This Week in Legacy: Re-Examining the Legacy Banlist in 2025, Part 2
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 finishing up our look at the Legacy Ban list! In addition we've got some Challenges to look at from this past week.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
The Legacy Ban List in 2025, Part 2
Last week I started doing a bit of a re-examination of the Legacy Banned list with an eye on what could be unbanned if we were attempting to do some form of exciting shake-up akin to what just occurred in Modern not too long ago. This is the second part of that examination!
There was some consideration and some feedback given from last week that people would like to see Library of Alexandria discussed, so we're going to start with that one first.
Library of Alexandria
The contention of this card is whether or not it would be good in a world where Legacy is as fast as it is right now. It's certainly possible that could be true. Legacy has sped up a bit over time, and Library is more of a slow and durdly card. In fact, it doesn't currently see much play in Vintage where it's restricted. There's also some consideration given to the fact that running four of these in a deck is taking up colored land space, but I feel that consideration isn't huge when we consider cards like Lorien Revealed and Troll of Khazad-dum exist. Unequivocally if Legacy did slow down for this card to be good, it would be very good. Being able to filter out your Lorien's for your colored mana with this while being able to maintain for even a few turns is a massive amount of card advantage, and the fact that it's not a Legendary Land (since it existed from a time before Legendary was a thing) means having multiples in play can be sort of crazy. Activate Library and hold priority, activate second/third Library in play is drawing you three cards. The activation only cares if you have seven cards in hand in order to activate it, so you can absolutely do this.
I'm a bit torn because it is definitely a card that would likely be exciting to people, but at the same time... the potential long term for it to be broken is quite high, and not only that... it's a Reserved List card.
I will mention that primarily because it got brought up last week as to why I believed RL should not be a factor in these decisions. The major reasoning here is rooted in the fact that being on the RL means that the card is primarily expensive via artificial scarcity and not primarily for gameplay value/balance, and these sorts of things shouldn't factor into decisions surrounding gameplay balance. But because the RL means many of these cards are indeed expensive as all get out, it is probably a factor for Wizards because if the card does prove to be broken, re-banning it creates a lot of feelsbads financially, and is just likely something they would wish to avoid.
So no, don't expect a Library ban any time soon.
Mana Crypt
Another hard pass. Full four Mana Crypt would be super broken.
Mana Drain
This one is exceptionally contentious, and I would definitely say that if Wizards wanted to really excite at least one subset of Legacy players, unbanning Mana Drain would certainly do it. But should they do it? The most common argument for this card is rooted in the fact that cards like Counterspell don't actually see play in Legacy, and that Mana Drain is sort of just like Counterspell. And to an extent... it is and it isn't. Mana Drain is largely like Counterspell* with an asterisk that it lets you convert a card into a bunch of mana very efficiently on the next turn. The other common argument is that even if you do counter something with this, what are you converting the mana into? Well, cards like Karn, the Great Creator, The One Ring, etc. all come to mind. Converting a Mana Drain into a follow-up Karn or Ring seems quite good.
On that side of things however, it's commonly mentioned that decks that play these kinds of cards currently don't really hold up UU or have UU to hold up, but that's the thing about new cards to a format... decks will 100% adapt to figure out the best way to try to make that shell work, because it's likely to be exceptionally powerful. The risk of developing out this kind of shell that simply holds down Mana Drain and Force of Will while being able to leverage that advantage into a game-ending play is a lot.
I'm not 100% sold on the fact that Drain would be safe to unban, and while it could revitalize Control, I think the potential for abuse of the card does come along with it.
Mana Vault
Another hard pass.
Memory Jar
Jar is a weird card for sure, and honestly? It might not even be all that good in 2025 Legacy. But it does enable decks that play things like Grim Monolith and therein lies some problematic aspects. Furthermore, it's an RL card so the opportunity for it to ever come off the banlist is not very high in the first place.
It's certainly a card that would be cute to play around with, and it does some powerful things that may be tempered by the fact that cards like Orcish Bowmasters exists, but in the decks it would shine in it would really shine.
Mental Misstep
Phyrexian mana continues to be a mistake. NEXT!
Mind Twist
When we often talk about cards coming off the Ban list, this card inevitably comes up. I think it is primarily because on the surface it definitely doesn't appear to be a card that needs to be banned. At x=2 it's more costly than Hymn to Tourach, but the thing about Twist is how splashable and how much easier it is to cast with things like Sol Lands and the like. The other thing to consider is just what we're looking for in terms of a "shake-up" ban, and primarily that's looking to excite the Legacy playerbase. Being incredibly realistic here, the amount of people who are likely reasonably excited to play with Mind Twist is probably much lower than most people actually think.
