Hello there!
I’m Àlex Mateu, a former Legacy player, and I’m writing this article to introduce you to this format and give you the tools so we can come together again after so many years.
It was the year 2010, Magic cards were in black and white, bought with pesetas, and most of us, compared to now, had hardly any obligations, no gray hairs, no baldness, and probably weighed about 40kg less. Those were the days…
This format is a journey to the past, where we used to gather weekly with 40-50 players to play our favorite format, and monthly we would reach up to 100 players (or even more) in the Liga Catalana de Legacy (LCL), in a competitive but above all fun atmosphere. We were like a big family, full of friendly rivalries, love, excitement, camaraderie, competitiveness, and above all, friendship.
The golden age of Legacy.
Little by little, many of us grew up and set aside this hobby for others, for obligations, family, partners, children, work, studies… Lack of time in general. But now that your children have probably grown up and are what, 10 years old? It’s time for them to find a job, become independent, and for you to rediscover the player within you. Alternatively, you can earn family points with your partner with small gestures to let you escape one day. Try telling them after a romantic dinner, starting from the 3rd bottle of wine.
Competitive Magic has a serious problem for people with little time: you have to stay very up to date. New cards and mechanics come out very frequently. If we always had the same cards, the format would evolve, the possibilities would be immense, but if you add new cards that change everything in the equation, as well as playing various different formats, it makes the game very dynamic, but at the cost of having to invest a very large amount of time, which many of us do not have.
Under the premises of: golden age and limited time, Classic Legacy was born. Do you remember what was played back then? Tarmogoyfs, Force of Wills, Goblins, Merfolks, Zoo, Ad Nauseam, Counterbalance… The human brain does not work by elimination, it works by addition, creating neural pathways on top of the ones that already existed. Could you unlearn the Happy Birthday song? Although you’re probably not thinking about it right now.
What I mean is that, if I refresh your memory, you will surely remember everything you knew. In fact, it will take you very little time to get back up to speed. Among other things because back then you dedicated a lot of time and did it with excitement and fun. It’s all somewhere in the brain waiting to be rescued again. And you know what’s going to happen when this resurfaces? Not only will you remember the decks, you’ll remember the moments of happiness, the people, the anecdotes… You’ll travel back to that time of fun when things were different.
What is Classic Legacy?
That format we loved so much. The golden age. The Legacy that existed in the summer of 2010, with the last set being “Rise of the Eldrazi”. Created by Lluís Cortès.
Here are the allowed sets: https://classiclegacymtg.com/#legal-sets
And don’t worry, Rise of the Eldrazi is the last set, but you can’t play Vengevines (or Mysticals, although you can play Survivals).
There is also a list of banned cards: https://classiclegacymtg.com/#banned-cards
Classic Legacy and Premodern
But then, you might think: this sounds familiar, isn’t this the same as Premodern?
Well, there are certainly similarities but also some fundamental differences which make both formats complementary to each other!
Both formats use nostalgia as a banner to attract players that enjoyed Magic back then. However, by taking a close look at both ban lists you might start to glimpse the differences. You will also notice that Classic Legacy covers a broader time period, which implies some extra sets released.
In Classic Legacy you have access to cards such as Tendrils of Agony, Force of Will, Brainstorm, the whole set of Dredge cards from the original Ravnica, Counterbalance or Aether Vial. All those cards are staples in Classic Legacy that give a distinctive gameplay to decks that live in both formats like Storm, Tribal aggro decks, Madness or Survival of the Fittest to name a few, they even open up some exclusive strategies that you can’t replicate in Premodern like Dredge or the famous (infamous? 😀) countertop (decks that were built around the strong synergy between Counterbalance and Sensei’s Divining Top). In turn, in Premodern you have access to some goodies that we are missing in Classic Legacy due to our current ban list. Cards like Gush or Oath of Druids are incredibly powerful cards and Premodern staples that we can only dream of in Classic Legacy.
Another distinctive point of Classic Legacy are the mana bases on steroids we have! Having access to dual lands makes our lives so much easier when constructing multicolored decks, and them alone (well, together with the fetchlands) make construction of three, four or even five colored decks much easier! Something that, while feasible in Premodern is, for sure, not as easy nor as common (looking at you The Solution/Angel Mc Angel Face/This Girl/Star Spangled Slaughter … 👀!).
Lastly, I think that another notable difference is that Classic Legacy is a “historical” format, meaning it is a format that has already existed, almost identically, and what we want from it is to revive those magical years where Legacy was at its peak with a huge worldwide community (remember, for instance, the GP Madrid 2010 with 2,227 players? The biggest to date!). On the other hand, Premodern is legitly a brand new format. Its specific card pool with its specific ban list never existed before! This offers a completely new experience, especially for brewers, but at the same time is 100% linked to the nostalgic feeling of playing those lovely cards we enjoyed in old Standard or even old Extended formats.
Changes in rules since 2010
You should consider something different from when we used to play years ago: we use the current rules. Two things mainly change:
The London Mulligan
The player who starts first looks at their 7 cards and decides whether to mulligan or not. Then the player who starts second does the same. In case of wanting to mulligan, the person who goes first mulligans first, and then the other. If you want to mulligan again, the process is repeated. In other words, the mulligan goes in turns. First me, then you, then me, then you…
To mulligan, you don’t draw one less card; you redraw 7 cards and put back on the bottom of the library as many cards as mulligans you have made. So, with the first mulligan, you redraw 7 cards, choose one, and put it on the bottom of the library. With the second mulligan, you redraw 7 cards, choose two, and put them on the bottom. With the third mulligan, you draw 7 cards, choose three, put them at the bottom, and take out the rosary bead to pray a bit.
