Howdy folks, this is Joe again and we’re back on the rant train of Burning Out in Los Angeles: A Brief History on the Rubber Industry!
This week we’re keeping things rather lowkey, and talking a bit about not only Legacy, but stuff that affects us all as Magic players. I’m talking of course about burnout.
Burnout happens to us all, not just Legacy players. It happens when spending too much time on Magic, too much grinding, too much this or that; any way you get there, the end result is our play starts to suffer a little.
Going back to a few weeks ago, I certainly felt this. My play had been truly punt-worthy enough that I needed to take a legitimate break. I took a week off from playing any actual Magic games, even didn’t go to FNM to play Legacy (what a shocker!), because I needed to focus a little on myself and stop the punting. My play at SCG Cincy was a little awful, combined with further punting at a local FNM.
These are things that happen to us all. Sometimes we get so invested in this game that it’s tough to remember to take short breaks. Being a content creator like I have been trying to do, it’s hard because there’s always constant stuff to monitor.
The long and short of it is that we all need ways to breathe from our respective formats. I try to manage this with Legacy by also playing Modern and also various Limited formats, but sometimes too much is too much.
Thankfully, my short week break gave me a lot of time to rest and get back into the swing of things. I recently picked up pieces of Manaless Dredge on Magic Online, and will be doing my article next week on that deck, complete with videos! I’m very excited because it’s a good way to showcase what is one of the cheaper decks in the format.
The Health of the Format
In other news, I think it’s time to take another hard long look at the health of Legacy. The omni-presence of Deathrite Shaman has me feeling utterly shaky about whether the card will end up getting banned in the long run.
The Top 16 of Seattle had 8 decks that all had Deathrite in them, between Grixis Delver, Pile, and Maverick. While Maverick is the outlier here, the rest of the decks are not. Is it bad then that I think people are probably right that DRS needs to go? How long will Wizards wait this time before acting upon it? After all, it took them three years to kill Miracles.
It’s disheartening, because I know that Legacy is much more diverse. I am grateful at the local level it’s often not like this,. However, at a competitive level I hope that something gets done soon. I don’t really think decks like Pile should exist, because they skip past the limiter of Wasteland on the format.
At the end of the day however, until something changes, these decks will continue to exist and beat on the format. Let’s just hope it doesn’t take a sign posted at Wizards to fix things.
Wrapping Up
Short rant/get off my chest type article this week, but it felt good to talk a bit about some of these things.
Join us next week on The Dredge Below: Deep Dark Secrets of Magic!
Joseph is an avid player of eternal Magic formats, including Vintage and Legacy. As a Nic Fit player who will tell anyone who will listen about his deck, Joe spends his time analyzing and playing on Magic Online and various online platforms, while prepping for competitive events. To follow more Joe, check out his Twitter!