At the end of the day, does Mind Twist deserve to be on the banlist? It may not, but I do think it will stay because its not solving any problems, it's not a very exciting unban, and Wizards is likely taking into account the fun of the player base on this one.
Mystical Tutor
I don't think there's any world where this card is unbanned, especially as long as Doomsday and Dimir Reanimator exist as decks. The opportunity cost of Mystical is just too good for too low of a cost.
Necropotence
We've seen a fixed version of Necro already and while it seems like Necrodominance does have its issues, Necropotence is most assuredly NOT Necrodominance. OG Necro is 100% better in every way and it's primarily because of things like being able to pay the life at any time and not having a reduced hand size, but also the fact that if your opponent blows up your Necropotence with a Force of Vigor you're not dead in the water in your combo, because you can still pay to draw a bunch of cards in response. Or... you can pay a little and draw a little to gain an advantage.
OG Necro is an absurdly powerful card and more than likely never gets unbanned, but I won't deny it would be an exciting unban if it did ever happen.
Oath of Druids
For a format that is as creature-centric as Legacy has become, a card like Oath of Druids would likely be so good it would need to be re-banned. But, heck if it isn't exciting. That being said, it would likely be pretty insane and it would easily push out a bunch of creature decks in the format, especially when you consider being able to run it in conjunction with Show and Tell like Vintage does.
Oko, Thief of Crowns
This one is an interesting conundrum, because there is some consideration that having Astrolabe available to this card helped to push it, but I think that's being too generous. Oko very well may be the only Planeswalker that Wizards inadvertently designed for Vintage gameplay, because the card is just simply "okay" there in relation to all the other busted stuff occurring. In Legacy however, I still think this card is just too good. It invalidates creature decks in a big way, and if left unchecked it can run over a game. Definitely not a card most people are looking to have back.
Psychic Frog
Oh yes, this guy just got banned. We'll examine him in a future future metagame, I'm sure.
Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
This is another very contentious card. There were certainly people who were still arguing as Ragavan was banned that the card wasn't actually insane in Legacy and that Daze was primarily the major culprit. I'm not 100% sold on that, but I can say there are a bunch of one drops now that exist that are pretty good versus Ragavan, but also cards like Orcish Bowmasters that exploit the one toughness that Ragavan has. Nethergoyf in general seems like it can grow out of Ragavan's range quickly, and frankly a shake-up unban would be to take one of these cards and reintroduce it.
That being said, Ragavan is likely still extremely powerful when it has Daze and Wasteland to back it up, and probably doesn't get unbanned for that reason, but it could be a card much like Dreadhorde Arcanist that could see some fruit in a more powerful metagame like we have now.
Sensei's Divining Top
There are still quite a lot of people who believe that Top was unjustly banned and deserves to be unbanned. Primarily a lot of this was that people felt they should have banned either Terminus or Counterbalance. I very much enjoyed playing with Top myself back in the day, and it would be an exciting unban for folks.
That being said... there's likely no world where Top ever comes back as long as Glaring Fleshraker is a legal card to play. It's not the Counterbalance deck you have to worry about, it's the infinite damage combo held up by Cavern of Souls. And that alone may strike Top from the record (unless they do actually ban Fleshraker!)
Skullclamp
I have to imagine that this card does not get unbanned anytime soon either. While there's countless ways to deal with artifacts, Skullclamp's value engine is so high and it goes off so quickly in the right deck.
Sol Ring
Hahahhahaha.... No.
Strip Mine
Yet another card that is highly unlikely to ever be unbanned. Just too strong with Wasteland, and land cyclers like Lorien Revealed mean these decks are likely never off their colors.
Survival of the Fittest
If there's one card on this list that I think would legitimately excite Legacy players as a "shake-up" unban, it would be Survival of the Fittest. And frankly, it sucks that it's a Reserved List card, because the likelihood of it ever happening is wildly zero at this point.
Survival is a really sweet card, it's fun to build around, and it allows for some really unique and fun games of Magic. And not only that, it's... kind of slow in current Legacy. It requires a good investment into mana to use well, and it's easy to interact with. The downsides of the card at the moment is that it would be a great tutor for cards like Nadu, but with Nadu gone eventually it would be a really interesting and fun toolbox aggro card that Legacy simply doesn't have right now.
If I could have one wish for 2025, it would be to amend the RL to remove Survival, and then unban it with a reprint. Make it happen, Wizards.
Time Vault
There's no world where this comes off, and it's not because it's an RL card. It's because it's HOT BUSTED as a four-of.
Tinker
Tinker is another card that seems legitimately insane, and it's just probably never going to happen at this point.
Tolarian Academy
HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH.
No.
