Legacy: 10 Staples that vanished from the format

Hey guys, this time it won't be Deck Tech, let's go with the list!

In an Eternal format, it's difficult for a card to stay on top, as with each set release, there is the possibility of it becoming obsolete with new interactions or the famous power creep (cards that are simply stronger than older similar ones). In addition, some cards are collateral bans victims that strip their better half of the format and leave them with no place to see play.

So, here we go, a top 10 of cards that were once Legacy staples, but now they're having an ungrateful wait on the bench.

Back in the far, faraway beginnings of Legacy, there was an aggro deck with almost no disruption, but that competed head-on with the various blue decks of the time: Zoo!

Its core was such an absurd beast that it was even banned in Modern for a while: a one mana 3/3! Allied with Kird Ape and another member of that list, Wild Nacatl has long maintained Naya Zoo as a valid option. But it was a “fair” deck, and Legacy became increasingly “unfair”.

Thus, aggressive decks had to adapt and carry more tools to combat the absurdities of the format, such as discard or counterspells, and with that, the kitty lost space and the good old Zoo ended up disappearing.

Delve is one of the most absurd mechanics ever released, and pretty much anything with this ability is likely to be in Legacy.

This big fish, which was a constant fixture in the Dimir and Grixis lists as a giant 1-mana threat, still occasionally appears in the Death's Shadow decks, but was eclipsed precisely by another card featuring Delve, Murktide Regent, and now only swims in the deepest waters of the Metagame.

It hits, flies, hit the board at the end of turn and breaks your opponent's hand, Vendilion Clique even pays for Force of Will!

For years, Clique was the complete attack and defense package in the right color, despite its fragile body.

Against Control, it was easy to hit at the end of the turn, gain information about the opponent's hand and still get rid of a problematic card. Against Combo, if cast at the proper time, it broke the opponent's play, even because it usually came with a counterspell backup. And against Aggro, well, it wasn't that good, but could trade during a combat.

But three mana is a lot to ask for in Legacy and as the format became more loaded with new options, this trio of fairies ended up becoming less efficient in what it offered and ended up disappearing from circulation.

The last deck to challenge Delver's dominance in Legacy head-on, UW(r) Miracles used this card as its finisher, Entreat still continued to see play in some versions after the Sensei's Divining Top ban, as its alternative cost could still be prepared with Brainstorm, Jace, the Mind Sculptor or Portent.

But more efficient and less useless options in the early stages of the game began to emerge, such as Monastery Mentor, Shark Typhoon, Hullbreacher or The Wandering Emperor, and with that, players no longer rely on a miracle to win games!

The little Progenitus ushered in a new era in Legacy: cards created for Commander that now affect the Eternal format. TNN was a nightmare for many decks that didn't have a proper way to deal with a creature with effectively protection from everything, and 3 damage with backup counters turned out to be a fatal clock for a long time.

But, as with Vendilion Clique, the format became more efficient, and the package offered by TNN's 3 mana ended up proving ineffective for most situations, partly also because it stopped being as immortal as it once was, with that, its space was becoming limited. It even recently won a Legacy Challenge on MTGO in a Jeskai Delver, but it's nowhere near the staple it used to be.

In a remote age, dominated by an as yet unbanned one-mana Planeswalker, Deathrite Shaman, the most popular format removal was this Golgari beauty. It killed creatures, ignored FoWs, and ran over Top-Balance!

But where is this card today? Within its own color, it ended up being replaced by the more versatile Assassin's Trophy, the meta started to play threats immune to its effect, the decrease on the presence of [spoiler - #02 on the list] made it less necessary, the end of the aforementioned DRS ended up taking green as one of the preferred colors to ally with blue and finally, new options began to appear in other colors, culminating in the all-powerful Prismatic Ending.

Delver before Delver of Secrets was a Temur deck known as Canadian Threshold that ended leveling up with the release of a certain green creature and, of course, Delver himself. And so, it became a bit of a consensus that Green was the right color to pair to play it.

Decay and DRS ended up putting Red aside and started the realm of BUG Delver (pun intended). But then Izzet Delver gained traction and space. The reason? Young Pyromancer.

Without having to cripple mana base, the deck gained a 2 mana threat with high synergy with its alt cost cards, generating tokens to attack or block while allowing the deck to stay focused on just two colors.

However, what happened? The poor rookie wizard ended up being overshadowed by new releases. Not to mention the banned Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, Young Pyromancer struggles to compete with Dragon's Rage Channeler and Murktide Regent and even Ledger Shredder.

Bob is a card with a special place in my heart, he won me very important things in my career. And it was, for a long time, an essential card in Legacy, where card advantage has to be combined with efficiency to see play.

But, as in the examples above, he also ended up losing ground to more efficient things, in addition to becoming a risk in aggressive games when revealing a Delve spell or even Force of Will.

The fragile body in a format where more and more removal is important and the lack of a home to shine ended up sending one of the most cherished cards to come from an Invitational to the locker room.

As I said earlier, since Delver's release, only once has a deck been able to contest its title of Metagame King, UW(r) Miracles.

Based on the interplay between Sensei's Divining Top and Counterbalance and the ability to abuse Miracle's mechanics, this deck dominated the format for quite some time. And then Top was banned. The shell has remained and adapted to many other decks, but Counterbalance's fate was sealed that day.

Some hopeful souls still try to make this powerful incantation work, but without its soulmate, Balance was never again the force capable of shaking the format.

What motivated me to write this article was a post about the increasing presence of Pyroblast/Red Elemental Blast in the main decks of Legacy. This article contained a chart with the percentage of cards present over the years and what caught my attention, in addition to the 17.5% of red cards, was the fact that Tarmogoyf disappeared from the tables in 2022!

A card present in 35.7% of decks in 2011, Goyf has always been the standard against which all creatures with an attack role were compared. That was reason enough to have Tropical Island in your deck. Then it just disappeared due to power creep!

All those reanimate targets (Iona, Shield of Emeria, Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur, Empyrial Archangel, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, among others) that have been replaced by Griselbrand.

Delver still sees play, but its dominance has finally been threatened. First by Ragavan, along with Channeler, saw Delver decks reduce their title card. And recently, a bunch of Izzet decks have adopted Ledger Shredder, and it's basically Delver without Delver. This deck still hasn't overthrown the use of one of the most iconic one-drops ever, but are its days numbered?

I hope you enjoyed this different article! See you next time!