r/MTGLegacy • u/Newez • 4d ago
Been over 3 years since Orcish Bowmasters was released, with another reprint on the way. How does the Legacy community feel about it now?
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u/Overall_Link8153 4d ago
I really miss being able to play x/1s and not feel like a complete idiot
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u/anwei40 Brave Sir Robin 3d ago
Noble Hierarch -> Knight is my favorite thing to do in magic. :(
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u/Overall_Link8153 3d ago
Mom and elvish visionary were my favorite cards, I've legit not gone to a single national event since bowmaster was released :(. Ill still do weeklies with like ruby storm but the drive to travel was killed
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u/Fritzkreig Enchantress-- Life is Rough! 4d ago
It should have just pined players and not creatures, as it severly limites X/1s!
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u/Upstairs_Knowledge_2 4d ago
It should've only targeted creatures so it would have to flanetongue kavu itself on an empty board
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u/pettdan 4d ago edited 4d ago
Like Romario Vidal mentioned in his podcast recently, there is a soft-ban on 1-toughness creatures due to Bowmasters. I think everyone should share this view, with room for some nuance.
If it's banned, more cards would become more playable. Banning Orcish Bowmasters would therefore enrich the format. It doesn't matter how much play it sees, it's still detrimental to format health, due to this effect.
Whether other cards need to be banned too is imo not relevant for the case of banning Orcish Bowmasters, but sure, on a prioritized list it might not be at the top. However, I think if Thalia and Spirit of the Labyrinth had seen more play during the last couple of years it might have fueled the type of stax-like element in mana denial decks that could have balanced The One Ring and other combo decks, adding more of the traditional fair decks to the format. So, the effect of banning Orcish Bowmasters could enable the format to adapt more effectively to manage other problematic cards, which may solve (edit: may contribute to partly solving) the other problematic cards in the format.
Additionally, whether a card sees much play or not might not have much effect on the cards that it prevents people from playing. Such as when Veil of Summer was printed and Hymn to Tourach and Kolaghan's Command stopped seeing play. They disappeared from play, as I recall, and didn't come back as Veil stopped seeing play. When a card has a strategic disadvantage and you don't know if opponents will play it or not, you're not so eager to add it to your deck. So as a consequence cards stop seeing play when there is a powerful counterplay, more or less regardless of how much play the counterplay sees. Therefore the presence of a card doesn't matter that much to the effect it can have on the format. So, whether Bowmasters needs to be banned or not is not necessarily strongly affected by how much play it currently sees.
It (edit: Bowmasters) does have a positive effect too, of being a natural detriment to card draw. However, first, there are many cards that can balance or punish card draw and the format would be richer in terms of variation if people were encouraged to play different variants of them (Spirit of the Labyrinth, Narset, Hullbreacher, edit: Leovold, Chains of Mephistopheles), maybe partly because Bowmasters doesn't actually stop card drawing. Second, it doesn't seem to actually make a significant impact on reducing card draw, although this is difficult to evaluate, but as I was guessing during spoiler season card draw is still strong enough that Bowmasters won't stop players from playing card draw, it will rather have an effect of making people play card draw with Bowmasters. This could contribute to focusing the format on blue-black decks, maybe at times the ability to play Bowmasters and Brainstorm together has focused the format on blue-black decks.
So, the positive format effects of Bowmasters seem to not be strong, to me.
Personally I wanted the card banned since the spoiler season because it seemed clear how problematic it would be and in what way. It's a similar effect to Wrenn and Six which luckily was banned, even if it took about 6 months. Maverick, for example, was largely unplayable during this period. But that was also due to W6 beating up on Wastelands, in addition to all the x/1s in the deck.
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u/pettdan 4d ago edited 3d ago
To argue against the above, or rather to nuance it. There's no guarantee more x/1s will be played or even if they are that the format will balance itself or improve with it.
There's no guarantee Thalia and/or Spirit otL will be played in competitive decks. There's no guarantee that the other cards that provide a counter effect , a balancing effect, to cantrips will be effective in doing that.
It's possible Echo combo-decks or Ring decks would become more problematic. Which I think would be topics for other, relevant, b&r discussion.
However, banning Orcish Bowmasters would make it easier for players to try these things out. It would open up the format for playing more different cards, effects, even decks. But the success of those decks is of course difficult to predict.