Treasure Cruise
Ultimately what makes Treasure Cruise so good is the fact that it only has one blue mana pip, and that kind of splashability into a format where fetch lands and cheap cantrips enable casting it over and over probably means that it's not a fun unban by any stretch. If I had to take one of the Delve spells back it would probably be Dig Through Time over this.
Underworld Breach
We saw incredibly clearly how strong this card was when it was originally released and how quickly that shell overtook Legacy. Definitely saying pass on this one.
Vampiric Tutor
Something something Doomsday too good probably.
Vexing Bauble
Considering this card just got banned, I don't think we need to address it until a future metagame. Suffice to say, wouldn't expect this one to get reversed, though.
Wheel of Fortune
Considering this is Reserved List, it's probably automatically out, but I do think this would be too powerful to release into the world as a four-of.
White Plume Adventurer
White Plume is a very strong card, and I don't see a world where Wizards frees it from the banlist. Initiative proved to be quite good during its time in the format, and having a threat like this that you could deploy on Turn 1 easily was the biggest enabler for it.
Windfall
This one is not RL, but I do have to imagine that this kind of effect can be kind of nuts in the right deck. Imagine having some form of strategy that involves drawing like twenty cards, then you deploy this with Orcish Bowmasters in play. Seems scary and probably not all that worth it.
Wrenn and Six
As long as Wasteland continues to be a firm pillar of the Legacy format, I don't see any world where this card comes off the banlist. It's quite good and abuses that singular pillar.
Yawgmoth's Bargain
While this is now unrestricted in Vintage and doesn't actually see any play there, the context of Vintage as a format versus Legacy is much different given the things you can do there with the restricted cards available. That being said, I don't know. I am not sure Bargain would be super hot busted in Legacy, but it's certainly a really powerful card and easy to get into play with fast mana like Dark Ritual. It might be too good, but it would also be a reasonably exciting card to have.
Yawgmoth's Will
We have a bit of a fixed version of this card in Legacy in the form of Gaea's Will, and what really sets that one apart is the hoops you have to jump through for it. It's generally a brick in hand, where the OG is not. Being able to cast this off Dark Ritual is quite strong and makes this even better.
At the end of the day it's Reserved List, so its chances aren't super high anyways.
Zirda, the Dawnwaker
While we have not yet gotten to see what Zirda might do in a format where its Companion mechanic is different than when it was originally banned, I still would likely err on the overt side of caution for this card. The kind of decks this card wants make a bunch of mana really quickly anyways, and the upside of getting this into play is super high when you're just able to combo off and win the game.
The major downside of this card is that you can't play it as a Companion with Urza's Saga in the deck (since Saga by default grants activated abilities, it doesn't have any of its own) which cuts out a huge part of these decks now, but I think Companions as they go should just be gone. The mechanic is not very fun to play with, and I don't think we need to truly "see" what this would do, and I don't think many people are clamoring for this either.
AND THAT'S ALL FOLKS!
Thanks for sticking with me through the past two parts of this re-examination of the ban list in 2025. There's certainly some things that maybe Wizards could do to be exciting with it, but there's a lot more on this list that is likely to ever be unbanned for a wide variety of reasons.
What cards do you think should be unbanned? Let me know in the comments.
Legacy Challenge 32 1/15/2025
The first Challenge event of the week was the Wednesday event. This event had 46 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here. The Top 8 is below.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Izzet Tempo | 1st | Joyfulwaffle |
| Dimir Reanimator | 2nd | Bezerra_da_Silva |
| Dimir Reanimator | 3rd | pirol94 |
| Rakdos Reanimator | 4th | Magic_Dads71522 |
| Lands | 5th | Sprouts |
| Eldrazi | 6th | Flossed |
| Death and Taxes (Yorion - BW) | 7th | homerman750 |
| Dimir Control | 8th | secr3tm0de |
Quite a bit of Reanimator in the top here, but the event was won by Izzet Tempo.
Pretty straightforward looking list here. Cutting out Unholy Heat is quite interesting, but I do love some old school Chain Lightning in a Delver deck.
In Second Place we had Dimir Reanimator.
Tainted Indulgence as a bit of way to be able to pitch cards to the graveyard is pretty cool to adapt to, and guaranteed early on you're discarding something which is ideally what you want to be doing.
Legacy Challenge 32 1/17/2025
The second Challenge event of the week was the Friday event. This event had 35 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Red Stompy was the most popular deck here, and it did reasonably well. Doomsday did very well given it only had two pilots, as did Izzet Tempo decks. Dimir Reanimator kind of tanked here.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Doomsday | 1st | wakame |
| Izzet Tempo | 2nd | _INF_ |
| Red Stompy | 3rd | Munchlax446 |
| Stoneblade | 4th | harmonywoods |
| Izzet Tempo | 5th | habsburger |
| Oops! All Spells | 6th | choutin |
| Worldgorger Dragon | 7th | Roodslay |
| Dimir Tempo | 8th | ecobaronen |
Interesting and fairly reasonable Top 8. At the end of the event it was Doomsday that won.
