How would a ban of Fetchlands in Legacy impact our favorite format?

[Captain Hammer]

Fetchlands are banned in Pioneer. In Pioneer, Deathrite Shaman, Dreadhorde Arcanist, Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise are all legal and do not cause any issues.

As such, I think Deathrite Shaman, Dreadhorde Arcanist, Dig Through Time, Treasure Cruise as well as Wrenn and Six and Sensei’s Top would all be unbanned if the Fetchlands were banned.

Brainstorm would see much less play. Xerox shells will suffer a bit. Nic Fit would get a boost due to playing plenty of nonland based shuffle effects, and regaining access to Top and Deathrite. FoW/FoN loses a bit as you can no longer abuse Brainstorm to dig for it or protect it from Thoughtseize/Therapy/Hymn. And the above unbans will definitely inspire some new decks.

Dual lands themselves would no longer be essential. In a format without fetchlands, alternative lands such as the pathway lands, canopy lands, filter lands, future lands and the magic 2010 duals would all be reasonably playable. This in it self would make the format much less expensive and much more accessible imho.

So all in all, I think it would be a net positive for Legacy.

What do you think the impact would be?

[HdH_Cthulhu]

I would like it. Fetching and shuffling is annoying and time consuming.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Just to be clear: Without fetches duals become more essential, not less.
And also, most people don't include Prismatic Vista in fetch talk but to hurt the cantrip cartel you have to axe it too.

[Captain Hammer]

Just to be clear: Without fetches duals become more essential, not less.

I dont believe that is true.

Fetchlands are must plays because Brainstorm is the absolute best thing to be doing in any controllish or midrange deck and in pretty much every deck that splashes blue.

The dual lands having basic land types on them make them auto includes in decks playing fetchlands, as those are one of the few nonbasic lands that Fetchlands can grab and combing both gives every fetchland access to three or more colors at once.

A critical reason that lands like the filter lands and pathway lands are so inferior to duals is that they are not fetchable. That downside goes away in a format without fetchlands.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

I dont believe that is true.

Fetchlands are must plays because Brainstorm is the absolute best thing to be doing in any controllish or midrange deck and in pretty much every deck that splashes blue.

The dual lands having basic land types on them make them auto includes in decks playing fetchlands, as those are one of the few nonbasic lands that Fetchlands can grab and combing both gives every fetchland access to three or more colors at once.

A critical reason that lands like the filter lands and pathway lands are so inferior to duals is that they are not fetchable. That downside goes away in a format without fetchlands.
I don't think you understand: unless your deck is mono colored there is simply no replacement for a dual. Fetches only could get away with it because they were 5 color lands pretending to be two. A pathway, which taps for only one color of mana is no replacement for a dual. A filter land which makes no color Mana until you play another colored source is not a replacement for a dual. A shock which hurts you is no dual.
Without fetches you can't play 8 blue fetches and always have your splash colors. Instead you HAVE to play all four copies of the dual

[Tylert]

I dont believe that is true.

Fetchlands are must plays because Brainstorm is the absolute best thing to be doing in any controllish or midrange deck and in pretty much every deck that splashes blue.

The dual lands having basic land types on them make them auto includes in decks playing fetchlands, as those are one of the few nonbasic lands that Fetchlands can grab and combing both gives every fetchland access to three or more colors at once.

A critical reason that lands like the filter lands and pathway lands are so inferior to duals is that they are not fetchable. That downside goes away in a format without fetchlands.

WHat you say is true, but also, duals are the best two color lands you can get. So while before you could play less because you had fetchlands, now you have to play 4, just because these are the best availables....

[Captain Hammer]

Yes duals will still be the best dual lands, but where as before, you cripple your deck if you cant afford to play any dual lands alongside fetchlands, now, you are not at such a large disadvantage playing other dual lands vs an identical deck that plays duals in a format without fetchlands.

[Tylert]

I play D&T so I don't care about fetchlands :)
I'd like to have this new format, but I don't believe it will be that much more affordable.

[Zoid]

I would guess the number of duals would stay about the same.
Since you couldn't fetch them you'd need 4 of each color combination you run however if you would just run duals you're weak to non-basic hate.
Specific hate like Choke might also become more common.

In general less colors and splashes seem to be a net positive to me.
More colors would come with a real opportunity cost since you're less likely to have all the colors you need.

It would also be a huge nerf for all decks that do storm counts.
You could no longer play virtually less then 60 cards and play whatever hate/anti-hate you want.

[Kriggy]

Im pretty sure my Price of progress will hit like a truck again

[Secretly.A.Bee]

I play D&T so I don't care about fetchlands :)
I'd like to have this new format, but I don't believe it will be that much more affordable.It would be less affordable. If you think duals are expensive now, imagine when you need 4 volcanics and 4 Seas instead of 2, 3 tops. Demand would cause a price increase. Even Taiga would be 800+ each.

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[phonics]

I'm pretty sure this was discussed like 100+ pages ago in the bnr thread. But I think the general summary was:

people would initially pack more duals/ non basics to fix correctly, but those would get eaten alive by land hate, since mass duals is a lot more vulnerable if you aren't able to fetch for your safety basic to function. You would most likely want a basic in your opener to prevent you from getting btfo. People will learn fairly quickly that they cant just jam a bunch of duals without consequence. Blood moon becomes blood moon again, wasteland can actually shut you down completely cause you cant just fetch for that color again etc.
so 3/4 color decks become a lot harder to make (4 colors probably impossible, 3 colors as hard as making a 5 color deck now), which is mostly cantrip based decks right now anyways, this is assuming all fetches are banned, they might resort to shitty fetches to get that benefit but it would be a lot worse.
brainstorm and ponder become much worse, cantrip decks no longer get free mulligans, you can't just grab one card off ponder and fetch the rest away as easily. They would all probably move towards preordain.
loam becomes worse, but not nearly as much as cantrip decks
decks that rely on the graveyard as a resource become more challenging because you can no longer count on getting fetches in the yard to delve/escape away

but the real issue is that the format has had this meta of abusing fetchlands for so long, wotc has power creeped the other archetypes quite heavily to make them remain somewhat relevant. So with cantrips becoming much less effective, while those other decks remaining relatively unchanged the format would shift towards non interactive decks. In essence because they tried buffing everything else to keep up with cantrip decks for the past decade, they would depower the format, but there would be decks that dodge that depowering and they would become the new big bad.

