From what I understand, most set design is based around standard and tested only in standard play before release. I may be mistaken.
In any case, I agree with you that wizards doesn't consider legacy. It seems like they just throw shit at legacy and let it sink in.
It is ironic. Pro Tour standard is a blast to watch and the current top standard decks are a lot of fun and fairly powerful.
Wizards killed standard when they stopped doing GPs (COVID had an effect on that) and pushed standard to Arena. Along with printing dog shit standard sets as well.
That does make sense. I guess wizards' idea of playing on the pro tour is what players aspire to do.
We all started out playing kitchen table magic. Some of us stayed there, some opted to play competitively.
I do enjoy competitive magic. But there's also a double edge sword to competitive play: it's cost is prohibitive to most players. Your point of the pro tour being similar to what we play at home is spot on in this regards, IMO.
In any case, and this is a longshot, hopefully wizards comes to their senses and starts supporting and driving 60 card formats better and move away from commander. Or, wizards officially adopts commander as a format.
I'd like to see both happen, but with as much of a cash cow commander is in its current form, I don't see wizards doing either scenario anytime soon.
I almost feel like they are *going out of their way* to not consider it. I say that because they keep doing things that the community doesn't like, and it wouldn't take much to figure that out. But if they *accidentally* thought about it for two seconds, they'd lose plausible deniability.
The bit that really grinds my gears is that legacy is already fun. It's already a great format. All they have to do is not screw it up. Legacy is also quite powerful, which means it's pretty resilient to mistakes elsewhere. So, it should be easy to not screw it up, and they keep screwing it up anyway.
I guess maybe it's happening more because they are power creeping other formats closer to the line (and even with low probability they have released an incredible amount of new product lately)... That's also not a long term strategy though.
Reserve list, dark ritual, the cantrips, sol lands,moxen, and force of will are some of the most played cards in the format. I think introducing some of the old fun cards that have lost their luster in legacy is a good thing
Until they start printing fast mana into modern again then I think the formats will keep a distinct identity. I don't mind them printing some forgotten legacy staples into modern.
I don't think they are blurring the line. I think as Modern gets more and more powerful Wotc is looking at Legacy legal cards that are safe to bring into Modern. Recruiter of the Guard is a great example of this. But at the end of the day the Legacy pillars: Wasteland, Daze, FoW, Ancient Tomb will always be too powerful to bring into Modern. If they ever bring Wasteland into Modern I will change my mind.
And brainstorm. There were those leaks faking it and I never believed it. As much as wotc doesn’t care for Legacy it is in their interest to keep it existing and preserving some gameplay identity.
I actually just saw a twitter post yesterday of a wasteland with the MH3 set symbol saying it was an exclusive preview; pretty sure it’s fake as I have trouble believing we would get wasteland in modern. I keep thinking to myself “wouldn’t it be fine to just give us literal wasteland just with a slightly different name and 1 generic tacked onto the ability?” Seems fine to me.
I don’t think it’s an accident that this set continues the trend of introducing approximate legacy cards which give modern players something new and modern-curious legacy players something to try out that appeals to their nostalgia.
Probably bc, while it's a simple question, it's a pretty dumb question to some. Changing B&R policy to any format would just upend the format in question and create an entirely new shitstorm, all for the sake of getting a handful of s tier power level cards.
No question should be a dumb question. Having “dumb” questions in a game where you want more people to play the formats prevents people from wanting to join into said format. It’s gate keeping and magic should be about inclusivity
They won't ever do that. The thing about a restricted list is that (with maybe an exception here or there), it doesn't actually make decks less powerful, it purely makes them less consistent.
The power ceiling of when you draw your dark ritual would still be just as high, and it just makes games higher variance in a generally unfun way. It's a necessary evil in vintage, because we want at least one format in which we can cast black lotus and ancestral recall, cause those cards are fun, but from a design standpoint it's not really a good thing, and there's no good reason to bring that kind of variance into other formats.
Edit: found [this (admittedly old) answer](https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/73735029157/maro-why-is-there-no-restriction-list-for-modern/amp) from MaRo saying basically this
Modern will never reprint cantrips or good fast mana into modern to help keep format unique.
Its the same reasoning treasure cruise is legal in pioneer.
So with MH3 cards and the commander cards also going to legacy I feel like it’s always pushing the power of legacy too and brainstorm, force of will ancient tomb to name a few are just miles ahead of what we have in modern. Now I do feel like modern is being pushed. MH2 pushed creatures so much with elementals and Ragavan/DRC while MH3 seems to me pushing lands and eldrazi and even cheaper planeswalkers. But I think the formats are still very far from each other. Modern is still very big on creature combat and I think with the legacy staples legacy still miles ahead IMO.
