Legacy Basic: A legacy variant format in which all rare nonbasic lands are banned.

[Captain Hammer]

For most legacy decks, the manabase accounts for over 90% of the deck's cost. This format would dramatically lower the cost of entry while allowing access to legacy's entire nonland card pool. It never made sense to have to spend thousands of dollars on lands. It never made sense that Brainstorm is effectively turned into an Ancestral Recall if you're willing to spend hundreds of dollars to add fetchlands to even a monoblue deck. And it never made sense that there is zero real cost to splashing colors. Splashing a color should have a cost to it.

Legacy Basic: A legacy variant format in which all noncommon lands are banned. Budget Friendly, Nostalgia Friendly, Casual Friendly and Generally More Fun. You could say that about pauper as well but this format would have a far larger carpool than Pauper to work with.



My friends and I were having a discussion about how the fun of nonrotating formats has fallen dramatically over the past 15 years or so. Most of us got into magic because we loved fair decks, using fair strategies and in the case of many of us, attacking with creatures. However, most legacy games involve lots of durdling around with shuffle effects/fetchlands and cantrips or outright comboing off on turn one. Plus legacy as a format has grown into an increasingly high barrier to entry. Decks consisting of just basic lands simply do not exist in modern legacy and paying 3 mana for a 5/4 or a Hypnotic Specter or 4 mana for a Surrak, the Huntcaller, Baneslayer Angel, Goreclaw or Phyrexian Obliterator is not considered a competitive strategy.

Our goal is to have a clearly defined rule we would all have to abide by to advance three goals, make sure creature decks are viable again, allow for competive decks to be built on a budget so people who don't have expensive cards don't feel excluded, ensure the games are more fun.

This only rules are….
Noncommon lands are banned.
Every other legacy legal card is allowed.

The mana bases would be the same as pauper, but the format would have access to all other legacy cards.

Basically, legacy without duals, fetchlands, shocklands, gaea's cradle, city of traitors, dark depths etc. A legacy where there is a real perceptible cost to splashing another color, where mana bases that consist of mostly or entirely basic lands make sense.

My friends and I plan to try this format later this year, and we would love some input. Do you think a format such as this would be pretty balanced. Or would it need a ban list? What do you think would need to be banned?

What do you think the metagame would look like?

I think it would be pretty balanced, something like this…

Aggro Control – The glue that keeps combo decks in check
Mono Blue Delver
Mono Blue Merfolk
Mono Blue Control - Veldalken Shackles might see play again
Mono White Control – Quinn without the Snowlands
Mono Black Control

Slow Resilent Combo
High Tide – Slow enough that decks will have a chance to interact with it. Burn, sligh and other fast aggro decks can win by around the same time that High Tide can.
Mono Black Reanimator – Will be somewhat depowered due to the lack on cantrips (Faithless Looting/Careful Study) and easier to hate out as it would be slower and black is incapable of dealing with Leyline of the Void/Rest in Peace
OmniShow – Will be significantly slowed by the lack of Sol Lands and Brainstorm/Fetchland interaction

Prison
Pox
Stax – Might be too slow to make any impact without the sol lands

Glass Cannons
Oops All Spells
Belcher
Manaless Dredge
MonoR Sneak Attack/Through the Breach – Will lack the acceleration that sol lands provide and the autowins that Blood Moon provides

Aggro
Elves – Cards like Engineered Plague and Wrath of God might see maindeck play if elves deck starts to dominate
Mono Green Ramp
Mono Green Enchantress
Mono Green Infect
White Weenie – Death and Taxes without Wastelands/Ports
Suicide Black
Sligh/Burn

That sounds like it would be a blast to play. I look forward to trying this format and my friends and I would love any input you have on making it work well.

Updated: Makes more sense to use pauper's manabase and just allow common lands.

[Mr Miagi]

that would be just stupid

[Captain Hammer]

Why would it be stupid?

For most legacy decks, the manabase accounts for over 90% of the deck's cost. This format would dramatically lower the cost of entry while allowing access to legacy's entire nonland card pool.

It never made sense to have to spend thousands of dollars on lands. It never made sense that Brainstorm is effectively turned into an Ancestral Recall if you're willing to spend hundreds of dollars to add fetchlands to even a monoblue deck. And it never made sense that there is zero real cost to splashing colors. Splashing a color should have a cost to it.

The other option is to ban only rare nonbasic lands. The mana bases would no longer be the same as pauper, but the format would have access to even more legacy cards.

Logistically, banning all noncommon lands makes sense since you would know that any land not allowed in pauper wouldn't be allowed in this format either, and you would lose Wasteland, Karakas and a few other wallet busters.

Which Format do you guys think would be more balanced? One that bans all rare nonbasic lands, or one that bans all noncommon lands (pauper mana bases with legacy's card pool)?

