Do you enjoy the current state of legacy?

[from Cairo]

I picked "it's ok"

I don't feel that excited about Legacy at the moment. Feels like "tiers" are sort of established, there's still room for 20ish random decks to spike an event. Nothing has really shaken things up like the Delve cards did. I imagine Fatal Push will put up some results and the recent-ish printings of Leovold, Recruiter/Prelate, Nissa (and probably a few others I'm not thinking of) have boosted some established decks. I'm happy enough playing in this metagame, but would not be opposed to seeing some shake ups.

[btm10]

OP should clarify the context. What kind of state, the financial state or the meta-game state? I would imagine OP's referring to the meta, not the reserved-list availability aspect of Legacy.

While I get what you're saying, those two factors are inextricably linked.

I picked "it's ok"

I don't feel that excited about Legacy at the moment. Feels like "tiers" are sort of established, there's still room for 20ish random decks to spike an event. Nothing has really shaken things up like the Delve cards did. I imagine Fatal Push will put up some results and the recent-ish printings of Leovold, Recruiter/Prelate, Nissa (and probably a few others I'm not thinking of) have boosted some established decks. I'm happy enough playing in this metagame, but would not be opposed to seeing some shake ups.

I basically share this feeling. I'd be up for just about any nonland card getting banned or unbanned just to shake the meta up, but I have a lot of advantages over other players that allow me to change decks easily if something happens to one that I like.

[Megadeus]

The Treasure Cruise/Dig Through Time era had a streamlining effect on the format in that it made people realize how powerful the consistency of the blue cantrip shell really was.

I agree with this. The delve cards were when I started disliking the format for this exact reason. It homogenized decks far too much.

[square_two]

It feels stale to me. Ok, but stale. The "new" Leovold deck doesn't really seem that different, despite using 2 of a new card.

I was watching Romariovidal on twitch last night, having a hilarious time playing Legacy Birds (this list). A friend on the stream mentioned how inbred the meta seems, and legacy in general. This deck with crappy removal, anthems, and tokens, seemed like a breath of fresh air and I stayed up for multiple hours despite tiredness and a headache because of how great it was. Even went 6-1 in league matches with it before he called it a night.

[maharis]

I wish there was an "it's complicated" option. I'd rather play Legacy than any other format or no magic at all, and I value getting a midweek reprieve from work and stuff more than I really care about winning.

But there really is nothing like playing at big, competitive tournaments, and for Legacy right now it just seems like your legitimate options for doing well at one are very narrow.

I agree with much of what's been said in this thread. This format desperately needs a major banned list update, multiple cards going on and off. Deckbuilding is too on rails at the moment and I think that's what's bothering people the most.

[ironclad8690]

I also picked "It's ok".

The period between 2009-2012 was my favorite because things were pretty constantly changing, and a very wide range of fair decks were possible (even outside of the "blue shell"). Since 2013, the developments have been relatively few and far between. We had the delve era and the onset of eldrazi, a couple new combo decks popped up, but mostly the same cast.

[Stuart]

I wish there was an "it's complicated" option. I'd rather play Legacy than any other format or no magic at all, and I value getting a midweek reprieve from work and stuff more than I really care about winning.

But there really is nothing like playing at big, competitive tournaments, and for Legacy right now it just seems like your legitimate options for doing well at one are very narrow.

I agree with much of what's been said in this thread. This format desperately needs a major banned list update, multiple cards going on and off. Deckbuilding is too on rails at the moment and I think that's what's bothering people the most.

This sums up my feelings completely. I'm always happy to go play Thursday night Legacy, and prefer it to every other format, but I'd like to see some shakeups via bannings, unbannings, and new printings (as long as those printings aren't more prisony creatures like Sanctum Prelate or Leovold).

[Jonathan Alexander]

Feel free to yell at me for this, but if you dislike creature power creep and miss diversity and brews, you should try out Pauper. It has many of the things people seem to look for in Legacy plus it doesn't have that stupid 1k USD pricetag for every deck.

[raudo]

Survival of the Fittest banned while Show and Tell is not just force me to say "it's okay". I think Survival was the favourite deck for many people and banning non-blue power cards is just plain stupid while keeping blue unharmed.