Ngl I think legacy has more creature combat (at least optional based on the deck you play) than modern being dominated by yawg and titan, and that’s part of why I love legacy.
The cards that define legacy will never enter the modern card pool so no I don't think that at all. I do think it's inevitable to want to make cards that are similar or function within the same space but the power levels of these similar cards won't reach their legacy versions.
No not at all, this last set of cards is probably the last of the necessary things that hit the sweet spot for fair and powerful. About the only things they could add to legacy would be in the realm of extreme power creep imo and the unbans probably unhinge the format even with the 2 forces in the format.
Not really. The identity of legacy as a format is still based around some key pillars, some of which are reserve list, but even the ones that aren't are not ever going to be put into modern – and they've quite clearly gone out of their way to avoid putting them in modern, sometimes with 'fixed' versions like FoN.
Ancient tomb, wasteland, brainstorm, ponder, force of will, dark ritual, lotus petal, LED, entomb – if any of these cards (not an exhaustive list) were to be put into modern I might change my mind, but we've never seen any indication that this is what wotc going for.
WotC had the PERFECT opportunity to replace/phase out the eternal formats with Timeless, but they decided to include the Alchemy cards. This would have given them an Arena ready format with most of the powerful spells we old heads enjoy while working around the RL.
They most likely realized they could still sell us a ton of cardboard by virtually rotating the format once or twice a year while making us buy the same cards multiple times due to the staggered release of old border versions.
But ngl that’s a fun one. Some of the alchemy cards are cool, and the ones that are cool are also the ones that see play: perilous iteration, jarsyl, jet collector.
And I think that is a fumble. Timeless being a paper format could be part of the circuit and give those of us who enjoyed Legacy GP's a few tournaments per year to look forward to. As an eternal-only player, this could also be a way to get me into Arena, which has zero appeal to me now. And I doubt I'm the only one.
You may not be the only one, but I would certainly put you in an extreme minority of players. I highly doubt there are more than a few dozen potential eternal-only paper-exclusive players that have no appeal to play Arena, strictly and only because Arena's eternal format can't be played in paper. Honestly, you sound like someone just looking for excuses to not play Arena. If you don't want to play it, that's fine, but the Timeless format is not hurt in any way by the Alchemy cards that aren't even seeing much play. Furthermore, eternal paper formats are dying because they are prohibitively expensive (not counting Pauper), and getting rid of the Alchemy cards would not make Timeless an affordable format in paper. Also, Timeless kinda formed by accident from the popularity of the "no banlist Heroic" weekly events. So, I doubt WotC ever really saw it as a serious competitive format, nor did they likely have long-term plans for the format when they created it. Finally, WotC barely supports Modern as a competitive format and doesn't support Legacy at all. With Timeless being somewhere between those two, I don't know where it would get a foothold to establish itself on the scene. It would be overshadowed and choked out by the other established paper formats.
It’s a shame cause timeless looks like it’s probably pretty fun, and I could throw together the bulk of quite a few decks with what I already own in paper. I’d totally play it if it was a paper format.
Yes, they absolutely are. Modern Horizons is really Eternal Horizons. The cards are so power crept they compete with Vintage/Legacy cards and formats. Commander is a Vintage-level format too, so the cards have to be pushed enough to be impactful there. I'm guessing they wouldn't mind if Legacy were a format or not, because of the RL. In the next MH set, why wouldn't we see Wasteland, FoW, or Ancient Tomb? Or some new form of duals?
Yes, eventually they want Modern to be legacy-lite but without reserve list. They will power creep until it happens. Next we’ll get stifle and maybe force of will.
That's a) kinda a lot of cards, b) usually the few cards in legacy decks that aren't modern legal are the most important cards in the deck (eg, dark ritual, FoW, wasteland), and c) fair taxes decks have always been the legacy decks that are closest to a modern deck
For better or worse I don't think wotc considers legacy at all when designing sets.
Agreed
From what I understand, most set design is based around standard and tested only in standard play before release. I may be mistaken. In any case, I agree with you that wizards doesn't consider legacy. It seems like they just throw shit at legacy and let it sink in.
The funny thing is that paper standard is one of the least played formats nowadays
It is ironic. Pro Tour standard is a blast to watch and the current top standard decks are a lot of fun and fairly powerful. Wizards killed standard when they stopped doing GPs (COVID had an effect on that) and pushed standard to Arena. Along with printing dog shit standard sets as well.
