Legacy Thoughts

As I was casually running an old Stiflenought build with the new promo foil Stifles,

 a spectator asked me about the recently unbanned Land Tax in Legacy.



I have played Land Tax in 100 card Singleton but never in a proper constructed format.

I can't help but to feel underwhelmed by it when people want to make it into a mountain. Sure it may be a good deck but ultimately, I can't help but to find it an unstable deck because it needs Land Tax and runs basic lands which is very restrictive.

Draw engines are good when they allow you to find answers you need or when they mesh with your original strategy. Don't misunderstand when I am not impressed by the card because drawing 3 a turn is no laughing matter. In fact, anyone can simply run 4-5 basic lands and still use Brainstorm to milk tons of milleage out of Land Tax but the sky is not close to falling. If I am casually running Stiflenought, Land Tax doesn't have that much time to assemble answers to my threat.

When you put too effort into running a card draw engine, you will have a tough time playing against fast decks that won't let you get to enjoy the full milleage.

It's really a pity that they still want to keep the caps on Mental Misstep, the overly overrated card that prevents people from playing zoo. So where is this zoo right now? In the zoo? Definitely not anywhere close to where Legacy is right now.

Silly Legacy people couldn't react against the card properly and wanted it banned.

There is always the option to retune your deck to not be vulnerable to the card but I think that the Legacy people are too inflexible to believe that they can or play decks that make the Mental Missteps in the opponents hands become a liability. In fact, I believe that that era was much more skill intensive and interesting because of how Mental Misstep can forcefully interact with decks that stubbornly don't want to step away and how there are some people who absolutely crush the spell and enjoy its liabilities that it imposes onto the general Legacy populus.

That person did mention Balance in the format but I think he just doesn't know the true terror of a Armageddon + Mind Twist + Wrath of God for 2 mana. On the play, Chrome Mox, Mox Diamond, Balance, land, Delver of Secrets go. Opp starts with 2 cards and draws 1......

Oh yes.. Still waiting... =)