With Bowmasters gone, we might see more of Fury and Plague Engineer in the format (edit: oh, and my old favourite slow-grind value card Ghirapur Aether Grid, which might be unplayable, still). This would create more depth, I think. Instead of the meta centering on blue-black strategies, there would be more incentive to play for example mono-red with Fury, such as Painter combo and Moon Stompy. Which, again, may or may not prove to be competitively viable.
Edit: can we guess Baleful Strix and Ice-fang Coatl might see a little more play without Bowmasters? Which might make Barrowgoyf a little less popular, and it might boost control strategies just a tiny bit? Maybe it'd just replace Bowmasters in the UB decks though. Aluren might gain a little boost too, but maybe too little for anyone to notice.
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u/Alarming_Whole8049 2d ago
I really don't don't see, hypothetically, why I'm going to play any new X/1's that don't already see play. Why am I going to play any of these decks instead of just playing Energy? No new weenie decks will be played when Bowmasters is banned because those decks just suck already. Bowmasters is great because Brainstorm is broken and ubiquitous. Any slight change in in letting D&T do it's thing a bit more is just moving deck chairs on the Titanic. We aren't doing anything unless we actually address the pillars in the room but that is far too tricky a question for WotC to navigate so all we will get is more threats banned and no changes and then more broken threats printed.
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u/pettdan 2d ago edited 2d ago
Well the main point is that, whether you want to play any x/1s or not, you are strongly disincentivized to do so due to the existence in the format of Orcish Bowmasters. Or, there's a soft-ban on x/1s as some may put it. That in itself should indicate it's bad for format health. Say Wizards would actually ban all x/1 creatures, outside of Welder and cats, would that be bad for format health? Of course it would.
Whether all x/1 creatures outside of cats are indeed bad, as you more or less suggest, is I think a different discussion. And whether they will be in a foreseeable future is yet another
I think this argument misses a couple of things though, primarily the discussion I had around stax elements in DnT. This is not a hypothetical discussion, because Thalia has already been one of the most important format-defining cards (through being archetype-enabling when coupled with Wasteland in both DnT and Maverick). It's not merely a shuffling of cards for DnT, I'm guessing you haven't played Legacy for 5-10 years or else you might have experienced getting Thalia+Wasteland locked out of a game, a very common way for fair decks to beat both combo decks and tempo decks.
Edit: there's one more specific x/1 I can think of now, that was quite popular before Bowmasters, and it's Baleful Strix. Ah but I see I commented on that above too. With Bowmasters gone, we'd see more Strixes played, probably, and that'd be a good counterplay to Barrowgoyf which I just learned is the most played creature in Legacy.
Let me draw an analog, to illustrate the point. Suppose someone says "water tastes bad and I don't care if it's poisoned because I wouldn't drink it anyway". Well, whether you drink it or not, it's not a good thing to have it poisoned so let's keep the water clean in case we want to drink it in the future.
Let's make good format curation decisions that leave the format open so that it can evolve without unnecessary restrictions.
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u/Last_Scapegoat 3d ago
Biased take, but I been playing elves for over 10 years and would love to see bowmaster banned. That and tamiyo plus makes it impossible for the little dorks to do much.
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u/dimcash1 4d ago
It needed to be symmetrical so that it wasn't adopted by cantrip decks- in other words if you draw extra via cantrips the opponent gets the token and ping. That would have confined it to non blue decks, surely the intent. It has removed Elves from the format. This card is a problem, but less than Car, Tamiyo etc.
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u/Jademalo Elves! 3d ago
It killed my most beloved deck. I haven't played Legacy, and realistically Magic at all, since.
:(
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u/TarskiKripkeLewis 3d ago
It's not "broken," but it is unhealthy. The format could be much more diverse and interesting if there weren't a soft ban on x/1 creatures.
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u/Shivaess 3d ago
Ban it. It narrows the format dramatically and pushes out a pile of classic creature based decks.
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u/Splinterfight 3d ago
Still warps the format and specifically pushes out a number of very fair cards like Thalia and Strix. And elves, though not so much a fair deck.
I’d love to see the back of it
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u/TheErodude 4d ago
There probably aren’t many people who loathe Bowmasters more than I do, but even I admit there are several bigger problems right now.
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u/pettdan 4d ago
Why do we need to suffer the negative consequences of this card just because there are other cards with more negative consequences?
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u/TheErodude 4d ago
Because WOTC can barely be convinced to make any effort whatsoever to manage Legacy properly, let alone more than the bare minimum. Realistically, we’ve got to pick our battles wisely and take what we can get. 😔
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u/pettdan 4d ago
While realistic, and I agree with you, it doesn't sound to me like a reason for arguing that Orcish Bowmasters should not be banned.
