A Miracleless metagame means a lot for people working their way into Legacy. Last week I addressed a lot of the negatives of the Top ban but as much as I hate to say it there are also some positives as well especially for those looking to break into the format. In terms of Legacy Hero, the Miracles ban has made my deck significantly better on multiple levels. Miracles was a tough match-up for this version of the deck; and combo, which I expect to see more of, is often a great match-ups for Death and Taxes. This big metagame shift provides a lot of potential specifically for people looking to use D&T to get into Legacy.
One major way it helps people on a budget get into the format is without Counter-Top it creates a lot of potential for brewers who previously were stymied by Miracles. Brews can be fantastic budget decks. They give people opportunities to play decks that they love or to try to port a deck from another format. Death’s Shadow is a hard deck to port to Legacy (unless you’re Aaron of Brew Corner) when you have to face down Counterbalance. Without Miracles you’re more likely to find Modern players trying to port it to Legacy and a lot of other Modern decks are in the same boat. It’s a lot more fun to have a format you can bring in unique decks and do well with. You see it in Modern all the time (Swans anyone?) but Legacy it’s a lot harder to be successful with a brew.
Cutting Miracles gives some more power to Legacy’s best budget decks, Burn and Elves. While both weren’t auto-losses to Miracles, it could be a tough match-up for both. The more Miracles has seen success the less you’ve seen success with either of the decks. The edging out of Elves was tough, seeing a major blow to such a strong and affordable deck that had once been almost 10% of the format but had slowly been cut back to around 3%.
The biggest hope I have to come out of the Miracles ban is that it will bring more people into the format who were specifically avoiding it because of Miracles. The number of people who fall into that category is actually pretty large. I had a lot of people reach out to me after the announcement to let me know how excited they were to be returning to Legacy. There is one downside to this for us budget individuals—increased demand can mean an increase on prices. There are a lot of other benefits, however. People feeling more welcome to the format might mean more events. Who knows? Maybe if you’re lucky you’ll have as much access to Legacy as I do, and if more Legacy events are happening Wizards might put some more investment in the format.
There are a lot of downsides to losing Miracles in Legacy. I hope long term it doesn’t have any major negative effects on my beloved format, but for now there are also some benefits and I hope that if nothing else it helps Legacy grow in the short term.
And it means my budget Death & Taxes deck for Legacy Hero can focus more on beating the new Legacy metagame. Those expensive Cavern of Souls might not be necessary anymore!
Kate hails from Worcester MA and also does a bit of Card Altering. Check her Stuff out on Facebook! She mainly plays legacy and modern though will occasionally find herself playing EDH.