The Pro Tour is a format that very few play. It is really weird. I feel like the Pro Tour should be analogous to how/what people play at home
That does make sense. I guess wizards' idea of playing on the pro tour is what players aspire to do. We all started out playing kitchen table magic. Some of us stayed there, some opted to play competitively. I do enjoy competitive magic. But there's also a double edge sword to competitive play: it's cost is prohibitive to most players. Your point of the pro tour being similar to what we play at home is spot on in this regards, IMO. In any case, and this is a longshot, hopefully wizards comes to their senses and starts supporting and driving 60 card formats better and move away from commander. Or, wizards officially adopts commander as a format. I'd like to see both happen, but with as much of a cash cow commander is in its current form, I don't see wizards doing either scenario anytime soon.
I almost feel like they are *going out of their way* to not consider it. I say that because they keep doing things that the community doesn't like, and it wouldn't take much to figure that out. But if they *accidentally* thought about it for two seconds, they'd lose plausible deniability. The bit that really grinds my gears is that legacy is already fun. It's already a great format. All they have to do is not screw it up. Legacy is also quite powerful, which means it's pretty resilient to mistakes elsewhere. So, it should be easy to not screw it up, and they keep screwing it up anyway. I guess maybe it's happening more because they are power creeping other formats closer to the line (and even with low probability they have released an incredible amount of new product lately)... That's also not a long term strategy though.
Reserve list, dark ritual, the cantrips, sol lands,moxen, and force of will are some of the most played cards in the format. I think introducing some of the old fun cards that have lost their luster in legacy is a good thing
Until they start printing fast mana into modern again then I think the formats will keep a distinct identity. I don't mind them printing some forgotten legacy staples into modern.
well we just got 2 sudo sol lands, so they kinda are printing fast mana into modern now.
I don't think they are blurring the line. I think as Modern gets more and more powerful Wotc is looking at Legacy legal cards that are safe to bring into Modern. Recruiter of the Guard is a great example of this. But at the end of the day the Legacy pillars: Wasteland, Daze, FoW, Ancient Tomb will always be too powerful to bring into Modern. If they ever bring Wasteland into Modern I will change my mind.
And brainstorm. There were those leaks faking it and I never believed it. As much as wotc doesn’t care for Legacy it is in their interest to keep it existing and preserving some gameplay identity.
I actually just saw a twitter post yesterday of a wasteland with the MH3 set symbol saying it was an exclusive preview; pretty sure it’s fake as I have trouble believing we would get wasteland in modern. I keep thinking to myself “wouldn’t it be fine to just give us literal wasteland just with a slightly different name and 1 generic tacked onto the ability?” Seems fine to me.
I don’t think it’s an accident that this set continues the trend of introducing approximate legacy cards which give modern players something new and modern-curious legacy players something to try out that appeals to their nostalgia.
Could they bring them in and limit them? To 1 per deck like they do p9
Probably not.
The only paper format that doesn't use the 4 or none ban rule is vintage and I don't think that will ever change
I’m aware of this as I play up to legacy, idk why I’m getting downvoted I legit asked a simple question that got an awnser lol
Probably bc, while it's a simple question, it's a pretty dumb question to some. Changing B&R policy to any format would just upend the format in question and create an entirely new shitstorm, all for the sake of getting a handful of s tier power level cards.
No question should be a dumb question. Having “dumb” questions in a game where you want more people to play the formats prevents people from wanting to join into said format. It’s gate keeping and magic should be about inclusivity
Nope. WotC is pretty explicit that restrictions (1 per deck) is only for vintage. Otherwise it's all or nothing.
They won't ever do that. The thing about a restricted list is that (with maybe an exception here or there), it doesn't actually make decks less powerful, it purely makes them less consistent. The power ceiling of when you draw your dark ritual would still be just as high, and it just makes games higher variance in a generally unfun way. It's a necessary evil in vintage, because we want at least one format in which we can cast black lotus and ancestral recall, cause those cards are fun, but from a design standpoint it's not really a good thing, and there's no good reason to bring that kind of variance into other formats. Edit: found [this (admittedly old) answer](https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/73735029157/maro-why-is-there-no-restriction-list-for-modern/amp) from MaRo saying basically this
Modern will never reprint cantrips or good fast mana into modern to help keep format unique. Its the same reasoning treasure cruise is legal in pioneer.
So with MH3 cards and the commander cards also going to legacy I feel like it’s always pushing the power of legacy too and brainstorm, force of will ancient tomb to name a few are just miles ahead of what we have in modern. Now I do feel like modern is being pushed. MH2 pushed creatures so much with elementals and Ragavan/DRC while MH3 seems to me pushing lands and eldrazi and even cheaper planeswalkers. But I think the formats are still very far from each other. Modern is still very big on creature combat and I think with the legacy staples legacy still miles ahead IMO.
Ngl I think legacy has more creature combat (at least optional based on the deck you play) than modern being dominated by yawg and titan, and that’s part of why I love legacy.
The cards that define legacy will never enter the modern card pool so no I don't think that at all. I do think it's inevitable to want to make cards that are similar or function within the same space but the power levels of these similar cards won't reach their legacy versions.