A bit of a splash into white is kind of neat here. Teferi, Time Raveler is indeed a very powerful card, but also having access to The One Ring is pretty slick. This really is a neat Doomsday list.
In Second Place we had Izzet Tempo, and it's worth noting that both players on this deck made Top 8.
Another fairly stock looking list overall. I feel like going deeper on cards like Grafdigger's Cage is not where you want to be though, especiall with decks like Oops exploiting it via stuff like Memory's Journey.
Legacy Challenge 32 1/18/2025
The third Challenge event of the week was the Saturday event. This event had 42 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here. The Top 8 is below.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Red Stompy | 1st | kanican |
| Izzet Tempo | 2nd | ReformedPaolo |
| Death and Taxes (Yorion - BW) | 3rd | yoshiwata |
| Esper Vial | 4th | Carroz |
| Oops! All Spells | 5th | choutin |
| Dimir Reanimator | 6th | ziofrancone |
| LED Dredge | 7th | UniqueUsername3 |
| Dimir Tempo | 8th | Ark4n |
This is a pretty varied and interesting Top 8. At the end of the event it was Red Stompy that won.
Very clean and very stock looking Red Stompy list at the moment. This deck is doing great because it's definitely exploiting the very vulnerable manabases amongst certain decks, and the effect its having on the metagame overall is quite something.
In Second Place we again had Izzet Tempo.
Not a huge amount of derivative deckbuilding here, but if it's not broke... I definitely love Price of Progress right now in the current metagame.
Legacy Challenge 32 1/19/2025 - 1
The fourth Challenge event of the week was the first Sunday event. This event had 32 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
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| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Bant Control (Yorion) | 1st | Trohck |
| Red Stompy | 2nd | WadeB |
| Izzet Tempo | 3rd | _INF_ |
| Izzet Tempo | 4th | Venom01 |
| Dimir Reanimator | 5th | Ailien02 |
| Rakdos Reanimator | 6th | Magic_Dads71522 |
| Red Stompy | 7th | kanican |
| Doomsday | 8th | Munchlax446 |
Three decks majorly take up a chunk of this Top 8 (Red Stompy, Izzet, and Reanimator), but at the end of the event it was a Bant Control shell that won.
This deck is commonly referred to as "YES" (aka Yorion Ephemerate Spellseeker), and it's mainly abusing many of the creatures that have strong ETB triggers and using cards like Spellseeker as a tutor toolbox card to find ways to interact with the game or to find cantrips when needed. It's a pretty sweet deck for sure.
In Second Place we had Red Stompy.
This list's sideboard certainly showcases something that I think more decks should be looking at, and it's their graveyard hate. It definitely feels like many of the decks right now haven't really fully adjusted their hate for the graveyard decks like Oops, and having Stompy playing four Leyline is a good step in a right direction there to curbing those kinds of decks.
Legacy Challenge 32 1/19/2025 - 2
The final Challenge event of the week was the second Sunday event. This event had 71 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here. The Top 8 is below.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Mono Black Reanimator | 1st | TheGrimLavamancer |
| Eldrazi | 2nd | Peppe |
| Grixis Control | 3rd | TheGenz |
| Izzet Tempo | 4th | nedyahiske |
| Dimir Reanimator | 5th | mortr3d |
| Doomsday | 6th | GiorgioCombo |
| The EPIC Gamble | 7th | Killabee |
| Izzet Tempo | 8th | AnziD |
This is a reasonable Top 8 here. At the end of the event it was Mono Black Reanimator that won.
Huh, this is a neat deck. It does seem that the occasional Valgavoth shows up here or there. I'm still personally not 100% sold on the card, but I do see where it can occasionally be useful. The whole Chain of Smog combo in the sideboard is certainly neat.
In Second Place we had Eldrazi.
Eldrazi is a deck that was early identified as being "the deck" post ban, but it hasn't really materialized as being "that deck" it feels like, and a lot of that is primarily rooted in Red Stompy being pretty good against it. Very interesting to see how this deck's trajectory goes.
Around the Web
- There's a new Paper Legacy channel out there. Go check out The Legacy Archive!
- Eternal Durdles has some tech insights from Phil. Check it out here.
- TonyScapone is burning it up. Check it out here.
- Ecobaronen has some RHINOS. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
Now that Leagues are posted throughout the week, let's find some Spice!
DEMIGOD OF REVENGE.
Leyline Axe Stompy.
POISON AND STUFF.
Ancient Cellarspawn + Necrodominance. Best friends forever?
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!
