Legacy 2023 Rewind - All Changes the Format Went Through!

Happy holidays, my dear Legacy friends! This season is always cheery for me, not only because of Christmas and New Years, but because of my own birthday (December 21st). This year, I had another event to celebrate as well: this is my 50th Magic article for Cards Realm!

And what could be better to celebrate this mark than to write a special article about this magical year Legacy had, one of the most celebrated times by everyone who calls themselves a Legacy enthusiast? So, let's head into Doc Brown's DeLorean, go back in time, and review everything that Legacy went through in 2023!

This year started right after The Brothers' War release, a set that, as it turns out, didn't impact Legacy much. Its main additions to this format were Brotherhood's End, Loran of the Third Path, Haywire Mite and Phyrexian Dragon Engine. Though they did bring support to the archetypes they showed up in, none of them inspired or boosted a deck beyond the level of the other existing decks; this honor ended up going to Magic Online.

Though Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate was released in June 2022, its real impact was only truly felt in November of that year, when White Plume Adventurer was released to the game's online platform. In a short amount of time, White Initiative had already spread throughout the format, and earlier this year was already stacking up numbers, conquering events like 1k Laughing Dragon and filling MTGO's Challenges. The White dungeon adventurers peaked to the top of the tiers and challenged UR Delver's dominance, so far the lonely, and incontestable member of Legacy's Tier S.

This month, mama Elesh Norn and Phyrexia: All Will Be One arrived. Just like The Brothers' War, this set brought more tools that conquered their spaces in some decks, like Minor Misstep, Argentum Masticore and Sheoldred's Edict.

But, unlike the previous set, it brought something that impacted Legacy: Atraxa, Grand Unifier! This Phyrexian Angel did something that was considered unthinkable for years - stealing Griselbrand's crown. Playing both in offense and defense, drawing practically the same number of cards without the need to invest health beforehand, and, the most important thing, also serving as fuel to Force of Will, Atraxa became the new face of decks like Reanimator and Sneak n' Show. The fact it is also green made this card appear even in Natural Order decks. Post February 2023, there was and is no way to spell out "big threat" without using A-T-R-A-X-A.

Remember when I said Legacy was on its way to become a 2-deck format? Already in March, that became so evident that Wizards of the Coast realized they'd have to take action. As the only ban in this format in all of 2023, both White Plume Adventurer and Expressive Iteration went to Legacy jail.

The first was the only card to Take the Initiative for just 3 mana, and created very oppressive situations rapidly: it is relatively easy to create 3 mana on turn 1 in this format without compromising your resources, but investing 4 mana is way riskier. As for the second card, it added, for a cheap cost, something that Delver usually couldn't access: card advantage. Though this deck could cycle itself at a fast pace with Brainstorm, Ponder and Dragon's Rage Channeler, this deck didn't have more options to create extra cards, and, therefore, sometimes ended up running out of gas.

These bans weakened the two indisputable strongest decks in the format and opened Legacy to a true myriad of new candidates for "decks to beat", but no archetype was able to showcase the dominance of the previous ones, and ever since then this format has been balanced.

This month, we saw the final chapter of the Elesh Norn saga and her attempt to conquer the Multiverse. Well, just as she was defeated, March of the Machine failed to conquer Legacy.

The main mechanic, Battle, ended up becoming too inefficient for this format, and even its most hyped card, Wrenn and Realmbreaker, couldn't conquer a slot in decks that abuse land interactions.

Complementing the set that didn't interfere a lot with this format, March of the Machine: The Aftermath was released this month, a mini-set with 50 cards that also didn't impact this format much. At this point, many players were testing out different builds because many didn't know how to replace the cards that were banned.

On Delver's side, we saw decks with Reckless Impulse, Third Path Iconoclast, True-name Nemesis or even some that went back years and dug up Tarmogoyf. On Initiative's side, we had Boros versions (some with the original white base, others leaning towards Red), versions with Urza's Saga and/or Wasteland, and versions that more looked like Death & Taxes with Seasoned Dungeoneer. In this vacuum, Reanimator popped up as the most popular deck in this format.

Actually, this month was like drawing in some breath before really delving in deep in the set that would actually change the face of Legacy in 2023.

"One Orc to rule them all, One Orc to find them,

One Orc to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them

In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie."

Just like the two Modern Horizons sets, The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle Earth was released directly to Modern, and due to the experience with the previous sets listed, many expected the J. R. R. Tolkien-inspired set to impact Legacy. The expectation matched reality.

The most hyped card from this set was Orcish Bowmasters and its influence was felt across the entire format. If so far the Delver lists were divided regarding which path to follow, Orcs indicated that the future was Grixis. Again, Delver was at the top of this format. And, again, it wasn't alone.

These Orcs also brought to the head of this format two other Dimir decks - Scam and Shadow - besides finding space in basically any deck capable of creating black mana that wasn't exclusively dedicated to a combo. The massive presence of these archers discouraged using creatures with just one point of resistance. With this, decks like Death & Taxes and Elves were put aside, just like creatures like Elite Spellbinder, Noble Hierarch and Goblin Lackey. This format needed to assimilate their arrival.

But they weren't the only impactful card released. A cycle of common cards brought us the ability to recycle basic lands for just one mana, making it possible to use it in several different ways all at once. The greatest highlight from this cycle was Troll of Khazad-dûm: it corrected your mana, served as fuel to Grief and offered a tasty target to Reanimate without the need of structuring your entire deck around this card, like Reanimator did. Lórien Revealed also became a staple in this format.

Even the most iconic card from this set, The One Ring, showed to be strong enough to not only inspire a deck of its own when combined with Paradox Engine, but also show its face in Control lists and even in other combo decks as a way to hold off a turn while you dug for answers.