[non-inflammable]

I would like it. Fetching and shuffling is annoying and time consuming.

I've been watching almost all MTGO and playing Arena. So... I just watched a camera match and wanted to scream every time someone picked up their deck to shuffle.
I'm 100% on board with nofetch-legacy.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

I would just play needles/spyglass maindeck and name wasteland. Should allow for enough land drops to happen to keep a functional manabase going, provided you make your land drops often enough. It has enough other targets it shouldn't be dead too often, even if the effect is minimal.

Edit: can also surgical the first one to get rid of the issue, and this can allow you to play your own wastelands and surgical their dual if you like as a viable option, too.

[Ronald Deuce]

If you ban fetches, All Spells will run over everybody even harder than it was doing before.

EDIT: And I'd be priced out of playing half my decks.

EDIT again: Why do people keep asking this?

EDIT again again: I'm getting a bit tired of saying basic stuff that people just don't want to hear. London mulligans make A+B and Force decks better, Oko and Wrenn and Six and Gitaxian Probe were fine, wear a mask if you don't want to kill half a million of your own countrymen, etc.

[Wrath of Pie]

Such a format would be incompatible with cards like Wasteland and LED being legal.

[Mr. Safety]

EDIT again: Why do people keep asking this?

^^^The real question.^^^

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Oko and Wrenn and Six and Gitaxian Probe were fine
You don't get to just sneak this one in, lol.

[H]

^^^The real question.^^^

Hypothetical card pools are always better than actual card pools. It's why many people are far more interested in discussing things pre-release (for new cards) or post-ban, since the card pool (and resulting metagame) have uncertain, hypothetical results and outcomes.

Actuality is far less interesting.

[Maximus]

Surprised I didn't see this answer.

Your local legacy scene has 10 players. Cutting fetches / Brainstorm / blue makes 6 of them have shitty decks that are no longer playable. Buying a new deck without them is lolno. The other 4 play lands vs DnT vs blood moon vs all spells for 2-3 hours, realize that's all there is, and then never play again.

I think it would hard kill all the interactive (read: fun) decks and the rest of the format with it.

[Zoid]

Surprised I didn't see this answer.

Your local legacy scene has 10 players. Cutting fetches / Brainstorm / blue makes 6 of them have shitty decks that are no longer playable. Buying a new deck without them is lolno. The other 4 play lands vs DnT vs blood moon vs all spells for 2-3 hours, realize that's all there is, and then never play again.

I think it would hard kill all the interactive (read: fun) decks and the rest of the format with it.

The question is if that's really the case.

The meta game would shift so massively that completely new or ancient decks would be playable.
Everyone would need to readjust.

The price is a general issue with legacy that can only be fixed by playing proxy tournaments.
95% of legacy players couldn't care less if the tournament is sanctioned or not.

I think a lot of people are just tired of the format being delver flavor of the month, combo, and whatever hates on both of them for years now.
If you remember how diverse Legacy was back in the day around 2010, today seems like a barren wasteland.
The rest has just accepted that this is the way the format will be until it's as diverse and unaffordable as Vintage.

[ESG]

I think a lot of people are just tired of the format being delver flavor of the month, combo, and whatever hates on both of them for years now.
If you remember how diverse Legacy was back in the day around 2010, today seems like a barren wasteland.

I have to challenge this. Have a look at the data from the NRG Legacy 2K:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fG1QZwvvoeuhOiLq9D1CWMIe_qxaKQq90MHWdBpz2qQ/edit#gid=0

This is diverse -- certainly not a "barren wasteland." Even if you look at these decks and think they're slightly less diverse than you remember 2010's decks being, is that margin of difference even worth complaining about? Any environment from any time period will always revolve around key decks and strategies. If you were to play 2010 Legacy, you'd have CounterTop instead of Delver, earlier iterations of today's combo decks, and your metagame predator category.

[TsumiBand]

If you remember how diverse Legacy was back in the day around 2010, today seems like a barren wasteland.

Never thought I'd see a day where folks were nostalgic for the "splash for Tarmogoyf" times

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

If you remember how diverse Legacy was back in the day around 2010, today seems like a barren wasteland.

Oh this is when I got into legacy and yeah it was great.

[Reeplcheep]

Basically all the data since the bannings shows a very healthy meta. The percentage of people play delver and uro pile (note that this encompasses like 7 different decks which are all playing very different cards) are high, because fair blue players are going to fair blue no matter what. But fair anti-blue decks are doing very well as they should (elves/lands/d&t) due to blue decks being overplayed. If less people play delver and they start playing fair non-blue, doomsday players will take everyone’s lunch money and the cycle begins anew.

In contrast to before the bannings, where fair non-blue was unplayable, fair blue had 50/60 cards in common, and the only other thing that was viable was degenerate combo or gy decks.

This is partly why astrolabe banning was such a good thing. Rug uro having difficulty splashing plow for marit lage and Bant miracles not easily running plague engineer vs elves means that the top decks have actual weaknesses, keeping the meta healthy.