Written by Zac Clark
If I let the magical time of year that is the Banned and Restricted (BnR) season pass without addressing the many possible opportunities it offers, I'd fail the Legacy community and myself.
It's obvious to most that Legacy’s power has steadily increased beyond comfort. The format needs resetting. That can be achieved by banning multiple cards to restore format health.
I won't mince words: Sowing Mycospawn and Entomb should be banned. You’ve heard, read, and experienced why but I'll explain further my rationale for both and more below.
Entomb
The efficiency and compactness of the Reanimator package can be included without sufficient opportunity cost. Ten cards — four Entomb, four Reanimate, and two targets — typically Archon of Cruelty and Atraxa, Grand Unifier, though Griselbrand and Valgavoth, Terror Eater are common options as well — allow any other 50 maindeck cards to provide alternate plans. The enabler of that efficient, compact package is Entomb.
Reanimator has hovered as an S-Tier strategy for over a year. Play Design has taken glancing blows to reign it in by banning Grief and, later, Psychic Frog, but the result has been the same: Reanimator shakes it off, plugs the hole, and continues to dominate atop the meta.
Without Entomb, Reanimator can still meaningfully exist, whether relying on Troll of Khazad-Dûm, which is much less resilient and valuable than the aforementioned targets, or by having to commit more to the Reanimator strategy by playing cards like Careful Study and/or Faithless Looting, offsetting the ease with which a tempo or midrange strategy can simply add combo package.
Sowing Mycospawn
Sowing Mycospawn is ostensibly a 3/3 double Stone Rain that can't be reasonably interacted. While a kicked Sowing Mycospawn on paper costs 4GG, in a world or sol lands and fast mana, it is commonly a three-drop, sometimes a two-drop. Let us also not forget that it exile Basic Lands, literal blasphemy.
What Else Should Go?
While Entomb and Sowing Mycospawn must go, Legacy needs more attention. Banning only those two cards tourniquets the traumatized lacerations but Legacy's wounds go deeper.
Next is a list of cards that should be banned from Legacy to balance away from the 50% combo haven it's been for two years. Doing so would allow for more interaction, innovation, and brewing.
The cards mentioned below must be banned together. There is no half measure. If one goes, they should all go. Anything otherwise risks a power imbalance so significant, format health will flounder again until the next ban announcement during which we'll all ask why Play Design didn't listen to the players engaging with the format.
The One Ring
Initially, I didn’t think a four-mana value engine that Fogs a turn would be an issue. While The One Ring is a flavor hit, in practice, the gameplay is rancid. Being legendary negates the supposed drawback of damage that will eventually kill you.
"Legend” used to be a drawback. That's rarely true in the nowadays of Commander-focused design. A legendary permanent was not a positive supertype attribute but it's one of the most powerful aspects of the The One Ring and breaches the flavor it attempts to capture. Too many decks too easily play The One Ring, which makes any game only about itself once introduced.
The One Ring needed to be Cast into the Fire of Mount Doom in Mordor on the Plateau of Gorgoroth to be destroyed, not cast a copy of itself. Remember when Sauron just threw The One Ring away when he found another? We all remember that part of The Lord of the Rings, right?
The One Ring ban would affect Echo of Eons decks, Mystic Forge strategies, Red Stompy, and Eldrazi. Bundle all of those as Ancient Tomb strategies. Even though The One Ring ostensibly costs four mana, sol lands in Legacy mean that The One Ring is a two-drop and if we aren't going to ban sol lands, then The One Ring has to go.
Editor ForceofPhil's note: Can we all agree that if WotC admits a design mistake by trying to rebalance a card on Arena, the card in question should be banned from all formats?
Orcish Bowmasters
Put “Stop punishing tempo decks by printing cards directly for tempo decks!” on my gravestone. Orcish Bowmasters is too punishing against Control as a macrotype and compels creature strategies to become more combo-centric.
