This Week in Legacy: Grief-Less
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 are discussing the changes to the Legacy format from the Banned and Restricted Announcement this past week. Because of that, we will not be looking at any events from this past week, and yes, while I know there was a Showcase Challenge, the changes are substantial enough (substantial meaning not super substantial) that events from the past week were in a somewhat different enough format to not need to discuss.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Grief is Gone... Now What?
Well, we did indeed have a Banned and Restricted Announcement this past Monday. You can read that entire announcement here. Yes, that's correct. Grief has been banned in Legacy. Let's see what Wizards has to say about this.
So let's unpack this a bit. Grief is gone, largely due in part to how well the card works with efficient cards like Reanimate, Animate Dead, etc. backed up by Force of Will and Daze, as opposed to Modern where they have to play narrower cards that rely on the creature being in play. A lot of the primary discussion here is centered on how Reanimator has existed for years without little issue and has generally been kept in check by anti-graveyard cards. And honestly, this has generally been the case for a long time in Legacy.
What really changed here is that they printed many different cards that all improved the shell overall. Cards like Troll of Khazad-dum, Atraxa, Grand Unifier, Orcish Bowmasters, and Psychic Frog all changed the landscape of Reanimator decks in general. But Grief was a glue card in that archetype because it made many of the cards that worked against it hard to actually use. Not being able to Force of Will a Grief, because they might have a Reanimate to get a third card, is super rough, but then losing your Force to the Grief anyways was also rough.
So what happens now?
Well, first of all, I think the biggest thing that happens is that Reanimator itself as an archetype loses a big chunk of what made it absolutely an insane pile of Magic cards, which helps tighten back on the archetype as a whole. That being said, however, the biggest issue of this BnR lies in the cards that are left.
The idea that Psychic Frog should have a lesser metagame presence without Grief around is very much a weird consideration to have, because I don't think this is true at all. If anything, I feel like we will see even more Psychic Frog than before the ban. At the tail end of the format prior to the banning, many people were already trying out various shells in both Dimir and Grixis with Psychic Frog, Nethergoyf, etc. The Frog is pretty powerful and will most assuredly see more play going forward than it did before Grief to the point where there was plenty of discussion around needed to ban it now as opposed to waiting.
I have a sneaking suspicion that many of us will be pretty sick of the Frog by the time the next Banned and Restricted announcement which will be December 16th, 2024. This is AFTER Eternal Weekend this year, so that should be very interesting.
Outside of the Frog being a great card, I do expect we'll see some shifting movement here or there as decks find their way without Grief around. I'm personally excited to play around with decks like Jeskai Control and Bant Nadu to start with, and possibly more time with Eldrazi.
On the topic of Eldrazi, I do think we'll continue to see more of that deck and it's overall evolution, as we were already seeing prior to the banning. Wizards mentioned looking at this deck as well, but I don't think anything in this deck needs attention even in the post-Grief ban world. The deck is still figuring out what it wants to be and that part is fine.
One thing is for certain, it will be interesting to see where we go from here.
Around the Web
- If you want an insane saga of Ban Grief art, check out @ayseneinart's thread on Twitter from this past month.
- Fenruscloud has a Bant Tamiyo Infect build. Check it out here.
- FL Legacy Club has some paper Legacy with commentary! Check it out here.
- Eternal Durdles had Rob Wilson of Buffalo Chicken Dip Legacy on. Check it out here.
- The Eternal Glory podcast has a new episode. Check it out here.
- IN RESPONSE has a new episode on Eldrazi. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
Now that Leagues are posted throughout the week, let's find some Spice!
Esper Yorion Vial!
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!