One of the most influential cards at this time came, unusually, from one of the Lord of the Rings Commander decks. While there was still debate about which path to follow with Initiative decks, King Théoden of Rohan called upon his knights through Forth Eorlingas! and resolved this dispute: Boros was the way, and summoning X 2/2 Knights was the how.

This absurdly strong spell served to stamp another deck on the top of this format, besides reinforcing Control decks like Jeskai or 4-Color Control, both as a finisher and as a way to get more advantage against other slower decks.

And these were just the strongest cards. We can still list cards like Boromir, Warden of the Tower, Reprieve, Samwise the Stouthearted, The Battle of Bywater, Stern Scolding, Call of the Ring, Cast into the Fire, Delighted Halfling, Sauron’s Ransom and Palantír of Orthanc.

July was the month this format had to absorb, refine and develop decks with the cards listed above. Like I mentioned, Delver heavily migrated to the Grixis version, UB Shadow changed from a marginal deck to the top of the tiers, right away being followed by its counterpart, UB Scam, both fueled by Troll of Khazad-dûm. Boros established itself indeed as the main deck that abused Initiative. And the ring originated a combo deck. But these weren't the only innovations.

Once its main engine was easily preyed by the Orcs, the Elves deck abandoned Glimpse of Nature, keeping the nucleus of Green Sun's Zenith and Natural Order, and originating Cradle Control.

Bant/4-Color Control decks incorporated The One Ring and Delighted Halfling. This latter little card had the double role of both speeding up the game and protecting Teferi, Time Raveler, Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath and the ring itself.

This month, the list of banned cards was changed, but for the first time in a while the change wasn't a ban, but the addition of Mind's Desire, a card that was born already banned in this format, for the first time in Legacy. This card created some talk, but it didn't become the nightmare many expected.

Commander Masters was also released this month, but, unlike other sets focused on MTG's multiplayer format, this one failed to impact Legacy.

What actually impacted Legacy was the release of Creative Technique on Magic Online, which brought this card to the spotlight and boosted another combo deck. This deck, unlike other all-in decks like Goblin Charbelcher or Oops! All Spells, had an inherent resistance against counterspells.

In the year's ninth month, we returned to Eldraine. Though the first time we went through this plane was traumatic to Legacy, with the absurd dominance of Oko, Thief of Crowns, Wilds of Eldraine was a bit more relaxed, though it added three critical cards to this format: Up the Beanstalk, Questing Druid and Beseech the Mirror.

The green enchantment pushed Uro Control decks - 3,4 or 5 color - enough to stand against the leaders of this format at the time. It also popped up in several decks, even in one that used the second card from the list above. Questing Druid revived Temur Delver (Canadian Threshold) in two versions: one very similar to the good old Tempo Aggro with Delver of Secrets, and another more Midrange, with access to Up the Beanstalk. Finally, the black spell above gave an extra gas to Storm decks, besides adding redundancy to Monoblack Combo decks with Leyline of the Void and Helm of Obedience.

There weren't many new highlights in the month right after Eldraine because the release of the Doctor Who Commander decks wasn't very impactful. On the other side, the meta ended up forming itself with 5 decks on top, something practically unseen in Legacy: Temur Aggro, Beanstalk Control, Grixis Delver, Boros Initiative and Dimir Scam.

The second to last month of the year welcomed Lost Caverns of Ixalan, and, even though we got more "worker-cards" (those that work in a deck, but don't lead it) like Dauntless Dismantler and Molten Collapse, once again the star of this set came from the Commander decks: Broadside Bombardiers. This new Goblin breathed new air both into Red Prison and Muxus Golbins, besides eventually appearing in Boros Initiative lists.

Another significant event that happened in November was the first of the 3 Eternal Weekends, huge Legacy tournaments, held in Europe, Japan and the United States. The European tournament was held in Prague on the November 18th-19th weekend, and the Japanese tournament was held in Aichi on the following weekend.

Incredibly, decks boosted by Wilds of Eldraine were the champions of both tournaments. The Prague tournament welcomed 713 players and was won by Julian Jakobovits with the new version of Temur Delver with Questing Druid.

As for the Asian tournament, it welcomed 658 players and Leo Isogaya was champion with a 5-Color Control deck with, from 2023 alone, Orcish Bowmasters, Forth Eorlingas!, Lórien Revealed and Up the Beanstalk!

We've reached the final month of 2023 with an announcement. Actually, a non-announcement: Legacy - No Changes. Reflecting the feeling among players, Wizards understood that there was no need to change anything in this format and banned no cards! Though they will keep a careful eye on Orcish Bowmasters, the Legacy guardians decided that, at this time, the meta can self-regulate.

To close out the year, we had, on December 9th and 10th, the greatest Legacy tournament of the entire year, and one of the biggest ever. The North-American Eternal Weekend tournament, NA Legacy Championship, welcomed the whopping number of 996 players! At the end, we had a very different 4-Color Control version, piloted by TK Strachan, conquering first place through 11 rounds of Swiss and trampling the entire top 8 to get the title!

In a tournament of this size, it is always interesting to keep an eye out for new trends that might pop up. A deck that went well, and sent 2 players to top 8, was the Boros/Rakdos version of the Painter's Servant Grindstone combo.

Finally, there is a deck that stood out to me in this top 8. Uncertain about which was the best version, Grixis or Temur, DoomBot KGB mixed both and played a 4-Color Aggro!

With this, we conclude this deep dive into 2023. It was an incredible year for Legacy - it started out stressful in a spiral of two decks, but ended up becoming the most balanced format I can remember. It ends with an event of almost 1000 players. It ends with space for the more competitive decks and pet decks. And it promises that next year will be even cooler.

Greetings straight from 2024, happy holidays, and see you next time!