Legacy: 2024 Meta Review

Greetings, Legacy friends! 2024 is ending soon. December is my favorite month - me and my dog, Snow, have birthdays in December, there's Christmas, New Years, and, obviously, our annual review!

2024 has been a rollercoaster of emotions for Legacy, including very recently, when Wizards of the Coast updated their banlist on December 16th. So, let's go through what this soon-to-be "last year" has brought us, all while we wait for its final chapters to unfold.

2024 was full of plot twists, but it actually started out pretty slow. January didn't bring us any great releases, just Ravnica Remastered - and Legacy didn't get any new cards then. Because the December 2023 banlist didn't ban anything in this format, the meta stabilized slowly in January after Lost Caverns of Ixalan came out in November. The most relevant card from this set for this format was Broadside Bombardiers, which became essential in Red Prison. It also showed up in decks like Boros Initiative and Boros Death & Taxes.

At the time, Legacy was dominated by two Delvers - Grixis and Temur - and Muxus Goblins. Decks like Red Stompy, Dimir Scam, and, pay attention, Dimir Reanimator were slowly becoming more powerful and popular. The most important Magic Online tournament, MTGO Showcase Challenge, was won by a Temur Delver.

In February, we got the first big release of the year: Murders at Karlov Manor, which engulfed MTG with an air of mystery and investigation. This set, at first, seemed to impact Legacy very little. Doorkeeper Thrull was, straight away, the most obvious card for the format.

Big mistake. I confess that, if I wanted to list all my biggest prediction mistakes regarding how certain cards would impact Legacy, I would need to list my predictions about Surveil Lands (Underground Mortuary, Thundering Falls, Meticulous Archive, etc). I severely underestimated their impact, and that was a grave error. Everyone took for granted that lands that come into play tapped didn't have space in a format as efficient as Legacy - "Just look at how Theros' Temples, (Temple of Triumph, Temple of Deceit, etc) never saw play!", everyone said.

However, because Surveil lands have basic land types, when players added these Karlov lands to their decks, they realized they could now create even more value with fetch lands. This way, drawing Surveil lands early on, which was a great disadvantage, wasn't as bad because you could also get them whenever you wanted. Furthermore, when you sacrificed a fetch land to improve future draws, you would not only remove a land from your deck, but also filter your next draw with your Surveil land.

In the following month, Fallout was introduced to MTG in another Universes Beyond set, which was controversial because, among many other reasons, it wasn't released to Magic Online at the same time (only months afterward). If this set had nothing for Legacy, we could simply ignore how this created a rift between the virtual format and the physical format.

However, there were multiple relevant cards in this set, most importantly Pre-War Formalwear, which became a key piece in decks with Stoneforge Mystic.

Furthermore, cards like Curie, Emergent Intelligence, Radstorm, Wild Wasteland, and enemy colored filter lands (Sunscorched Divide) weren't explored enough - they could see a lot of play, but they weren't available online, so they didn't. We had seen the difference this makes before; a card like White Plume Adventurer only really became popular (and was thereafter banned) months after it was released. More specifically, only after it became available on Magic Online.

Another relevant detail was that Legacy dodged the March banlist update.

Howdy! April led us to the Wild West, more specifically to Outlaws of Thunder Junction. Standard-focused sets usually don't bring much to Legacy, but Outlaws did bring us a few toys we enjoyed very much.

The greatest highlights were Simulacrum Synthesizer, which instantly made its way to 8-Cast; Stingerback Terror, which was custom-made for Red Stompy (though it lost space when we started using The One Ring in it); Bristly Bill, Spine Sower, which showed up in decks with Green Sun's Zenith when a certain bird came along in June; Pest Control, which was a great removal for Esper decks; Satoru, the Infiltrator, which saw play in Dimir Ninjas; and Lavaspur Boots, which was lethal with Urza's Saga.

In May, Wizards of the Coast obliterated one of the most important decks in the format in a very unusual way: they simply banned all cards that interact with Stickers or Attractions from Legacy and Vintage.

The official reason behind this decision were the logistics involved with setting up a secondary deck with Stickers and Attractions, particularly when your opponent copied cards with this mechanic. To copy a Sticker, for instance, you needed to present a Sticker deck early on, even if you didn't play any cards with this mechanic yourself.

However, the culprit behind this issue was _____ Goblin, the key card behind Muxus Goblin's success. And, like so, the meta was hit pretty heavily, completely by surprise, just before the greatest hit of the year.

History always repeats itself, and that also happened in June: Modern Horizons 1 and 2 shook Legacy. Many cards from both of these sets became the most powerful cards of the format, not to mention the ones that were banned (Arcum's Astrolabe, Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, and another we'll discuss soon). Third time is the charm, right?

Yeah, no! Modern Horizons 3 skyrocketed Legacy's power level, and drastically changed the meta. Psychic Frog became one of the strongest cards in the format, and made the already powerful Reanimator even stronger. It was already the strongest deck in the format because of Grief, and, with Psychic Frog, it became unstoppable.

This card also practically removed red from tempo lists entirely because Lightning Bolt became an outdated removal. This basically pushed out Grixis and Temur Delver from the format. Aggressive blue tempo lists basically became Dimir lists.