[Asthereal]

I voted "It's okay". It's still the coolest format, but they did their sweet best to cock it up. I mean: printing Emrakul, Delver, Treasure Cruise and Griselbrand... Really? It didn't take a genius to see that those were going to be a problem. And just when they printed a solution for a format that was getting too fast and overpowered, they banned it because eveybody was playing it. Yeah, what did you expect? The card didn't cost mana to cast, so everybody actually could play it. Their second reason was even worse: there were even more decks playing blue than before the printing of Misstep. But they never gave the format time to adapt to that fact. Besides, they of course completely ignored the fact that Delver was a much bigger reason for the abundance of blue in that time.

After the Alara block, only one good thing happened in Legacy: the printing of Liliana of the Veil. Everything else just made things worse.

[Spam]

The format it's quite enjoyable at the moment. You have a good amount of choice between decks and the games are quite fun. Sure, you might smash into a T1 kill or a chalice, but it's part of the game. To be fair, I'm enjoying it that much that I've finally dumped my modern deck forever.

Enviado desde mi Moto G (4) mediante Tapatalk

[sco0ter]

I feel like Legacy has become less interactive and therefore less fun.

Nowadays there are so many strategies, which are hard to stop or at least to interact with or just have the "I win"-button.

Turn 2: Show and Tell, Emrakul
Recurring Thespian's Stage + Dark Depths
Turn 1: Reanimate, Griselbrand
Dredge
Elves Combo

There are still the slower fair/good stuff decks, but I feel their number has decreased.

I miss the days when Survival was still legal.... Goblins, Landstill, High Tide, Survival, Threshold, Zoo. When you played
decks which actually led you play the game at least for a few turns (except Belcher) and relatively slowly advanced to the win, instead of winning in one attack phase with Emrakul or Marit Lage in the early turns.

[Megadeus]

I voted "It's okay". It's still the coolest format, but they did their sweet best to cock it up. I mean: printing Emrakul, Delver, Treasure Cruise and Griselbrand... Really? It didn't take a genius to see that those were going to be a problem. And just when they printed a solution for a format that was getting too fast and overpowered, they banned it because eveybody was playing it. Yeah, what did you expect? The card didn't cost mana to cast, so everybody actually could play it. Their second reason was even worse: there were even more decks playing blue than before the printing of Misstep. But they never gave the format time to adapt to that fact. Besides, they of course completely ignored the fact that Delver was a much bigger reason for the abundance of blue in that time.

After the Alara block, only one good thing happened in Legacy: the printing of Liliana of the Veil. Everything else just made things worse.

I never played legacy with misstep, but I've played it in vintage. It's fucking miserable.

[Lemnear]

The format is going downhill since Innistrad.

Just look what happened there and afterwards: Delver, DRS, Terminus, Entreat, TNN, Griselbrand, Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time, Decay, Eldrazi, snapcaster mage, etc.

[sco0ter]

The format is going downhill since Innistrad.

Just look what happened there and afterwards: Delver, DRS, Terminus, Entreat, TNN, Griselbrand, Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time, Decay, Eldrazi, snapcaster mage, etc.

QFT!

Or let's just start one set before, New Phyrexia. Phyrexian Mana was a mistake as well.

[mistercakes]

i listed that the format is great. there's still a variety of decks to play and each time i go to a tournament, i am still surprised at the diversity in my matchups. counterbalance/abrupt decay is generally a problem for me, but other than that i'm quite happy with the format.

i'm also glad that there are other ways to deal with these cards/decks! i'm not a delver, miracles, s&t or eldrazi player out of spite.

i think just the fact that there are this many decks that you can show up with is great, even if many of them are blue based. i've played in many tournaments and there are many times where i dodge a lot of the mainstream decks and play vs tier 2 decks all day long.

i'm guessing this depends on how spikey your local meta is. i can see having a different opinion if i showed up each week and there were 3 miracles players out of 8.

[Zombie]

Feel free to yell at me for this, but if you dislike creature power creep and miss diversity and brews, you should try out Pauper. It has many of the things people seem to look for in Legacy plus it doesn't have that stupid 1k USD pricetag for every deck.

