A couple of days ago I discovered quite the interesting thread on mtgthesource.com started by a player simply named “H” and titled “What should define the
Legacy format.” I think the question he’s getting at – what makes Legacy into this format we enjoy so much and what do we believe Legacy should be
about – is one that’s very important for those of us that hope to still be playing Magic in general, and the Eternal formats in particular, another ten
years down the road.
The answers to that question are at the heart of any ban or unban decision and are among the root influences of Legacy’s continued success or fall from
prominence; they will define the future of Legacy for the years to come. They’re also based upon the desires, wishes, and expectations of a wide variety of
players involved in the format, and as a result, truly answering that question is a task both quite profound and very subjective.
I’ll start outlining my personal thoughts on the matter today, though given how many things I already expect to mention and the fact that I’m sure there’ll
be a large number of subjects to talk about that’ll come to me only while writing, I expect this to end up being a multi-part effort, one I’ll likely
interrupt with articles on different subjects so that I don’t end up writing pure theory for a couple of weeks in a row.
The First Step
I believe that the correct approach when trying to define Legacy has to start with one particular realization: the question what Legacy should be about is
in a way actually two questions because it has to be looked at from two totally different angles, that of format philosophy (or Legacy’s supposed role in
the grander scheme of Magic formats as a whole) and that of format gameplay (how games in the format are actually meant to play out).
To my mind, these two levels of definition are both strongly interrelated and inform one another, but they’re also quite distinct issues to consider and
will pull us in contradictory directions at times, a fact that becomes particularly important when we consider that it influences how we (or the DCI) can
go about implementing the different visions for the format we as players hold dear in our hearts.
Because of their similarities, it wouldn’t make sense to divide this exploration into different parts that cover one of each of these angles, so don’t
expect me to do that. Just remember the difference exists when I start to talk about things in different lights.
I also believe that any reasonable definition of what Legacy should or shouldn’t be has to fundamentally be informed by the requirements both of these
areas make of the format. As a result, I’ll be talking about a wide variety of ideas and thoughts that influence my vision of Legacy and the format as a
whole, trying to look at each from either or both perspectives being relevant.
Minimal Definition
A good point of exploring something from a conceptual level is to start by looking at the most minimalist description possible. For Legacy, I’d propose
this:
Legacy is the Eternal format that allows players to play with most of the cards encompassing the whole history of the game while only being regulated with
a banned list.
I very much believe that this is what Legacy boils down to in bare bones terms. It’s the fundamental role the format was created to fill. This directly
leads to a couple of questions:
– Why rely only on a banned list in the first place instead of the Banned and Restricted approach of Vintage?
– What’s the point of having a format that contains the vast majority of cards ever printed in the first place?
– What criteria should be used to decide if a card (or cards) need to be banned?
– How easily should bans take place or be undone?
I’m sure there are more things to ask (and I’ll talk about those when I realize them), but for now let’s start by trying to find answers to the questions
we already have.
No Restrictions, Just Bans
There are two fundamental effects of using a banned list only instead of the B&R approach that governs Vintage. First, the fact that cards can actually
be excluded from the format completely makes it possible to shape a very different kind of environment because certain types of effects can be completely
eliminated.
This effect in action is most visible with the free, permanent mana acceleration provided by the Moxen, Sol Ring, and Mana Crypt. Even restricted, the
abundant number of these cards has a very peculiar effect on mana curves and gameplay in Vintage. Having these cards be legal even as one-ofs changes how a
game of Magic plays out on fundamental level. Because permanent mana is abundant very early in the game, mana curves distend compared to what would be
possible with purely land-based development and colorless mana becomes much more easily ignored in casting costs. Having a banned list makes it possible to
exclude effects like these from the Legacy format, leading to somewhat more conventional games of Magic, games more strongly shaped by the inherent
limitations imagined in the game’s design.
