Peace Out Deathrite Shaman & Gitaxian Probe

(Just in case you missed the announcement, there was a big shakeup in Legacy today, so we called on our Legacy expert Rich Cali to get his thoughts.)

Deathrite Shaman has been an overwhelming force in Legacy since its release. While it has always been a staple, recently it has completely taken over the metagame. A very large amount of matchups were Underground Sea into Deathrite mirrors, and this got stale very quickly. Legacy will always be fun because of its nuances, but Deathrite really homogenized the fair decks that could be played. This meant that every deck could have any number of colors at almost no cost, and could hyper-efficiently play all of their spells. The most important thing in the modern Legacy metagame was being able to kill a turn 1 DRS on the draw or have one on he play. This was not compelling Legacy.
While Deathrite did have an important task of keeping unfair decks in check game 1, Legacy should be represented by more unfair decks. It is possible that this takes a heinous left turn and Lands obliterates the metagame, but I think there’s enough shakeup to create a real metagame. UB Reanimator is poised to make a comeback, Death and Taxes gets better, RUG and Jeskai Delver might get some time in the sun again, non-Deathrite Stoneblade decks get better. There could be so many changes, it’s honestly overwhelming. Overall, I am happy about this, and can’t wait to see some data in the field.

I have nothing nice to say about Gitaxian Probe, on the other hand. Casting it felt like cheating, having it cast against me felt horrible. It took away some of the most interesting parts of the game, and broke Cabal Therapy in half. I don’t think Probe added anything useful to the format, andI even think it kept some decks, like Belcher, which couldn’t beat Force of Will if they know to counter Seething Song, out of the metagame. If only one of these two cards would leave, I would have picked Probe, but overall, i’m happy to see them both go.