Been playing Pauper a lot lately and it's fun as hell. The only thing I miss is being able to play an actually good combo deck since they all seem to accrue insane amounts of whining and get banned.

But apart from that, it's really fun. There's no cantrip cartel, you actually get to play. The format's a ton about eking out value, playing interactive magic without humongous haymakers or Planeswalkers and coming out ahead. Plus how can I lie, Capsize-locking people after drowning them in hardcast Mulldrifters is as fun as it is evil.

Seriously. It's a format where Mulldrifter is the best card that's gotten away with murder and is somehow still legal. That can't be an entirely bad thing.

After the Alara block, only one good thing happened in Legacy: the printing of Liliana of the Veil. Everything else just made things worse.

As an Elves player, I liked the printing of Deathrite and Decay.

[Crimhead]

I would be interested to see what people see in this meta that we currently have that makes it so great to them.

First off, I was not a big fan of the Thresh, Maverick, Stoneblade era. The meta was too heavy with fair decks; and too many of those decks were just good-stuff.

I like Legacy now because it feels more diverse (to me). Looking at our DTB, we have:

• One fast combo deck
• One classic "hard control" deck
• One midrange value deck
• One big-mana stompy deck
• One aggressive tempo deck
• One weenie-prison deck.

We have six decks with radically different play-styles, each one running a distintive set of threats and answers. Looking back, it's hard to find another time when the top decks were this different in terms of play-styles, threats, and answers.

Even looking to the next tier, the second best decks include UB Reanimator, Sneak Show, Pyromancer, Lands, Elves, Aggro Loam, Burn, and maybe a couple others? These decks add a lot of variety too.

The format is fine, the problem is, there aren't many new things happening. Sure, someone may have some spicy brew, but it's almost assuredly something that has been done before and is simply being revisited. Everything has been done and wizards isn't printing cards that are both good enough and interesting enough to better the format.

Eldrazi was the most "different" thing to happen but it isn't exactly attacking the format in a way that hasn't been done before (or at least, in a dramatically new fashion)

I have to disagree. Eldrazi is quite a bit different than MUD; but more importantly the meta now has a tier one Stompy deck, which is quite a big difference.

Then there is the new Reanimator shell. Two new tier-one decks in a single year seems like a lot to me.

and here just my 2 cents on the topic:
In my specific case i think it began with the Eldrazi entering the arena, with tons of chalice decks, Loam-lock decks, Miracles still at the top and so on i think the Meta got "controllier" than before and lots of the more dynamic decks disappered. Its not as if i wasnt able to beat those strategies, but many of the currently well doing decks feel to me as if if they were just trying to slam as many lock pieces as possible and hope that they eventually will get there. The latest episode in the game of hatebears was adding Leovold to BUG... and this is the only thing that really changed over the course of recent legacy history, hatebears and stompy decks were added, thats it

Funny, but I feel the opposite! If anything, the control decks are more aggressive now than in the earlier days.

Used to be decks like Enchantress, Pox, or Geddon Stax were a lot more competitive. But those creature decks keep getting better and better, while pure prison is left in their dust! Nowadays the best "prison" decks need to be loaded with speedy threats (D&T or Eldrazi), or include a fast combo which can end a game out of nowhere (Lands).

That said the format is still incredibly fun and diverse - at least from the perspective of a Lands player where I find great strategic variety from one match to the next. Also I play a lot of RUG Lands - and while it doesn't put up significant numbers I find the deck powerful, well positioned, and (for the most part) a hard-control prison deck.

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

I have to disagree. Eldrazi is quite a bit different than MUD; but more importantly the meta now has a tier one Stompy deck, which is quite a big difference.

Then there is the new Reanimator shell. Two new tier-one decks in a single year seems like a lot to me.

Eh, both can be boiled down to "play lock piece, beat face", and while MUD can go for a more prison oriented game, they play out similarly.

Aggressive Griselbrand with disruption, I've seen that a couple of times.

Do agree people are looking at 2012 with rose colored glasses, remember RUG playing Counterbalance as the sideboard plan for the mirror?

[Dice_Box]

Legacy today is very Xerox like in nature. I expect to see the same thing happening from the same cards who have all taken up a larger and larger meta share. Am I looking at the past with Sunglasses of Urza? No, I don't feel like I am.