Second, using purely a banned list is a clear effort to reduce the impact of variance on gameplay. By definition, the cards that end up on any restricted
list are there because they have an effect powerful enough to swing or decide games with regularity. If we leave one copy of these powerful effects
floating around per deck, we inherently increase the effect luck can have on the game. After all, if I draw all my dumb overpowered stuff and you don’t, I
should definitely be favored to win. Having cards either be banned or legal means that we can expect gameplay dominated by consistent gameplans being
implemented, not powerful single cards deciding the game when drawn.
Playing With Everything
Magic formats aren’t just arbitrary entities, created and maintained by trial and error with no other thought than randomly providing deck construction
rules so that players can play without having to fight over a card being legal or not. Each format has been created to provide a certain service as far as
the world of tournament Magic is concerned. Vintage is the format in which every card is legal, where you can encounter even the most broken things
lounging in the shade of the restricted list. Modern is the format that collects the experience of, well, modern Magic, a world that came into being once
R&D was conscious of the most obvious and egregious offenders among Magic mechanics and effects. Standard is a mirror image of what Wizards is
currently printing and their latest ideas and beliefs about the game.
So what is Legacy about? Clearly, by starting the card pool at the very beginning, the format is meant to encapsulate the history of the game, to allow
players who have been playing for a long time or become deeply invested in the game to enjoy their favorite toys forever. Being banned from Legacy means
that a card has effectively been purged from all tournament Magic that doesn’t involve the variance and inherent gameplay modifications of Vintage. That’s
a pretty hard sentence to pass on a card, all things considered.
As a result, to me Legacy could well be described as the format of the second offender. Many effects in Magic have a tendency to break, and they all exist
in a variety of forms. In Legacy, generally speaking, the worst offender of its class is banned so that the less abusive implementations of that effect can
frolic and compete somewhere.
To illustrate: Black Lotus is the ultimate in one-shot fast mana, and accordingly, it’s banned in Legacy. Dark Ritual, Lotus Petal, Lion’s Eye Diamond, and
other effects of their ilk closely resemble Black Lotus in what they do, but they are all much less game-breaking and/or limited than Magic’s most iconic
card. Similarly, the strongest enabler for mass graveyard strategies – Bazaar of Baghdad – is banned, but all the other tools you could wish for from
Dredge cards to Careful Study, Intuition, and Entomb are legal.
Oath of Druids is banned, but Show and Tell and Sneak Attack are ready and waiting to cheat absurd creatures into play. Yawgmoth’s Will and Past in Flames,
Strip Mine and Wasteland, Fastbond and Exploration, Mishra’s Workshop and Ancient Tomb/City of Traitors, there’s an abundant number of examples. Basically
if some mechanic or effect is likely to break, you can expect to find it viable in Legacy with the strongest incentive or enabler removed from the card
pool.
How to Ban and Unban
If we accept this idea that Legacy is all about removing the worst offenders from the Eternal card pool and letting the rest out to play, it becomes
reasonably obvious that getting banned in Legacy has to be a rather hard task to achieve for a card. The format is all about walking the line between cards
with ridiculous power levels going nuts and an enjoyable gameplay experience for those involved in the format by getting to play actual games instead of a
mass of one-sided blowouts. That means the burden of proof for something to get the boot needs by necessity to be very high because otherwise we’re
threatening the core point of the format where almost anything goes.
Conversely, one would expect unbans to be comparatively easy to achieve. After all, if one goal of the format is to have as many cards legal as possible,
anything that can reasonably allowed to run free in the format should be, and as a result, anything that doesn’t need to be banned anymore should be
unbanned.
When contrasting this with the reality of banned list management as we know it, it’s easy to see that these ideas for Legacy differ from those the DCI is
applying, at least in this point. I can’t imagine Mind Twist being a problem, for example, and as annoying as Black Vise is likely to be if it actually
still is a relevant card, there’s enough reasonable doubt about its power level that it likely shouldn’t be on the list at this point if following what
I’ve just outlined.