So many knobs could have been turned to keep Orcish Bowmasters from crossing the line: if the power and toughness wasn't separated from the punishing effect, if it was mana-gated in some way, if it didn't have flash, if it wasn't so easily splashable at 1B, if it only triggered once per turn instead of on every card drawn, the list of how to reign in this design is endless. However, Play Design chose no restrictions or power limitations, and as a result, Orcish Bowmasters existence not only warps Legacy's landscape of what is viable, but also what Play Design has to do to compensate.
More creatures are designed now with two toughness explicitly as a nod to Orcish Bowmasters rather than what makes sense for the design — looking at you, Delighted Halfling. Card advantage effects are worded awkwardly to not say "draw" so as not to trigger Orcish Bowmasters — looking at you, Nadu, Winged Wisdom. Stock Up is the belle of the ball at the time of this article's publication in Legacy and Vintage — two formats overrun by Orcish Bowmasters — because Stock Up doesn't "draw" cards.
If a card is so overhauling to a format and to Magic's design itself, it needs to go.
Editor ForceofPhil's note: Perhaps if WotC admits a design mistake by attempting to rebalance it on Arena, it should be banned from all formats its legal.
Troll of Khazad-Dûm
Banning Troll of Khazad-Dûm keeps Reanimator in its lane. An unblockable creature that Entombs itself at card parity puts Reanimate over the line — Troll of Khazad-Dûm is enabler and payoff in one. If Stoneforge Mystic cost W and then let you cast the equipment it tutored for W, we'd not allow it to remain in the format.
If Reanimator players want to try a Reanimator package with Generous Ent or Oliphaunt, which would require being more susceptible to Wasteland or, God forbid, Baleful Strix, since the "blocking" mechanic would mean something again, have at it.
Nadu Winged Wisdom
Good lord, even I'm catching strays in the multiverse! It's time to let the half-beaked, Thoth-impersonating gym rat ride off into the sunset. Nadu, Winged Wisdom's design of not "drawing" cards will continuously float to the top of the format until all our card draw staples are replaced with NickToons & Star Trek flavored “Nadu-Draw” rules text. Again, this type of nonsense templating is Orcish Bowmasters impact.
Nadu, Winged Wisdom should its kin, Skullclamp, on the banlist.
Editor ForceofPhil's note: Maybe, just maybe, if WotC knowingly concedes that they designed a mistake and endeavored rebalance it on Arena, it should be banned from all formats its legal.
Balustrade Spy
This is easy. Why is Oops, All Spells! allowed as a consistent and viable strategy? Many players who have never played Legacy avoid it because they are under the previously false notion that it's a turn-1 format. The Legacy community has known forever that that isn't true aside from glass-cannon combo decks lurking in the far-off fringes. With so many modal-face-double-cards in the game now fueling Oops, All Spells to a tier 1 strategy, we can't in good conscious disagree with those who think Legacy is a turn 1 format, because it is.
Oops, All Spells is an insult. Imagine traveling to the Local Game Store (LGS), spending time away from the spouse and kids, knowing you’ll have to payback that family-time equity, only to play 7-card stud game one and then “seven-card Force of Will vs. Unmask” games two and three.
Oops, All Spells promotes gameplay that we should collectively agree is unacceptable and should be banned. Banning Balustrade Spy is a step in that direction.
Editor ForceofPhil's note: Banning Dread Return would likely solve the Oops, All Spells issue altogether but would collaterally damage Cephalid Breakfast, which is enduring the Nadu, Winged Wisdom ban in Zac's hypothetical future.
Atraxa, Grand Unifier
This is controversial but necessary. Atraxa replaced Griselbrand, which I have many-times-over called to ban. Atraxa asks zero questions of the decks that include it. Even Griselbrand, which is over the line, could enter without enough life to activate its ability.
Tutoring the four of the top 10 cards is stronger than drawing the top seven cards and paying seven life because, oh, wait, "drawing" cards? Not while Orcish Bowmasters is legal!
