Written by Cyrus Bales (Crucible of Words)
We once again find ourselves in the grip of a Legacy format with problems — THE SAME problems.
Top 8s
Since Tarkir: Dragonstorm released on April 11, I've tracked Top 8 placings each deck. Here are the top 16 decks with the most top 8 finishes:
- UB Reanimator — 39
- Oops, All Spells! — 38
- UR Delver — 30
- UB Tempo — 26
- Grixis Tempo — 15
- Lands — 14
- Mono-Red Stompy — 12
- Karn Forge — 11
- Breakfast — 10
- Sneak and Show — 10
- Black Reanimator — 9
- Death and Taxes — 9
- Doomsday — 9
- 5-color Beanstalk — 8
- Nadu Midrange — 8
- Jeskai Control — 6
Three noticeably different strata of decks are present:
- Power Outliers
- UB Reanimator and Oops, All Spells!
- Tempo Shells
- UR Delver and UB Tempo
- Everything Else — 14 or fewer top 8s
Obviously, Tempo has a higher play rate than most archetypes, so it is expected they achieve decent results. These stats suggest the top two decks are real problems when we consider Tempo decks are played because of how they fight UB Reanimator and Oops, All Spells!
How Do the Top Decks Stack Up?
The data is similar to raw Top 8s, however, more niche decks also posted good numbers. Lands is a relatively small amount of the metagame but has two to three players consistently Top 8'ing. The bigger the share of the meta a deck has, the more reliable the data about that deck is.
Decks With >3% Metashare
This snapshot has pretty clear signals. Oops, All Spells! and UB Reanimator perform significantly above anything that could be called representative. They're the best archetypes to play.
One Tempo deck breaks into the over-represented category, and it's designed to beat other tempo decks. At the bottom, Show and Tell strategies are performing poorly, which makes sense given the top strategy can put Atraxa, Grand Unifier backed by plenty of disruption.
Red Stompy is having a rough time, largely due to Barrowgoyf, a borderline-unkillable, lifelink threat with built-in card advantage. As long as UB decks are strong, Red Stompy will struggle.
Perhaps the rules change that further powers Urza's Saga will boost Stompy, but I doubt it. Stompy needs needs help from bans.
But Wait, It's Worse
UB Reanimator's dominance is an impressive outlier. In the context of how it only had a few Top 8's as of May 6, UB Reanimator put on 30 Top 8's in four weeks — a commanding metagame presence.
UB Reanimator became the best thing to do once solved again despite the short four weeks with an increased meta share of 14.7%; an over-rep of more than 1.5 with high-level tournament saturatation with it; it's still over-performing. This is a problem that needs addressing via bannings.
Macro-Archetype Breakdown
According to MTGTop8, the meta over the last two weeks:
- Combo — 55%
- Aggro — 32% (includes Tempo decks and DnT)
- Control — 13%
Whilst I disagree with the MTGTop8's breakdown of Aggro decks, their combo categorization is accurate. 57% is A LOT. It's the heaviest combo meta we've seen this year.
Control is in the dumpster and it's not difficult to see why when combo can just needs to slip two things through to end a game. Control wants to play longer games, which allows for many opportunities to assemble combo pieces.
Breaking down combo decks further:
- UB Reanimator — 20%
- Breakfast — 6%
- Show and Tell — 6%
- Mystic Forge — 5%
- Painter — 4%
- Nadu — 4%
- Oops, All Spells! — 3%
- Doomsday — 2%
The big problem is UB Reanimator. Just as before. Wizards of the Coast (WotC) banned the wrong card. As long as Entomb is legal, the Tempo-Combo hybrid build will be the best thing to do in Legacy.
Let's look at the announcement and where WotC went wrong:
The article identified the problem: wildly condensed games; the ability to play fair and unfair at the same time; and that it needs to become more committed to a plan in deckbuilding costs to not be both. Those observations are accurate and what many of us have said for a long time.