As to stricter criteria, I don’t think there is an easy list of rules and guidelines we can make to tell us when a card needs to be banned. The fundamental
purpose of any ban or restriction in any format is to shape the format in such a way that people by and large enjoy themselves when they sit down to play
at a tournament. That, however, is both a very subjective criterion to try to hit (I might hate getting Trinisphered on turn 1, but others enjoy doing
exactly that quite a bit, for example) and one that isn’t ever going to be covered simply by using hard and fast rules and looking at numbers. Some
strategies please more players than others, and some strategies conversely lead to more players leaving than others, so the same rules for penetration and
success clearly can’t apply to them if the goal is a happy player base excited to play the format. I’ve talked about my personal ban philosophy in the past, so
I won’t rehash all of that here.
Format Attribute: Consistency
One identity-defining core trait that grows out of the way Legacy is positioned among Magic formats is that of reasonably predictable, consistent gameplay.
The DCI original stopped relying on a restricted list in Standard to reduce the effects of variance on tournament play, and I think this implicitly also
demands a format in which decks are consistently able to implement whichever gameplan they’re meant to pursue. While the “four or nothing” legality rule is
at the origin of this idea, the traces of this attribute are all over the format.
A look at Legacy manabases rapidly reveals that playing essentially any color combination imaginable is easily possible in the format. The A/B/U duals and
fetchlands make splashing easy, and three-color decks are almost as stable as mono-color decks would be using only basic lands. The gold lands like City of
Brass and Gemstone Mine allow for decks to support a full five colors easily. All of this means one thing: decks will consistently hit the mana necessary
to cast their spells no matter how many colors you’ve decided to play with and will generally do so on time. This leads to very smooth and consistent
gameplay, but also to a lot of splashing and homogenization of cards and colors seeing play.
Similarly, there’s a critical mass of most types of enablers available. Cheap reanimation spells, fast mana, two-card combos, ways to cheat things into
play, permanent mana acceleration, cheap removal and disruption, whatever kind of card you care to name; Legacy will usually deliver enough tools of any
particular kind you’re looking for to make building a deck around the strategy at least reasonably consistent if not necessarily tier 1.
Another thing that makes Legacy the most consistent format out there is that it’s the one format in which probabilistic library manipulation hasn’t been
curbed. Allowing players access to tools such as Brainstorm, Ponder, Sensei’s Divining Top, Sylvan Library, Green Sun’s Zenith and similar cards means that
there are better ways to average out your draws in Legacy than in any other format. These tools allow decks to do what they’re meant to do a
disproportionately high amount of the time.
I personally love this focus on consistent gameplay Legacy embraces. Don’t get me wrong: I enjoy that there’s a random element to Magic, and I don’t think
the game would have captured my interest for as long as it has if hidden information wasn’t as prominent a factor in the game, but by and large, I’m not a
big fan of variance. I want my games to be decided by player decisions, not the luck of the draw whenever possible, and for my format to reward skill as
much as it possibly can before turning things into chess. Slanting the format fundamentally in the direction of consistent gameplay helps achieve both
those things. I only wish there were many more tools in more colors to achieve these ends.
Sticking With it
As mentioned above, one reason to have a format as vast as Legacy with a card pool going back as far as it does, is that of giving a home to long-term
players. If you want to make the format enticing for long-term players, however, that implies a couple of things.
First, the format needs to be intricate. Anybody who has been doing something for a long time is likely to be at least decently good at it, so if you want
to give that person an experience they’ll enjoy, it needs to be harder than it would need to be for a beginner. To capture the attention of an experienced
player, it is necessary that the game be played on more than the surface level. There have to be intricate plays and tricky interactions that aren’t
obvious and only become second nature with time and experience.