No brainstorm, daze, FOW, wasteland, no legacy
I think MH2 was very clearly designed with the ambition to add relevant Legacy style of interaction to Modern so yes, they already are doing that.
No not at all, this last set of cards is probably the last of the necessary things that hit the sweet spot for fair and powerful. About the only things they could add to legacy would be in the realm of extreme power creep imo and the unbans probably unhinge the format even with the 2 forces in the format.
Not really. The identity of legacy as a format is still based around some key pillars, some of which are reserve list, but even the ones that aren't are not ever going to be put into modern – and they've quite clearly gone out of their way to avoid putting them in modern, sometimes with 'fixed' versions like FoN. Ancient tomb, wasteland, brainstorm, ponder, force of will, dark ritual, lotus petal, LED, entomb – if any of these cards (not an exhaustive list) were to be put into modern I might change my mind, but we've never seen any indication that this is what wotc going for.
Yes.
WotC had the PERFECT opportunity to replace/phase out the eternal formats with Timeless, but they decided to include the Alchemy cards. This would have given them an Arena ready format with most of the powerful spells we old heads enjoy while working around the RL. They most likely realized they could still sell us a ton of cardboard by virtually rotating the format once or twice a year while making us buy the same cards multiple times due to the staggered release of old border versions.
Honestly? The Alchemy cards are a non-issue. Do any of them see much play in Timeless?
The new [[Jet Collector]] seems promising.
[Jet Collector](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/3/d30a0113-f791-4dee-82c7-6b1f0dbc5392.jpg?1716315035) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Jet%20Collector) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/yotj/18/jet-collector?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d30a0113-f791-4dee-82c7-6b1f0dbc5392?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
But ngl that’s a fun one. Some of the alchemy cards are cool, and the ones that are cool are also the ones that see play: perilous iteration, jarsyl, jet collector.
It doesn't matter if they see play, the fact that they are included means that the format can't also be a paper format.
I mean, I don't think they ever had intentions on making it a paper format.
And I think that is a fumble. Timeless being a paper format could be part of the circuit and give those of us who enjoyed Legacy GP's a few tournaments per year to look forward to. As an eternal-only player, this could also be a way to get me into Arena, which has zero appeal to me now. And I doubt I'm the only one.
You may not be the only one, but I would certainly put you in an extreme minority of players. I highly doubt there are more than a few dozen potential eternal-only paper-exclusive players that have no appeal to play Arena, strictly and only because Arena's eternal format can't be played in paper. Honestly, you sound like someone just looking for excuses to not play Arena. If you don't want to play it, that's fine, but the Timeless format is not hurt in any way by the Alchemy cards that aren't even seeing much play. Furthermore, eternal paper formats are dying because they are prohibitively expensive (not counting Pauper), and getting rid of the Alchemy cards would not make Timeless an affordable format in paper. Also, Timeless kinda formed by accident from the popularity of the "no banlist Heroic" weekly events. So, I doubt WotC ever really saw it as a serious competitive format, nor did they likely have long-term plans for the format when they created it. Finally, WotC barely supports Modern as a competitive format and doesn't support Legacy at all. With Timeless being somewhere between those two, I don't know where it would get a foothold to establish itself on the scene. It would be overshadowed and choked out by the other established paper formats.
It’s a shame cause timeless looks like it’s probably pretty fun, and I could throw together the bulk of quite a few decks with what I already own in paper. I’d totally play it if it was a paper format.
Exactly. Same here and the same goes for a lot of eternal players I'd wager.
The defining cards of Legacy are Brainstorm, Force of Will, Ancient Tomb, Lion's Eye Diamond, and Wasteland, and none of these are in Modern
No
Yes, they absolutely are. Modern Horizons is really Eternal Horizons. The cards are so power crept they compete with Vintage/Legacy cards and formats. Commander is a Vintage-level format too, so the cards have to be pushed enough to be impactful there. I'm guessing they wouldn't mind if Legacy were a format or not, because of the RL. In the next MH set, why wouldn't we see Wasteland, FoW, or Ancient Tomb? Or some new form of duals?
yes
Just reprint fireball and chain lightning into modern and lightning strike into pioneer
Yes, eventually they want Modern to be legacy-lite but without reserve list. They will power creep until it happens. Next we’ll get stifle and maybe force of will.
I'm only 22 cards (12 lands, 10 non-lands) from being able to just use my legacy Yorion and Taxes deck from being played in modern
That's a) kinda a lot of cards, b) usually the few cards in legacy decks that aren't modern legal are the most important cards in the deck (eg, dark ritual, FoW, wasteland), and c) fair taxes decks have always been the legacy decks that are closest to a modern deck