What Is Legacy In Magic: The Gathering?

What is Legacy in Magic: The Gathering? It’s a question players who’ve been around in the MTG space for a little while will all eventually end up asking, because while Modern might have once seemed like something you can move into from Standard, Legacy is something else entirely.

Well, it’s a question that’s got a pretty simple answer, so we’re going to dig into what the format is and what the banned cards are below. All you have to do is keep reading.

What is Legacy in Magic: The Gathering?

Legacy is a constructed format with a minimum of sixty card decks, up to fifteen cards in your sideboard, and the usual rules of no more than four of any single card in your deck outside of Basic Lands and Snow Lands.

Legacy is probably the second-most expensive format in MTG, with Vintage taking the top spot there. Well – kind of.

Legacy is, by far, the second most expensive format to get into, but if you plan on playing MTG for the long haul, it is likely to become the cheapest format. This is because, while buying into the format requires a small fortune, not much changes otherwise. Once you grab your expensive staples, you don’t need much else to play Legacy. There isn’t much risk of a new Modern Horizons set completely flipping the format on its head. You don’t need to buy a whole new deck every once-in-a-while to keep up. Of the non-rotating formats, this one rotates the least.

That said, Legacy is expensive to get into for a few reasons, but the main one is simply that it’s a format that contains cards from every set in MTG ever.

That’s not just those sets that were in Standard either, but ones that come from expansions and special sets like Commander decks and Conspiracy. This makes it an incredibly diverse format in theory, and if you want to brew a deck, you have a lot of freedom to do so aside from the banned list.

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What cards are banned in Legacy?

The banned list in Legacy is pretty lengthy because of the huge selection of cards available. You can look at it below:

• Ancestral Recall Ancestral Recall Target player draws three cards.
• Arcum’s Astrolabe Arcum’s Astrolabe ({S} can be paid with one mana from a snow source.)
  When this artifact enters, draw a card.
  {1}, {T}: Add one mana of any color.
• Balance Balance Each player chooses a number of lands they control equal to the number of lands controlled by the player who controls the fewest, then sacrifices the rest. Players discard cards and sacrifice creatures the same way.
• Bazaar of Baghdad Bazaar of Baghdad {T}: Draw two cards, then discard three cards.
• Black Lotus Black Lotus {T}, Sacrifice this artifact: Add three mana of any one color.
• Channel Channel Until end of turn, any time you could activate a mana ability, you may pay 1 life. If you do, add {C}.
• Chaos Orb Chaos Orb {1}, {T}: If this artifact is on the battlefield, flip it onto the battlefield from a height of at least one foot. If this artifact turns over completely at least once during the flip, destroy all nontoken permanents it touches. Then destroy this artifact.
• Deathrite Shaman Deathrite Shaman {T}: Exile target land card from a graveyard. Add one mana of any color. (Activate only as an instant.)
  {B}, {T}: Exile target instant or sorcery card from a graveyard. Each opponent loses 2 life.
  {G}, {T}: Exile target creature card from a graveyard. You gain 2 life.
• Demonic Consultation Demonic Consultation Choose a card name. Exile the top six cards of your library, then reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a card with the chosen name. Put that card into your hand and exile all other cards revealed this way.
• Demonic Tutor Demonic Tutor Search your library for a card, put that card into your hand, then shuffle.
• Dig Through Time Dig Through Time Delve (Each card you exile from your graveyard while casting this spell pays for {1}.)
  Look at the top seven cards of your library. Put two of them into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.
• Dreadhorde Arcanist Dreadhorde Arcanist Trample
  Whenever this creature attacks, you may cast target instant or sorcery card with mana value less than or equal to this creature's power from your graveyard without paying its mana cost. If that spell would be put into your graveyard, exile it instead.
• Earthcraft Earthcraft Tap an untapped creature you control: Untap target basic land.
• Expressive Iteration Expressive Iteration Look at the top three cards of your library. Put one of them into your hand, put one of them on the bottom of your library, and exile one of them. You may play the exiled card this turn.
• Falling Star Falling Star Flip Falling Star onto the playing area from a height of at least one foot. Falling Star deals 3 damage to each creature it lands on. Tap all creatures dealt damage by Falling Star. If Falling Star doesn't turn completely over at least once during the flip, it has no effect.
• Fastbond
• Flash
• Frantic Search
• Gitaxian Probe
• Goblin Recruiter
• Gush
• Hermit Druid
• Imperial Seal Imperial Seal Search your library for a card, then shuffle and put that card on top. You lose 2 life.
• Library of Alexandria
• Lurrus of the Dream-Den
• Mana Crypt
• Mana Drain
• Mana Vault
• Memory Jar
• Mental Misstep
• Mind Twist
• Mishra’s Workshop
• Mox Emerald
• Mox Jet
• Mox Pearl Mox Pearl {T}: Add {W}.
• Mox Ruby
• Mox Sapphire
• Mystical Tutor
• Necropotence
• Oath of Druids
• Oko, Thief of Crowns
• Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
• Sensei’s Divining Top
• Shahrazad
• Skullclamp Skullclamp Equipped creature gets +1/-1.
  Whenever equipped creature dies, draw two cards.
  Equip {1}
• Sol Ring Sol Ring {T}: Add {C}{C}.
• Strip Mine
• Survival of the Fittest
• Time Vault
• Time Walk
• Timetwister
• Tinker
• Tolarian Academy
• Treasure Cruise
• Underworld Breach
• Vampiric Tutor
• Wheel of Fortune
• White Plume Adventurer
• Windfall Windfall Each player discards their hand, then draws cards equal to the greatest number of cards a player discarded this way.
• Wrenn and Six
• Yawgmoth’s Bargain
• Yawgmoth’s Will
• Zirda, the Dawnwaker

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Legacy’s Recent Banlist Changes

Since this article was last updated (its been quite some time), three new cards have been added to the banlist, and one has been taken off. Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer‘s addition happened quite some time ago, so we won’t touch on that. Instead, let’s talk about Legacy’s most recent banning.

Expressive Iteration and White Plume Adventurer saw recent bannings thanks to two archetypes dominating the Legacy format not too long ago. White Plume Adventurer was the main villain, creating a hostile format where Mono White Initiative preyed on Izzet Delver, and Delver preyed on everything that could prey on Initiative.

Expressive Iteration Expressive Iteration Look at the top three cards of your library. Put one of them into your hand, put one of them on the bottom of your library, and exile one of them. You may play the exiled card this turn. was the nerf to Delver. Should the foil to Delver fall, that deck might become too good for in the Legacy format again. Many bans have been a result of Izzet Delver, and this is unlikely to be the last.

Otherwise, Mind’s Desire saw a recent unban a few days ago as of the writing of this section, and the format is already getting shaken up by it. Combo has been a bit weaker in recent times, so Wizards of the Coast unbanned the card to throw combo players a bone.

All of this is to hopefully say that even though Legacy is a nonrotating format, innovations quietly promote change, and the format continues to grow.

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