Catering to the experienced player also means that a broad variety of strategic options needs to exist. There are a lot of different things that can be
done in this beautiful game and many of them are fairly non-intuitive or exist on fundamentally different levels. Dredge, Storm, Lands, MUD, Tempo,
Reanimator, Death and Taxes, Goblins, Elves; all those decks play very different games with very different tools, forms of attack and interaction, fields
of battle, and focal points.
Magic is a vast game, and there are a wide variety of angles of attack and places to interact that can be relevant depending on which cards are found in
both players decks. A format that caters to the long-term player has to provide the possibility to choose to bring the fight to just about any place
imaginable. Stack and graveyard, battlefield and hand; all the parts that allow the Magic experience to happen in the first place need to be available as
the canvas to paint our games on – and conveniently, that very thing in and off itself helps reward those that know more than their opponents simply
because they’re familiar with playing a game on all these levels.
Inherently though, creating a format that caters to the experienced also punishes the newcomer and that’s something we should accept as inevitable
. If you’re playing your first game against Legacy Storm, you aren’t going to be a happy camper if you don’t know the deck, and the game isn’t going to
seem very interesting. All you’ll see is an opponent who casts a couple of library manipulation spells and suddenly you’re dead.
In Standard, where most of the action happens on the battlefield with permanents facing off, it’s easy to get the story that unfolds with the game. Your
things battle with their things, new things are deployed or answered step by step. When playing against something like Storm, on the other hand, you need
to provide the color commentary yourself, you need to learn to enjoy those games by learning to think about and play them correctly.
Games against a deck that fights on an unusual axis, especially those that successfully abuse hidden information, only become interesting when you know
what they’re trying to do and which limitations their plans have. Knowing those things allows you to plan ahead, to prepare for what you know is going to
come, and to feel the excitement that comes from playing a game on the razor’s edge. Simply put – it’s all in your head.
One of the sweeter illustrations of how this kind of game becomes exciting is that of Island.dec*. In the early days of the Pro Tour, someone who wasn’t
exactly in love with the whole Spike mentality of just playing to win qualified for a Pro Tour but decided to use the tournament to make a stand. Instead
of testing a ton trying to find the most powerful deck available, he turned up for the tournament with a deck of 60 Islands. Now, you need to remember that
this was during a time when counterspells were actually good, good enough to make decks like Draw-Go a reality, in fact.
During the event, he’d play his Island for the turn, every turn, and make sure to think about his opponent’s spells, fake playing spells on his turn and
reconsidering – in short, he pulled all stops to represent countermagic and instant speed responses at all times. In turn, his opponent’s would scramble to
bait out his countermagic, to figure out correct sequencing, and play around as much of his potential interaction as possible. Obviously that interaction
never came, and yet his opponents actually had played truly complicated and intricate games – all against a pile of Islands.
*This is how I remember being told about the story. If anybody has clearer information on how this whole thing went down, feel free to share.
If you pull this trick against a bunch of players new to the game, it would be a very boring experience. They’d play their spells, wait to see what you
have – with you having nothing – and kill you in short order. Only against players good enough to read into your plays and trying to figure out how to get
around your likely threats and answers is there any joy in bringing a pile of Islands. Similarly, a lot of games in Legacy only become fun once you have a
deep enough understanding of what’s going on to actually think ahead in the game and draw conclusions from your opponent’s actions.
Break Time
There’s a lot more I have to say about Legacy, its nature, what I believe defines it, and what it should look like. In fact, there’s so much more that now
that we’ve hit the customary 3000 words, I have more left to say than I’ve said already. As such, I’ll stop here for today, and you’ll get the rest of my
thoughts in the weeks and months to come, interspersed with more regular articles.
In the meantime, go ahead and ask yourself what Legacy should look like in your opinion. Why does Magic need a Legacy format? What is it good for?
What kind of gameplay do you expect, which cards can’t you fathom in the format, and which ones are utterly essential to the gameplay experience you
expect? Feel free to share below. I’ll be reading!