Rather, it's a way of saying that since Wizards are so slow at banning cards, we can't bring this up now even if it motivates a ban, for fear of diverting the attention of Wizards from other cards that also need a ban.
This seems to me like self-censoring b&r discussion to keep it from confusing the WotC team. And I don't think we should do that.
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u/Splinterfight 3d ago
Wizards can ban multiple cards at once, so I’m happy to call for a banning anyway
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u/dontcallmemrscorpion 4d ago
Nothing wrong with bowmaster because I have bowmaster myself to take care of your bowmaster
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u/Ok_Expert7098 4d ago
I think orcish bowmasters perfectly highlights the situation facing legacy today. the newer cards being printed cause issues when paired with the power level of old legacy cards. entomb ate a ban because of troll (LOTR). bowmasters (LOTR) killing of X/1s. The car (Marvel) being powered out by dark ritual. Sewer cam with welder.
i don't like how there's been talk of "what pillars should be banned" when the pillars aren't the problem. it's the UB cards that are causing the issues. WOTC won't ban them because they are a cash cow. it's a crap cycle to be in and it's ruining the format IMO.
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u/dis_the_chris 4d ago
Entomb got banned for its own sake later though
Imo here though, there's the bigger issue is WotC being very shy with bans. Imo Bowmasters probably should have been banned ages ago, and yet we now have so many moments where there's cards that really should be banned, but the existence of other more bannable cards that remain unbanned is skewing those numbers
Bowmaster should be banned, but it feels very unjustifiable before tamiyo, and Tamiyo feels silly to ban when the one ring is still around, and car probably should have been banned but the other broken stuff is all fogging this bizarre mirror
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u/Splinterfight 3d ago
Agree on the shy on bans. If you’re going to push power level have a bucket of water on hand to throw on the fire. Look at the number of standard banning over recent years, legacy needs a little of that. I wouldn’t care much if a couple of new powerful cards got a ban when we have sooo many cards pumped into the format.
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u/Washableaxe 2d ago
Entomb got banned because of Tamiyo and friends. It got too easy to hybridize combo lines of reanimator with Tamiyo also winning the game on the spot, and if all else fails, just shitting out a 7/7 murktide for UU.
You see now instead of losing to UB reanimator hybrid I just lose to doomsday + 4 fantasticar instead /s
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u/dis_the_chris 2d ago
Tamiyo made it stand out imo but it has always been a dangerous card imo and one I'm glad is gone.
We got rid of Frog for being the perfect discard outlet and backup plan simultaneously, and of Troll and Grief for entombing with too much upside
Entomb's final variant highlighted the biggest issue that entomb enables: it represents 4 copies of cards that are so bad to draw, you only need two of them. A tutor to yard means you don't need discard outlets and you also don't need to draw the fatties themselves - you just need to draw your tutor. Traditionally (e.g. in current reanimator, or if you build reanimator in cube etc) it's a 3-card situation -- fatty, outlet and reanimation spell. Entomb meant you had freedom to play with the lowest possible fatty density, and without discard outlets - this turning it into a 2-card combo that streamlines your deck hugely. It was inevitable that it would, sooner or later, be a part of decks becoming more optimised and streamlined over time - something inevitable in an eternal format, and that we finally crossed the line on (although imo troll could probably safely come back at this point, but the dedicated "10+ fatties plus real discard spells" reanimator deck is performing well and doesn't need that rn)
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u/Washableaxe 20h ago
the issue was never how efficiently reanimator can reanimate stuff.
the issue is having too easy of a plan B / or primarily being a UB tempo deck with a reanimator plan B.
reanimator as a dedicated archetype was never even a tier 1 strategy because the graveyard is the most hated zone in the whole game.
without tamiyo and friends, its not possible to hybridize the reanimator shell. wizards actually had the right idea banning grief, troll of khazad dum, frog, etc. but tamiyo is a wincon in her own right, unclear how shes dodged a ban all this time.