The issue is the last sentence. Troll of Khazad-dûm is not what makes UB Reanimator problematic. The entire text describes the problems caused by Entomb.
Entomb enables an unfair plan with minimal deckbuilding costs, which creates "wildly condensed games." It is the Entomb alone that hybridizes the combo and tempo aspects of UB Reanimator.
There is another error in the text: the inference that Reanimator, as an archetype, needs Entomb to function. This is not true. Show and Tell decks commit entirely to cheating in big monsters. Reanimator without Entomb can still reanimate big monsters, and do so earlier than Show and Tell decks can, with just as much protection via discard.
Essentially, Legacy is paying for the sins of WotC not wanting to ban Entomb, even though Entomb has been previously banned in Legacy. Entomb was banned in March 2003 alongside Earthcraft. Entomb was not unbanned until September 2009.
How To Fix Legacy?
Two things must happen: Oops, All Spells! and UB Reanimator need their wings clipped. These two decks are not only dominating, but are warping the metagame.
WotC made the mistake of saying "we want this strategy to exist," which, in the case of Oops, All Spells!, is nonsensical. It's not fun to play with or against and leads to the wildly condensed games they have aimed to remedy in the previous ban announcements (B&R. The March 2025 B&R article called out Oops, All Spells! as a concern, they must assuredly hit it. I fear they won't go far enough.
Balustrade Spy and Undercity Informer must be banned. Yes, that kills Oops, All Spells! as it currently exists, which is a positive. A currently banned card helps explain why.
Hermit Druid
Hermit Druid was banned in Decemeber 2004 when Type 1.5 was renamed Legacy. Is was amongst the 12 cards banned that day, alongside Bazaar of Baghdad, Goblin Recruiter, Mishra's Workshop, Oath of Druids, and Skullclamp, among others, because it allows a player to mill their entire library if it doesn't contain any basic lands.
Hermit Druid was deemed too strong for Legacy because it's a one-card win condition with minimal deckbuilding restrictions.
Compare Hermit Druid to Balustrade Spy and Undercity Informer. The two latter have stricter deckbuilding constraints since the library cannot contain you can't play any lands. However, given the number of modal double-faced lands (MDFC) that have been printed in the Modern Horizons era, that deckbuilding restrait has significantly loosened.
Hermit Druid is in Green, not the best color for ramping faster turn-one plays, and requires an entire turn cycle before it can activate. Summoning sickness allows a one-turn window to interact with a 1/1 creature. That is HUGE.
Balustrade Spy and Undercity Informer don't offer the luxury of a turn to the opponent that Hermit Druid does, which makes them substantially better. Hermit Druid gets to be accompanied by Daze and a typical fetch-dual manabase, but that isn't as strong winning the turn it's cast.
Oops, All Spells! has disruption and protection. Pact of Negation is better than for a protected kill. What's more, Balustrade Spy and Undercity Informer are black, the color of hand disruption, Dark Ritual and Cabal Ritual. They are easily cast on turn one.
Given Legacy's cardpool, Undercity Informer and Balustrade Spy are better versions of a card currently banned. Therefore, they should both receive the same treatment.
As for UB Reanimator, I've long made the case to ban Entomb. I have been vindicated over recent weeks. You know who else made a great case for banning Entomb? WotC.
You can't stop a hybrid tempo-reanimator deck without getting rid of dozens of cards or Entomb. Troll of Khazad-dûm should be unbanned. If a tempo deck wants to Reanimate Troll of Khazad-dûm, that's fine. It's a big, unblockable body, but it does not generate card advantage or tutor Force of Will to protect itself.
Death's Shadow decks of old ran Street Wraith and Reanimate. We can go back to that, whilst the full-on Reanimator decks would need Careful Study, Faithless Looting, Putrid Imp, or the like, with a higher density of big monsters in their deck. The only way to separate tempo from the reanimator combo with
