with the apparently untouchable core of blue cards.
Lastly, I know you know most of this stuff/we probably talked a lot about this before but it's things I've been thinking about recently so I really just wanted to put it down in writing. I hope this wasn't too rambly!
EDIT: I should probably mention there are some monoblack decks in Legacy that are making waves recently but we'll have to see if they stick around or if it's a flash in the pan.
