Introduction - About the August 10th UpdateGreetings, Legacy (and Vintage) community! Once again, Wizards of the Coast released a banlist update, and, once again, Legacy was hit. In an article with zero explanations besides "tomorrow we'll tell you our reasons in a live broadcast," WotC decided that the short time The Fantasticar spent in Legacy and Vintage has come to an end. I mean, you can still play this card in Vintage, but only 1 copy in each deck.We can't say this was a surprising call, but at least in regard to Legacy, it wasn't a guaranteed decision. Let's discuss this format first and then talk a little bit about Vintage.Dreaming About What's Yet to ComeAs we mentioned above, WotC didn't write a long, detailed article explaining why they made this decision, like they usually do. Fortunately, a few sharp-eyed members of the community realized they released a few lines regarding this subject on their Japanese website. After some free-form translation, here is what we got:"Cards from supplemental sets that perform well in Legacy aren't necessarily a problem. However, cards that heavily impact this format often go beyond what's acceptable, regardless of which product they came from. We're constantly working to improve how MTG cards are designed, and recently we introduced a new step in this process to take care of formats without rotations. We feel confident in this new approach, which we introduced after The Fantasticar's development cycle, and we hope that we can anticipate these types of risks in Eternal formats in the future."These few lines are incredibly relevant because formats like Legacy and Vintage have been affected by cards that weren't designed with them in mind quite often recently. One extra testing phase could have prevented cards like Nadu, Winged Wisdom, Vexing Bauble, and, more recently, The Fantasticar from being so destructive in their final forms.If, indeed, Marvel Super Heroes was the straw that broke the camel's back and kickstarted these changes, let's pray that they lead these Eternal formats to a healthier future, and I include even Modern in that. I confess I'm still hesitant about this move, but I believe we can grant WotC the benefit of the doubt and see if something will actually change from here on out.A Car For You, A Car For You, A Car For Everybody!Ok, but what about the ban itself? What did WotC have to say, and was it actually time for the Fantastic 4 Car to leave? Well, considering the original Japanese article (translated), here is what we have:"The first time The Fantasticar was presented, it immediately stood out to the community. This card, so cheap and tremendously explosive, works really well with many tools that have already found their place in Legacy. We're often careful about taking proactive action against certain cards in Eternal formats. We offer a variety of tools to answer specific strategies. To many players, the appeal of Eternal formats is how powerful they are.""However, The Fantasticar found a place in so many different strategies that it proved almost impossible to deal with only a certain number of countermeasure cards. The fact that The Fantasticar performed well in decks centered around combos, blue decks that lean towards fair, and colorless artifact decks shows that there is no universal "counter" for this card. We confirmed The Fantasticar showed up in over 10 archetypes, and we're extremely worried about it."It was precisely the fact that so many different archetypes started looking the same and playing around the same card that worried us here, at Cards Realm, and we considered its main problem. This was particularly true in its first days in Legacy, when it took the format by assault in many, many different decks. In those first few days, I'd say this card was doomed to be banned at the first opportunity.But, with time, other decks started to adapt to The Fantasticar and it became a bit less powerful. I could argue that Legacy was finding balance again, but please note that this was happening after lots of adjustments. Cards that mostly saw play in sideboards found their way into main decks so that we could have a better chance to deal with a horde of Flying Vehicles with Haste.At this point, there were enough reasons for its defenders and its accusers to justify its presence in this format and to condemn it.At the end of the day, Wizards of the Coast decided that this card was a judgment error and decided to remove it from circulation. The timing was great, as Legacy can now adapt to its departure and the arrival of the new The Hobbit cards, particularly Bilbo, Thief in the Night. Like so, the Eternal Weekends, the biggest Legacy tournaments of the year, won't be affected so severely.What Does This Ban Mean for Legacy?So, how will this ban impact Legacy? For most decks that had found a place for this card as an alternative game plan, life moves on. Decks like Doomsday and Mystic Forge will move on without this reliable plan B. As for decks that centered around this card and used it as the main way to win, like Uber, they'll have to say goodbye alongside it.Some decks, like Azorius Pup and Monowhite Initiative, which used to prey on The Fantasticar, will lose some space. Particularly, some cards that started seeing a lot of play recently, like Trinisphere, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, and Stifle, will become a bit less useful (and should show up a lot less).Overall, Legacy was somewhat balanced before The Fantasticar came along, and, though Bilbo, Thief in the Night is close, there is no sign it won't stay balanced now that the Car is gone. We'll only need some time to understand what the next competitors are.The Car in the WorkshopThough in Legacy we weren't yet certain whether The Fantasticar would stay or not, in Vintage its days were counted from the moment it was released. Vintage was, surprisingly, a pretty balanced format before this card came out, but then it entered the pool and threw this format into absolute chaos.The fact we could easily activate it in Mishra's Workshop lists completely destroyed the power balance between each archetype, and the meta was thrown upside down overnight. Decks that couldn't use this card suddenly saw themselves at a big disadvantage, and even the tools players could use weren't able to put this format back into its previous balanced state. Today's announcement was just a formality.According to the Japanese article:"We hope that this restriction prevents The Fantasticar from seeing play in all decks. Some decks will probably still use it, but building a deck centered around it will be a lot more difficult. We hope this move puts Vintage in the path it was before, which we considered very healthy. It was a rough summer, but we're anxious to see what happens at the next Eternal Weekend."Final WordsThe Fantasticar proved to be a bigger problem than it seemed when it was released in Legacy. And it wasn't even the most absurd strategy you could play in this format. But it was an absurd strategy that everyone was playing.When everyone is super, no one is, and that's what this card did to this format. I even understand that its strong first impression had been subdued, but this cost a lot more than some lists could afford and distorted them. Honestly, I believe Legacy has a lot more to gain from its departure than from its stay.As for Vintage, goodbye for good, The Fantasticar!What do you think? Tell us your thoughts in our comment section below.Thank you for reading, and see you next time!
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