[Fox]

I think you would find that cantrip cartel would be even better positioned with Evolving Wilds and Ash Barrens. Honestly you'd probably have to ban most any common land that shuffles.

[Cave]

I think you would find that cantrip cartel would be even better positioned with Evolving Wilds and Ash Barrens. Honestly you'd probably have to ban most any common land that shuffles.

Yep. But frankly, preordain is just that strong on its own.
Also, the idea that Omni-tell is slowed down by not having Sol Lands is pretty naive.

[Captain Hammer]

I think you would find that cantrip cartel would be even better positioned with Evolving Wilds and Ash Barrens. Honestly you'd probably have to ban most any common land that shuffles.

Brainstorm is a common, yet Monoblue Delver in pauper does not run it for two reasons.

Brainstorm would effectively cost two mana to pair with those lands.

And the times where you draw a cipt land without a brainstorm are a huge tempo loss.

The manabases would look very similar to pauper, ie. Evolving Wilds would only see play in decks that need to splash a color but monoblue Delver would likely outperform u/r Delver in this environment since tempo is so important to the deck.

The format differentiates itself from pauper in that it has access to 3x the card pool, but the manabases would be very similar.

Preordain is a balanced card. Brainstorm when paired with Evolving Wilds is a far more balanced card since it effectively costs 2 mana in that scenario. Non CIPT fetchlands and dual lands are a large part of what makes legacy both unbalanced and prohibitively expensive.

[Fox]

You're talking about a format without Tomb, Wasteland, Port, and duals. Unless I misread, you're saying this is legacy with only common lands. Tier zero is probably Aether Vial and Counterbalance. You can bet that with Terminus/CB that Brainstorm would be heavily played. You would also expect to see tier 1 Loam/Mox. I'd say there is heavy potential abuse of Glimmerpost/Cloudpost.

[Captain Hammer]

You're talking about a format without Tomb, Wasteland, Port, and duals. Unless I misread, you're saying this is legacy with only common lands. Tier zero is probably Aether Vial and Counterbalance. You can bet that with Terminus/CB that Brainstorm would be heavily played. You would also expect to see tier 1 Loam/Mox. I'd say there is heavy potential abuse of Glimmerpost/Cloudpost.

That's good. Those are all fair decks.

I would want Loam decks, Post decks, and Miracles to be a part of this environment. Miracles will be slowed by having to play CIPT lands but it's a solid and interactive deck that there are still plenty of ways to fight against. A slower miracles would also be much more able to be raced by monocolored aggro, burn and combo strategies.

In addition, a Miracles that is a full turn slower is just as vulnerable to a Thalia or a Chalice deck that is a turn slower. Plus, there's still plenty of ways to get out a first turn chalice as well, Simian Spirit Guide, Elvish Spirit Guide, Lotus Petal, Mox Diamond, Chrome Mox etc.

[phonics]

You're talking about a format without Tomb, Wasteland, Port, and duals. Unless I misread, you're saying this is legacy with only common lands. Tier zero is probably Aether Vial and Counterbalance. You can bet that with Terminus/CB that Brainstorm would be heavily played. You would also expect to see tier 1 Loam/Mox. I'd say there is heavy potential abuse of Glimmerpost/Cloudpost.

Without Vesuva people would probably be more inclined to play tron instead like in pauper.

[Captain Hammer]

Without Vesuva people would probably be more inclined to play tron instead like in pauper.

That's great. Yeah a tron based stax or Eldrazi would be fun as well.

[Echelon]

Elves! with 14 Forest works just fine.

[Captain Hammer]

Do you think this is/will be a balanced Format? Or do you think any specific decks would completely dominate.

Yes, elves will be pretty good but there's still plenty to ways to nuke it (toxic deluge, engineered plague, worship, wrath, moat, terminus, propaganda, pyroclasm etc).

[Captain Hammer]

Are there any pauper players here? Pauper is an absolute blast of a format. One reason why is its accessibility and the affordable manabase. Where as a legacy decks manabases can cost thousands of dollars, pauper deck manabases cost no more than a couple of dollars. Legacy decks like Delver typically have manabases that cost several hundreds paired with the rest of the deck costing a few bucks.

The one limitation of Pauper as a format is that it has a much smaller cardpool. It doesn't have access to all the uncommons and rares that legacy has access to.

Legacy Basic would be pauper but with a much larger cardpool. Bugdet decks would be prevalent (unlike in legacy or modern) since the manabases would favor monocolored decks but there will be some pricy decks as well and the variety of viable strategies I suspect would be absolutely massive.

[ParkerLewis]

Nuking everything above common/basic goes too far in my opinion, for reasons mentioned by others already : blue massively dominating all others colors in its ability to support multicolor decks.

