Written by First_Revenge
There’s a lot of talk in the Legacy community about control falling off as an macrotype. There are many varying opinions about why and most have validity. This article explores possible reasons for control's state. My thesis boils down to:
- Control is viable in the current meta but its skill floor needs to come down.
What's the Problem?
If control is viable, then why is this article relevant? Why not just get good? Control can and is played to a level of success. I’ve seen and know it can be done. Yet, per MTGTop8, control's meta share is approximately 13% as of Feb. 16, 2025. In my decade in the format, that is the lowest I've ever seen it.
Legacy has been some flavor of problematic for a while. It lurches from ban to ban without rooting out core issues. Something is wrong and these two anomalies are not disconnected from each other.
My contention is that the lack of control in the format is a major factor. Control as a macrotype is effectively extinct. All control mages don't have to quit for the macrotype to stop mattering. Control's metagame percentage suggests were already there.
If prepping for a big tournament, there isn't a control deck worth respecting to allocate sideboard slots too; much less consider in deck construction. If you run into a control deck in an event, you're likely naturally favored.
Control decks, by and large, don’t require silver bullets to beat. This is the problem.
Control is “viable,” but mostly irrelevant to the current metagame. You likely better served by assuming control doesn’t exist during deck construction and testing.
Power Level
Individual card power level being a problem is not shocking to anyone, so I’ll be brief. As Legacy, and Magic generally, progresses, threats get better, faster, and more diverse. While answers have been more flexible (e.g. Prismatic Ending) there’s not enough power behind printings targeted to help control that aren't better adopted into other shells, be it Daze/Wasteland or Ancient Tomb.
It's not challenging to understand why players don't choose to play control. Control lists are anemic compared to the decks they are designed to beat. Legacy is so fast and so powerful that its better to ask questions rather than trying to answer them.
Gameplay
For bigger tournaments, grindy control decks are a tricky to play. It's true that Control in big tournaments can wear down its pilots; most rounds go long and, therefore, Control players get few if any breaks. It's a recipe for mental fatigue which can feed sloppy play and costly losses.
Given how the current pace and power of Legacy, mistakes are severely punished. We live in the age of “no bad cards” deck-building. Even if a Control mage stablizes a board, every top deck threatens to end the game since individual card power level is so high.
Control gameplay tends to resemble the Magic equivalent of living paycheck to paycheck —uncomfortably familiar with living on the precipice.
Legacy's compacted games are brutally unforgiving of mistakes. Newer Control players will struggle and would probably be better served learning a Tempo or Ancient Tomb strategy. Those decks benefit from great pilots and the floor is high for Murktide Regent or The One Ring.
Innovation
Control lacks innovation. Archetypes tend draw metagamers who can tinker and tune for new angles after meaningful tournament finishes, but those results for Control strategies are largely absent. Innovation is also driven by more public facing pilots advocating for them. Unfortunately, that hasn’t meaningfully materialized either. The general consensus is Control needs help.
Lack of Printings
Control has not received the same quality or quantity of playable cards that Ancient Tomb and Daze/Wasteland shells do. Recent pick-ups include:
- Up the Beanstalk
- Better in a Tempo shell than Control shell.
- Consign to Memory
- Primarily a sideboard card moreso than a card Control can build around.
- Designed specifically as an answer to the powercrept Eldrazi printed in the same set
- Again, threats are better than answers.
- Forth Eorlingas!
- More powerful in Ancient Tomb shells like RW Initiative than the Fireball-type effect it plays in Control shells.
- Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student
- Given recent tournament results, Tamiyo is better in Daze/Wasteland shells than Control shells.
There may be cards I overlooked, but if so, it is unlikely they have a meaningful footprint. New cards are the main traffic generators for any deck, and new cards for Control, both quantitatively and qualitatively, are well behind other macrotypes' options.
This is an existential problem for Control as a macrotype. If no new cards enter, the only innovation shuffling around older cards hoping something will eventually stick. That’s a tall order given the Legacy's efficiency and rate of evolution with new printings. Put bluntly, given the cracked threats rolling out in direct-to-Modern sets, it feels hopeless.
What Can Be Done?
A picture is worth a thousand words, and this picture is control’s issue:
Both paths start and end at the same place. People prefer tasks being easy. Aggro/Tempo and Combo's paths are more straightforward. They presume they need to be answered rather than the other way around. They are clearly defined, powerful strategies built with powerful cards.
Control strategies meander, utilizing cards whose power level depends largely on the opponent. Both paths can lead to winning, but the current meta percentages reflect the reality that this picture presents: people pick the easier path.
Without significant change or help, Control will struggle to retain and attract new pilots for the same reason people ignore the paved path in the photo above.
As popular, and probably correct, as it is to rail against the power creep of FIRE design, it is a hopeless cause. Power creep is part of design, for better or worse. Wizards of the Coast (WotC) isn't going to nerf their designs after juicing power for years.
Bans are necessary to skim the power outliers from Legacy. WotC is creating problems faster than they're removing them. WotC's design philosophy has changed but their 2000s-era, light-touch ban philosophy remains to our detriment.
Cards that have proven problematic in other formats like Nadu, Winged Wisdom, may need to go in Legacy, too. With yearly direct-to-Modern sets and Commander products paired with every set's release, the power level of the Legacy will only increase.
If WotC is unwilling to radically alter their ban philosophy, Legacy will lurch from broken format to broken format.
The solution is for WotC to raise the floor for Control by printing impactful new cards that cannot be better used by Daze/Wasteland or Ancient Tomb shells. Essentially, WotC needs to straighten the winding path that is current Control.
It’s not an earth-shattering suggestion but WotC seems reflexively allergic to it. There hasn’t been a competitive respected Control strategy since Snowko in 2020 — a strategy that hinged entirely on the design mistakes of Oko, Thief of Crowns and Arcum's Astrolabe changing the rules of engagement.
A cruel irony, perhaps, is that bannings, generally, would be less needed if Control were viable to curb the worst offenders. But it isn’t.
Legacy’s golden periods have typically coincided with all three macrotypes — Aggro, Combo, and Control — existing in balance. Current Legacy is a seesaw between Combo and Aggro/Tempo depending on which macrotype gets to play the card that will be inevitably banned.
Printing better answers would allow for pushed threats to exist without always needing intervention. I’m tired of the perpetual ban season that hangs over Legacy.
Unbans are a possible solution, though, I don’t think there’s anything currently banned that would meaningfully move the needle for Control without better serving Daze/Wasteland or Ancient Tomb.
Sensei’s Divining Top has logistical concerns, would likely push Urza's Saga strategies moreso than dedicated Control strategies. Mana Drain is cool, but is likely too slow in Legacy's current environment. Beyond those, nothing on the ban list could reasonably change Control’s fortunes. The answers to reshape Control are in front of us, not behind.
About the Author
Muggle job: aerospace engineer. Magician, on-and-off, for about two decades. Involved mostly with paper player Legacy for over 10 years; Jeskai pilot, recovered foil addict, and current black border addict losing the battle.
First_Revenge on Reddit; most easily reachable in the Legacy Stoneblade Discord.
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Featured image: Standstill by Heather Hudson