Magic: The Gathering's most beloved (yeah, right) bird. Nadu managed to be even more broken in Legacy than Modern because of Nomads en-Kor and Shuko, which are available in this format. Nonetheless, Legacy managed to remain more diverse than Modern because there are more answers in this format, and Reanimator, with Psychic Frog, was even more powerful than Nadu.

In Legacy, Nadu found a home in Cephalid Breakfast, Elves, and also originated a Bant version that doesn't use it as a combo piece, but as a massive value engine. This doesn't change the fact that it extends game time and makes matches look like solitary. It was banned from Modern, Commander, and, by all accounts, it's only a matter of time until it is banned from Legacy too.

As Eldrazis were one of the mechanics MH3 promoted, unsurprisingly, they thrived at this time. And how they thrived! Eldrazi Aggro came out from the hole it was hiding in, abandoned nearly all its original Eldrazis, and became one of the main aggro decks in the format. However, two of its key cards, Glaring Fleshraker and Kozilek's Command, also started seeing play in one of the most lethal combo decks back then: Mystic Forge combo.

When I reviewed Modern Horizons 3, I named Bauble as the most broken card from this set for Legacy. Ok, Frog ended up losing this title to Bauble (depending on who you ask, it was Nadu who earned that title), but it was still very impactful: for just 1 mana, it disabled one of the most critical mechanics in the format, and, unlike other lock pieces, you could also swap it for another card when it wasn't relevant.

It could both be an anti-combo tool (have you ever tried playing Storm with Bauble on the board?) and a pro-combo tool, as it dealt with most counterspells in this format (Force of Will, Daze, and Force of Negation).

Besides the cards above, an entirely different group of cards impacted Legacy as well. The new MDFC batch (Sink into Stupor, Sundering Eruption, and similar) let us build decks in new ways. As this isn't an MH3 review, this is where I'll stop - we still have to go through half of 2024, after all!

Compared to June, July was a bit uneventful. The only relevant moment was when Universes Beyond: Assassin's Creed came out. This set didn't impact Legacy much. Only Yggdrasil, Rebirth Engine started seeing play in Show and Tell decks, and very sporadically.

In August, Bloomburrow came out. It was practically ignored in Legacy, except for maybe Into the Flood Maw.

The main change back then was the very predictable Grief ban. What wasn't as predictable was the fact that only this card was banned, and, as the next round of bans was scheduled for December, Legacy was doomed to a few more months of Psychic Frog.

Another month, another new set (have you lost count already? I have). Inspired by horror flicks, Duskmourn: House of Horror came along in September. Once again, this set didn't impact Legacy much because its power level was designed around Standard, but a few cards from this set also saw play in this format:

October didn't bring us any big releases, but there was the first Eternal Weekend in Japan. The Eternal Weekend is the biggest Legacy tournament of the year; a total of 614 players attended this event, and it was won by a Red Stompy player. However, 4 other decks in the top 8 included Psychic Frog - 3 Frognator and 1 Sultai Beans. The rest of the top 8 were 2 Eldrazi Aggro and 1 Cephalid Breakfast.

Foundations came out in November. It is supposed to be a base for Standard for the next few years, so, unsurprisingly, it didn't impact Legacy.

The most significant addition stood out at the second Eternal Weekend, which happened in the United States with 1155 players! Impressive! Even more impressive was the fact that 3 Mystic Forge decks conquered the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place in the overall ranking, and one of them won the whole tournament.

Other decks in the top 8 were Nadu Elves (2nd place), Cephalid Breakfast, Painter, Boros Death & Taxes, and Frognator.

The last month of the year started with the third Eternal Weekend, in Prague, Europe. Forge dominated the United States Eternal Weekend, but it was Nadu, Winged Wisdom who dominated the European event. The winner of this event (which was attended by 832 players) brought Cephalid Breakfast. The runner-up was playing Esper Control (but with Psychic Frog!).

The other decks in the top 8 were 2 Nadu Elves, 2 Frognator, 1 Storm, and 1 Stiflenought (also with Psychic Frog!).

The last thing that happened in 2024 was the December 16th ban announcement, which I discussed in my last article. My original prediction was that Wizards of the Coast would be lazy and only ban Psychic Frog, but they surprised me and banned Vexing Bauble as well. Unfortunately, they didn't go all the way and reformed the format entirely by banning Nadu, Winged Wisdom too.

Apparently, we'll still see this problematic bird for a few more months, but, right now, the format is still adapting to these changes!

Legacy started out 2024 quite balanced, and many decks competed at a higher level back then - even though Reanimator eventually conquered more space because of what Grief + Reanimate did in this format. However, when MH3 came along, everything changed. Grief was soon banned, but was replaced by another tyrant - Psychic Frog.

If we compare the 2023 Eternal Weekend with the 2024 Eternal Weekend and check which were the most popular decks in both years, we can clearly see that Legacy flattened under MH3. We'll just have to wait and see if the next changes will diversify this format or just shift control from one tyrant to the next.

In any case, despite everything, Legacy is still strong, and the community is still its greatest triumph.

What about you? What did you think of 2024? Tell us your thoughts in our comment section below!

Thank you for reading!

Happy New Years, and see you next time!