I've mentioned it before, but just get rid of fetches. Mana-fixing wise, it feels like the sweetest possible spot (2-color decks are fine, but any additional color becomes a real choice/burden).

If the affordability aspects matters a lot, then I guess ban ABUR duals as well if you really must. But once you're there with fetches & abur duals banned, at least try it this way without going further.

[Ronald Deuce]

These Jenga threads are something else.

[MorphBerlin]

I don't really get why people like you don't just EDH (or current Standard for that matter)

These are the formats where you can do all the casual stuff without getting sledgehammered by all the brokeness and effency of a format with a card pool this large.

Why try to make legacy into something it's not?

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Legacy Basic: A legacy variant format in which all rare nonbasic lands are banned
Eiganjo isn't a Castle, it's a prison.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

I don't really get why people like you don't just EDH (or current Standard for that matter)

These are the formats where you can do all the casual stuff without getting sledgehammered by all the brokeness and effency of a format with a card pool this large.

Why try to make legacy into something it's not?

I'm not sure that's the effort here. Affordable legacy isn't synonymous with casual legacy. It's hard for me on one hand to say legacy is the best format, and then on the other say "but you'll never play it because you don't have thousands of dollars to spend on a trading card game"

That said I could say the exact same thing to you about EDH, since EDH is a social experience not a competitive one, why try to make it something it isn't ect ect

[compacta_d]

"but you'll never play it because you don't have thousands of dollars to spend on a trading card game"


I'd argue that most modern players and edh players with expensive decks are in the same boat.

i was looking at modern deck costs to get back into it, solely for tournament reasons, and was surprised at how many decks are $1300+, which is more than most of my legacy decks.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

I'd argue that most modern players and edh players with expensive decks are in the same boat.

i was looking at modern deck costs to get back into it, solely for tournament reasons, and was surprised at how many decks are $1300+, which is more than most of my legacy decks.

EDH is super casual though. And it's just a one-of so of course you can live without it.

[FTW]

Common nonbasic lands are allowed, such as 4 Cloudpost + 4 Glimmerpost + 4 Candelabra of Tawnos? Also 4 Urza's Tower + 4 Urza's Mine[/card] +4 Urza's Power Plant? Sounds like those would become real decks, especially with Wasteland, [cards]Rishadan Port, Ghost Quarter, and even Tectonic Edge banned. Cloudpost might need banning, like in Pauper.

Amulet of Vigor + Summer Bloom might become playable, with Simic Growth Chamber at common and no Wasteland to punish the greed.

Burn would benefit the most from this tempo-screwed variance-increased metagame. "Hurr durr Lightning Bolt you 7 times". Sounds like a fun format.

RUG Delver, RUB Delver, BUG Delver, BRUG Delver, and UGH Delver would finally be dead.

Monocolored Vial aggro (Goblins, Merfolk, Death and Taxes, Soldiers) would be strong forces. Affinity would be playable again.

Counterbalance/Miracles would be a necessary control deck, but it would be far less consistent. Goblins would steamroll them.

Monoblack Pox would be good. Sinkhole, Smallpox, Hymn and Big Pox would be the best way to pressure weak manabases and land-based combos. But they'd have to win with Bloodghasts or 8Racks without Mishra's Factory.

Reanimator could still be 2 colors, but monoblack Reanimator would be on roughly the same power level just because tempo is so important.

OmniTell would be a bit slower and less consistent but still strong.

Sneak/Show would take a bigger hit, losing enough tempo that Burn and High Tide will outrace it. Monored Sneak/Through the Breach might replace it to get more explosive mana.

Elves would still be strong without Gaea's Cradle.

Some entire archetypes like Lands.dec, Landstill, Turbo Depths, Slow Depths, Junk Depths, Punishing Pox would be dead. Chalice Stompy, Stax, MUD and Imperial Painter would be dead without Sol Lands. LED Dredge would be dead without Rainbow lands.

Manaless Dredge and Oops All Spells would be exactly the same.

ANT/TES would panic for a bit, then realize they can run jank like Ancient Spring and Peat Bog with impunity in a meta with 0 Wasteland 0 Port.

1-land Belcher would be dead. You can't Land Grant for basic Mountain, and basic Forest is unable to cast too many of the spells in the deck. Spanish Inquisition would have the same problem without Bayou. 0-land Recross the Paths Belcher might be a thing, but it's awful with Gitaxian Probe banned.

Enchantress would be fine throwing those land Auras on basics and losing Serra's Sanctum.

Wild Nacatl and Steppe Lynx would still be unplayable. Sad days.

[echoes]

If commons and Uncomons are allowed (non RL lands), more option is open while keeping it kind of cheap. (city of brass, ancient tomb, maze of it...)
I regulary ask myself how would work a pauper with uncos. Not Peasant style with number limitation. It would certainly be closer from Legacy with a nice power level. So many very solid cards are unco...