LEGACY IS BROKEN. LET'S FIX IT.

Magic: the Gathering's Legacy format is currently busted. Grief should have been banned for being too powerful, but it dodged. Now a clear tier 1 / S tier deck is warping the format. What happens if Grief is banned? Should Grief be banned? What about Reanimate, Daze, or Psychic Frog? Let's discuss some hypothetical ways to fix Legacy and what happens if those actions are taken. Current Legacy is F***ed.

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0:00 Introduction
1:50 The good stuff

#mtg
#mtglegacy
#magicthegathering

[CheeseWedge]

We get another lecture at the Thraben university, and it seems like attendance is part of the grading

[franksantana]

Oh come on Phil, just look at that cute little frog, look deeply into his eyes, he's completely harmless! Nothing to see here.

[Nexuxs]

Frogg has also another niche that is very importaint in mirror matches, in that it can protect your own graveyard from opposing reanimate

[bahyurur]

Modern feels in a similar place right now because of Nadu. Everyone is expecting the bird to get banned as it's proven to be too much for the format. Even the recent mtgo creator showdown was run with a Nadu ban to diversify the content in the face of overwhelming Nadu performance at the pro-tour.

They are choosing to wait until August to ban the bird, and now it feels like there's no point in play testing/going to FNM/jumping into leagues until the bird is gone.

There's so much fun stuff to play from MH3 that's unfortunately getting under explored because we just have to wait until after bloomburrow to experience the format the way it should be.

[littlesid]

Cant wait until grief is banned so I can start reanimating Griselbrand again and start feeding my frog even faster.

[rgyerr]

Love how deep you dive into format and think you have great takes on the health of it. Looking forward to more crazy decks

[GellyGelbertson]

there's only one true deck that can answer the call to maindeck rescaminator hate...

it's time for the rise of opalescence leylines combo!

[pauldaulby]

I saw a couple videos titled something like "is X the answer to scam" and inevitability they get their ass blasted in their first game vs scam

[TheNerdCeption]

I hope Nadu remains borderline unplayable in legacy because it's tournaments play patterns make it seem like 4 Horsemen 2.0, which will probably also have to trigger a ban

[OhOneNine]

WoTC stopped play-testing cards a LONG time ago.

[FrankBlizzard]

As an old school psychatog player I absolutely love the frog. I can essentially rebuild psychatog without the downside of needing upheaval…. I doubt it’ll be format warping post grief ban but I’ll still play it 😂. It’s also in my UB Delver instead of bowmasters

[AArdWf]

Sir, you think we don't want to listen to you ramble about grief and legacy for an hour. That is a mistake ❤😂

[JeffMendoza]

Another good thing about the blue shell being the solid dependable best deck is it keeps keeps glass cannon t1 combo decks in check.

[arsteel]

I originally thought the abilities on Frog were swapped. Discarding a card to gain flying to connect and draw seems a lot more fair.

[kithkindeck]

These are almost caw-blade numbers for the deck. Jesus.

Here's to hoping we get a solution in august.

[travismcauley]

Listening to you ramble for an hour is exactly what my workday needs sir.

[OmneAurumNon]

I think the relationship between frog and chalice of the void is worth bringing into the discussion. Like you said, part of what makes the blue cantrip shell acceptable in legacy is that there are ways to prey on it. Chalice of the Void used to be a great way to deal with those decks because it shut off all the cantrips and most of their threats. Now, if you chalice a blue mage, they just feed all their dead cards to the frog and kill you with it. It's just another way that frog covers up that decks weak spots.

[RealKoman]

I kinda disagree about the whole blue cantrip-counterspell shell. I think it's the actual thing that has been holding legacy back for years. It, to me at least, is also the thing that made it impossible for wizards to balance the format and might have led to them stopping to support legacy at all. I'm not saying that is the only reason or that it was a reason at all. It just seems to be that way to me. I really dislike that paper legacy is almost entirely cantrip-based with over half of the tournament being blue players every single time. And I'm saying it as a Prison player, so technically I have a good matchup against almost all of them. To me it just feels boring to play against the same 20+ cards every game (8 cantrips, 4 forces, at least 10 fetchlands), not even being able to guess what the opponent is playing even if they play 5 different cards. It is a huge set back in terms of deckbuilding since if you want to play blue, you need to autoinclude these cards most of the time (unless you are an extremely good combo deck builder like TonyScapone, but let's be honest, he's one of a kind). I remember the rise of delver decks in early 2010s and I honestly think it has been bothering me back then the same way it is now. The only thing that changed is that they've gained some unreasonably strong win conditions to follow up that 20+ card shell like murktide, grief and now psychic frog or nadu which all I think have huge design flaws.
I honestly would not mind brainstorm, grief and frog being banned and seeing how legacy finally changes into something different, more inclusive towards people who do not want to be stuck inside the same shell if they decide that they want to include blue in their decks. It would be fun to see any other shell in that color without having to rely on artifacts.
Also I think brainstorm getting cut from the format would actually make the Orcish Bowmaster density drop to a reasonable level, making the creature decks maybe not exactly tier 1, but at least playable.
That's just my 2 cents. Ofc you can disagree, I do not mind.

[usagi]

Love. These. Videos. I'm pretty sure I say this every single time one of these drops, but just for posterity's sake: I *thoroughly* enjoy your regular play videos because not only do I get to see an absolute professional pilot these decks, but I also get to hear the thought process behind decisions (like a DVD Director's Commentary track)... but it is these deep-dive analysis videos that made me Patreon you.

Cheers, mate. Keep it up (and fuck the haters). 🤘

[Seelenverheizer]

The cantrip shell is a integral part of Legacy but Daze is not a true part of it. Dazes powerlevel has creeped up over the years exponencially and has gotten multiple cards banned single handedly. Its not just the tempo delver shell but increasingly Daze protects Combo's for its downside has become negligable. In the ye oldern days one could have always argued, and i did myself, that having 8 "free" counterspells is good for the format and removing Daze would attack that pressure valve. Yet since force of negation exists and has shown its usefullness this should be those additional free counterspells in the format not the increasingly free and extremly powerfull Daze.

We have faced oppressive Delver lists for 15 years straight of beeing the best thing one can play when its not fueled by nightmarishly powercreeped new cards and beeing broken when those cards are around.
This card will only keep on generating problems and with WotC beeing of the rails with their designs there will always be a 2 drop around breaking Daze/Delver strategies. If they do not ban Daze we will see another 40% share of the metagame slinging UB and Grixis delver and once the frog is gone there will be another period of flavor of the month delver if there isnt someting even more horendously broken overshadowing delver for a month or 2 before its back to be at least 20+ percent of the meta.

Grief and Daze ban would be the best thing happening the Legacy since survival of the fittest ban which used to be an integral cornerstone of the format back then as well and nobody misses that card that got more overpowered with every new edition.