This Week in Legacy: Banzzz
Howdy folks! It's time yet again for another edition of This Week in Legacy! I'm your host, Joe Dyer, and this week we're going to be talking about the recent Banned and Restricted Announcement in Legacy. In addition we're going to be doing our set review for Avatar: The Last Airbender (I didn't really want to wait to split it). Because of the BnR changes, we will not be covering last week's events.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Banned and Restricted Announcement - November 10th, 2025: Entomb and Nadu Banned
Last week I did say I believed it would be correct to make no changes in Legacy today, for a variety of reasons but mainly because of the proximity to Eternal Weekend Europe/Asia. Traditionally in the past Wizards has never made changes like this in the midst of these events.
I can confidently say I was wrong, and that's fine. Wizards did choose to make changes in Legacy, and while these changes are... changes. There are statements made about the format and changes that weren't made that are confusing/frustrating to say the least. Let's start with what actually happened. You can find the full BnR here.
Entomb and Nadu, Winged Wisdom have been banned in Legacy.
Let's talk about what this means, but let's start with Entomb first and what they had to say about it.
So this is a statement I genuinely agree with. Wizards spent the last two years trying to ban around Entomb as a card, and it absolutely shows. From Psychic Frog to Troll of Khazad-dum and everything else, its clear they were attempting to preserve Reanimator as a part of the format, and were approaching that by banning a number of different cards instead. I think it's important to note that a good portion of those cards were actually trying to address the deck's structural capability of playing a Tempo game at the same time, and that in and of itself is something we'll talk about shortly.
Let's read on to see more of the thoughts on Entomb.
It's strange to call out cards like Inkwell Leviathan again, but re-reading the statement a number of times (it's a really awkwardly put together statement) what they're saying is that we're a long way away from that world where we used to play those cards, not that those cards see play in 2025. 2025 Legacy is definitely a world where we're not teching a copy of Tidespout Tyrant. The phrasing is just a bit awkward here, but the statement is functionally "We live in a world where we don't do this anymore, and instead we do this" and that's true. We're focusing on cards like Atraxa and Archon of Cruelty as our heavy hitters in a deck that can manage both tempo and combo elements just fine, and cutting the fat of Entomb out of it means the deck really can't do that anymore. In a sense, that's a very good thing, and one of the reasons I was reasonably okay on an Entomb ban long term.
Realistically, hitting something out of the Reanimator shell is what we expected from a BnR, and hitting something structural like Entomb is fine. I don't really believe that the card was an actual pillar of Legacy. The card that felt more like a pillar in this shell was always Reanimate to me, and Entomb is a card that previously had been banned, so it's totally fine for me to get rid of it.
Let's look at what they had to also say about Nadu.
It is fair to note that Nadu's largest presence in Legacy had to do with its presence in Cephalid Breakfast and that Nadu was very good in that deck, but the article goes on to talk about "Nadu Midrange".
The issue here is that Nadu is problematic because it requires a significant amount of time and presents challenges in physically representing the game state. As someone who thinks Nadu has been relatively fine for Legacy power-level wise, I do understand that if that's not what they want in the format, it's fine to get rid of it. It's a strange consideration, though when you think about how poorly most of the Nadu builds like Cradle and Midrange actually were doing data-wise. Even Cephalid Breakfast had a sub 50% win rate, but some really strong pilots who helped define it. This feels much more of a play pattern ban than anything, and people definitely didn't like Nadu at all, so I get it. I don't much like it but I get it.
Personally I would have liked more time long-term with the Bird, but I very much understand the point of not having cards that exacerbate tournaments like it can. Regardless, I don't know if this one was actually correct for me.
Awkwardly... that's the entire bit about Legacy in this article. Maybe we get more in the Tuesday MTGWeekly Stream (which I won't have any info on here because of deadlines so maybe next week), but there's definitely two cards that did not notably come up at all in this article that have been on the tip of the community's collective lips for a while now.
Neither Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student or The One Ring were even mentioned in this announcement. Both of these cards have been a hot button of discussion amidst the Legacy circles, and it's wild for Wizards to completely miss talking about either one of them. Furthermore, The One Ring also missed out on any mention of the presence of the Mystic Forge and Blue Cloudpost decks in the format, and specifically Mystic Forge having won Eternal Weekend (while they talk all about Dimir Reanimator and Cephalid Breakfast from EW). It is weird to me to not mention a deck that not only won the event but had a really strong win rate (and has a really strong win rate in general) and the cards that make that deck powerful. Tamiyo also deserves a bit of a mention because one of the big notions of Dimir Reanimator was the tempo elements of the deck, and needing to separate them, and Tamiyo was a big part of that. I do think Entomb at least helps with that separation, but realistically Tamiyo may still prove to be a real problem down the line.