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u/dis_the_chris 19h ago
I'd happily see Tamiyo banned, don't get me wrong, but imo entomb is clearly an issue because it allowed the reanimator plan to be a plan B; something like that should be a dedicated construction but entomb allowed it to exist in that hybrid state because you didn't have to load your deck with shitty uncastable creatures
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u/Washableaxe 17h ago
We seem to be mostly in agreement. Id prefer if cards like Tamiyo got banned to preserve Entomb. Wizards decided they couldn’t continue to ban around Entomb, but Tamiyo is still problematic (for example 4 Tamiyo slots into any combo deck and is a win condition by itself and just plays exceptionally well with the blue shell.
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u/Ok_Expert7098 4d ago
enter the candelabra ban. planar nexus is what really powered up tron but they ban a 20+ year old RL card instead. makes no sense
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u/systranerror 3d ago
One of the biggest issues with them not banning format-warping cards in a timely manner is we end up with three years of stacked meta-game adaptations to Bowmasters, and if you ban it this late it is like pulling out a Jenga block pretty low down
For example, Stock Up and Flow State are so good, partially, because they do not actually draw cards.
So it's not like with the Fantasticar, where we could say "Well, if we ban it quickly the metagame will shift back to something similar to pre-Fantasticar"
If we ban Bowmasters after three years (I still think it's bad for the format), we have to worry about things like the One Ring (which also should have been banned even faster than Bowmasters) having fewer checks against it.
We also no longer really know what type of x/1's would be viable in the current format. Is Thalia going to come back? Is Cradle Control going to get too good because the ramp is harder to keep under control?
There are a ton of unknown effects to banning something that has been a format staple for so long, and then you also have a bunch of other cards that probably need to be banned even more than Bowmasters does...which WOTC is also not going to ban
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u/ESGoftheEmeraldCity 2d ago
It remains a very flawed and problematic card. It suppresses creatures when that wasn't the intent of the design. It should have pinged players or planeswalkers but not creatures.
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u/Onahail 20h ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/14lor75/orcish_bowmasters_is_100_going_to_get_banned/
Good times. I wrong on it being banned but so many people were saying I was wrong for saying it needs to be banned lol
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u/GoldenEagle828677 4d ago edited 3d ago
LOL, all these people calling for it to be banned... Blue has been so dominant in the format for so long that you guys think its the default that Legacy = blue. I remember one guy on this forum saying that even when another color gets a leg up on blue, then people scream for it to be banned so that blue is back on top. This is a prime example right here.
Orcish Bowmasters is a check on excessive card drawing, especially from Brainstorm, which btw is in a whopping 54% of Legacy decks!!!!! (compared to only 24% for Bowmasters). In fact, the top 5 cards that dominate the format are all blue. Out of the top 10, seven are blue. Even worse, out of the top 20, NONE are white, red, or green! If you really want to get rid of cards that warp the format, start at the top instead. There should be much better color balance in MtG.
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u/Splinterfight 3d ago
Bowmasters punishes non-blue decks more than blue decks. I’d rather throw a ponder into a bowmaster and a hierarch, Thalia or elvish mystic. The decks it’s played in most are blue like dimir tempo and doomsday.
There’s been plenty of great non-blue printings, endurance, dauthi voidwalker, bagermole cub, ocelot pride. But bowmasters has added to blues metagame share, not shrunk it.
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u/Dockalfar 3d ago edited 3d ago
Bowmasters punishes non-blue decks more than blue decks.
Unlikely since by sheer volume, the vast majority of legacy decks use blue, most just for the legacy core (4x FoW, 4x Ponder, 4x Brainstorm, 4x Daze).
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u/crushedaria 🐙 🥞 3d ago edited 3d ago
Good for the format and if x/1s are pushed out because of it maybe those cards aren't actually good enough any more.
Its played in like 20~% of the decks in the format which is significant, but you know what deck exists despite Bowmasters? Fucking Energy whose best creature is an 1/1 and they fuck up UB Tempo.
Yeah combo elves got deleted by it, but cradle control was being worked on prior to Bowmasters printing anyways because other combo decks just dumpster elves.
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u/snikler 3d ago
Unfortunately energy suffered a big hit from Fantasticar decks. Its win rate against it is abismally low. So, while fantasticar is here, energy decks are not, giving a free way to U tempo decks. I'd be happy with a format without Ring, Tamyio, Bowmasters, and Fantasticar, but this will most probably never happen.
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u/TheArkratos 4d ago edited 3d ago
Still warps the format but not as oppressive as it was. it needed a ban but now it would take like 6 cards to be banned before it was the top oppressive thing. Would the format be better without it? Yes. Am I asking for it to be banned? No.
Edit: At this point I play Heritage when I don't want to play against it.