How does this affect the format of the era? In general, all decks benefit from this change, as it increases overall playability, but some may be slightly more advantaged than others. Initially, A+B combo decks, meaning decks that aim to assemble two specific cards, are now better. Storm decks are not as benefited as the former because they usually need a combination of several cards, so they still need quantity as well as quality. Another deck that, in my opinion, is now better is Goblins. One of the first things you learn with Goblins is that if you don’t have a hand with Vial or Lackey, it’s a mulligan (almost always). Goblins will reshape their hand via Matron/Ringleader, so having one less card while securing your lands and Vial is worth it. Therefore, this mulligan benefits it as it searches for something specific, unlike a deck like Canadian, for example, which has a lot of redundancy.
The Legendary rule
Previously, only one legendary card with the same name could be in play. There couldn’t be two Jitte, two Progenitus, two Karakas… If there was a copy in play and a player played a second copy, both would go to the graveyard. Now, however, there can be a copy of the legendary card on each side of the table. And if someone plays their own second copy, both legendaries won’t die; you simply choose which one you want to keep, and the other goes to the graveyard.
How does this affect the format of the era? This is relevant because now you can’t use your Karakas as a wasteland, find yourself a Jitte with your Stoneforge to blow up their Jitte, or use your Natural Order for Progenitus to kill their Progenitus. Does it mean that the first one to play it wins? Well, not always, but keep in mind that playing your legendary is no longer a direct response to theirs. This may slightly alter deckbuilding, although it’s not as significant a change as the previous one.
What to play?
Everyone likes to win, but the main thing is that you have fun and play something you feel comfortable with. The card pool is immense, and while it’s true that some decks are stronger than others, the possibilities are truly vast. For example, Lands may not be the best deck, but have you tried playing against this deck with Merfolk? For your mental health, it’s better not to.
The format will rotate, and people, with access to an immense card pool thanks to proxies, will change decks. If you bring your The Rock into an environment of blue tempo decks with few creatures, you’ll crush them. Any strategy at the right time can surprise or be perfectly feasible, so it won’t become monotonous. We also won’t be playing every day, and we’ll be operating in that comfort zone of card knowledge and skills.
That said, you should refresh your memory a bit. The first thing you should do is have this list of 50 decks handy for your bathroom breaks or while waiting for the bus:
Check out this StarCityGames article. It is gold.
Use this article just to get an idea of the decks that existed, but take it with a grain of salt because:
- This article was written in early 2010, so compared to our format, there were still collections yet to be released, which changes things a bit.
- Mystical Tutor hadn’t been banned yet.
- Some lists, like Goblins, are so poorly made that they would make the baby Jesus cry.
However, it can give you many ideas or a starting point. Also, the loops it explains at the end of the article are perfectly applicable now to define the format competitively.
Another thing you can do to peek at decks that people are bringing to physical or online tournaments is to click on these links:
When choosing your idea or deck and remembering what was played back then, you’ll have to do a bit of archaeology to dig up the decklists from that time. Let’s face it, a lot of time has passed. But here I am so you don’t waste time on Google. Below, you’ll see a compilation of the top decks from the important tournaments of that time.
But, to analyze them correctly, you must consider mainly that Mystical Tutor was allowed in the GP of Madrid but was banned shortly after. And that Survival of the Fittest with Vengevines was also legal in some tournaments; Survival was banned on January 1, 2011, to avoid future issues. But the real problem was Vengevine, not Survival. Survival adds another fun deck to play with lots of room for imagination, without being a broken card and with millions of answers, which is why it’s allowed in Classic Legacy. Here we don’t have the fear of printing something weird that suddenly makes Survival a tier S card. The tops in the Vengevine Survival period are easily identifiable, as 9 out of 8 decks in the top 8 carried Vengevines, so don’t worry, you’ll see it quickly. This made decks have to adapt in general, as well as use techs (like some Merfolk decks that carried Hibernation) and have sideboard cards like Pithing Needle, which were better in an environment with Vengevines and Surivals than they are now. So, when copying a decklist, consider all this beforehand.
Also, consider that the release of the Scars of Mirrodin block, with its Phyrexian mana, Batterskull, or Zenith, had a big impact on Legacy. So cards from the Zendikar block, especially Rise of the Eldrazi, didn’t have much time to establish themselves and show their true potential. Therefore, I believe there’s a lot of open space for innovation and optimization of different strategies.
February 2010
Grand Prix Madrid (2.227 Players)
Note that Mystical Tutor was still legal.
March 2010
April 2010
May 2010
June 2010
July 2010
August 2010
September 2010
End step
We’re creating a community to enjoy what we used to do before, and the more, the merrier. We have channels on Discord, WhatsApp groups, Instagram, or Facebook, which you can find on our website https://classiclegacymtg.com/.
We hold online tournaments, but we all know that what we miss is that face-to-face interaction, shuffling, physically playing our cards, and meeting old friends… That’s why there’s already a list of the monthly physical tournaments that will take place this year, so we can plan our schedules well in advance (more information in the WhatsApp group or Discord channel).
Classic Legacy 2024 calendar
- Dates: January 28, February 25, March 31, April 21, June 30, July 28 (Summer Derby), August 18, September 22, October 27, November 24, December 8.
- Location: Bar Restaurant Olympia. Carrer Palència 30, Barcelona. Google Maps.
- Start time: 10:00 am
- Entrance fee: 8€
I hope that after reading this article and looking at decks and videos, you’ll be itching to join us and take up card gaming again after many years in a format you already know and for which you don’t need a big time investment to get back to the level you had years ago, or if you simply haven’t stopped playing and want to reminisce about the golden age of Legacy, come join us for some games and remember the decks and people from back then!