The greater worry however, is definitely going to be decks like Mystic Forge and Blue Cloudpost. Decks playing cards like The One Ring and Planar Nexus alongside Urza's Tower and realistically: decks that weren't touched with the bannning at all. Mystic Forge in general has a very strong across the board win rate against many of the top decks of the format, and that in of itself is exceptionally rough that we could be looking at a format where that is going to be the norm until more action can be taken.
I will also say, I do absolutely hate the timing of this BnR. It's better than when it was originally set for, but I do hate making sweeping changes to the format in the middle of Eternal Weekend events. I would have preferred something to occur after EW, but suffice to say both EW Europe and EW Asia will be very interesting to follow and could set the stage for what happens next.
I do think we will see a lot of Mystic Forge and Blue Cloudpost decks in Legacy going forward, and decks will need to rapidly adjust for those strategies, but at the same time, I have found the Mystic Forge deck especially to be exceedingly resilient to a lot of things, and I would not be surprised to see the deck do exceedingly well at both of the EW events that are upcoming.
There's also some discussion about whether or not Oops steps back in, but I think with Reanimator facing something of an extinction that people will be able to run hate that more adequately manages Oops still and that deck may just be fine. Realistically it's just things like Cloudpost and Forge that really bother me. I do think we'll see more Dimir Tempo, but that deck has also felt super outclassed that maybe it's not as good into the artifact decks as something like Izzet Tempo, which gains access to stuff like Meltdown.
As to the fate of Reanimator... I think the current shell is untenable to actually play Reanimate without solid ways of getting threats into the graveyard. I don't believe that Reanimator in general is fully dead with Entomb gone, but it does lose the avenue of being able to be a tempo deck at the same time. I do believe the deck may still exist, but it will be much more all in and much more susceptible to hard graveyard hate, which is where the strategy is more in line. I don't want to discount the strategy entirely because frankly, people have been wrong about that before.
I will be curious how EW EU and Asia will end up panning out and how this BnR will affect the formats at those events and beyond.
What are your thoughts on this BnR? Let us know in the comments!
Avatar: The Last Airbender in Legacy
Spoilers for Avatar: The Last Airbender are finally finished, so we've got both the entire main set and the TLE (Eternal) set in hand to take a look at! Let's see what from this set could be playable in Legacy, in no real particular order. If you don't see a card on here that you think I missed, please let me know! I've spent a lot of time staring at this set like Sokka on cactus juice!
Boomerang Basics
Besides the fact that the card doesn't actually Boomerang a basic land, it's not a bad rate for this kind of effect. A lot of times, if you're casting this on a permanent you control like Lion's Eye Diamond or similar effects to get extra storm count of it. This draws you a card if you do that unlike other effects, so that's kind of cool.
Wan Shi Tong, Librarian
This card is pretty neat if your opponent doesn't have Orcish Bowmasters hanging out. Like, the fact that it can get really big, and then bigger off searching library is pretty cool. The bans and Bowmaster possibly being a card again make it something of a rough sell.
Mai, Scornful Striker
This is probably much more playable in a format like Vintage with lots of noncreature spells, but it's definitely a hatebear for those kinds of decks that want to win off storm effects or something similar. Having first strike and being a 2/2 is also pretty good on rate.
Redirect Lightning
This card is really interesting to say the least. It does a really cool thing. I'm not sure if it will be good enough to see play, but it is super cool to be able to pay 5 life and a red to redirect any spell or ability target.
Zhao, the Moon Slayer
The text on this card is absolutely wild, not gonna lie. I don't know if it's realistically possible to do the activated ability in this format, but it is some cool text with some really sick looking art.
Origin of Metalbending
This is a neat take on a Naturalize effect that also acts as a counter to damage or destroy-based effects. Kind of sweet honestly.
Toph, the First Metalbender
The effect on this card is actually pretty sweet. Earthbending in general is wildly interesting because of how it interacts with cards like Wasteland. Might be cool to see some form of Amulet of Vigor Earthbending pile.
Meteor Sword
This card is actually just really good. It's wild to consider but being able to drop this into play at instant speed with Stoneforge Mystic and destroy lands is wild, but then blinking it with Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd? This might be the most playable card for Legacy in the whole set.
Ba Sing Se
Repeatable Earthbending on a land is WILD. What makes earthbending kind of nutty is that if the land dies or is exiled when its a creature, it just gets returned to the battlefield tapped. This means your Wastelands and everything just keep coming back. It's pretty interesting and I'm curious if this will see play in places.
Katara, Waterbending Master
This is definitely another card that like, would be super cool if Orcish Bowmasters didn't exist. It being a 1/3 is really sweet though.
Secret Tunnel
SECRET TUNNEL... SECRET TUNNEL... THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS! SECRET SECRET SECRET SECRET TUNNEL!
Wrapping Up
That's all the time we have this week folks! Thanks for continuing to support the column and join us next week as we continue our journey into Legacy!
As always you can reach me at all my associated links via my Link Tree! In addition I'm always around the MTGGoldfish Discord Server and the MTGLegacy Discord Server.
Until next time!
