Bannings are nothing new in the history of Magic: The Gathering, but rarely does the Legacy format get hit with much in the way of banned cards. In recent history, however, Legacy has been hit with several banned cards that have had a fairly big impact on the meta.
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This time around, just one card was banned in the format: a blue and black froggy creature that does a lot of work for just two mana. If you were wondering just why Psychic Frog was removed from the format, we have all the details for you.
What Is Psychic Frog?
This unassuming little fella has been running rampant through Legacy in two main decklists, providing a very consistent strategy that has been just a bit too good to keep around. Psychic Frog has three abilities for just two mana on a 1/2 body, which is already pretty good. Though it has a slightly harder mana commitment of one blue and one black mana, it isn’t hard to achieve in Legacy at all. The three abilities of Psychic Frog are all very good, and they can work together to set up some powerful plays. Anytime the Frog deals combat damage to a player or a planeswalker they control, you get to draw a card, which is pretty darn good.
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Then, you can discard a card at any time you like to put a +1/+1 counter on it. Being able to discard a card at instant speed lets you fill your graveyard up anytime you like, setting yourself up for plays anytime you need. And finally, you can exile three cards from your graveyard to give the Frog flying for the turn. This ability might not be used often, but it is still a great way to slip some damage through to draw some cards or to close out a game.
Why Was Psychic Frog Banned In Legacy?
Generally, Psychic Frog was played extensively in Dimir Reanimator and Dimir Murktide decks, which had been dominating the format for quite some time. Earlier in 2024, the Elemental Grief was banned in Legacy to try and help bring down the deck’s prominence, though not quite enough to balance the meta out. As it stands, Dimir Reanimator was being played at much more frequency than other decks in the format. When a deck takes up so much of the meta, it forces other decks out for either not having enough answers to the problematic deck or players choosing to jump ship to the best-performing deck to try and win more.
Psychic Frog works so well in Dimir Reanimator because it is able to draw you more cards to find your reanimator targets faster. Once you do, you get a free way to pitch it to your graveyard for you to bring it back easily. Being able to do this at instant speed helps you get around a lot of graveyard removal, waiting to set up plays for when your opponent isn’t able to interact.
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In Dimir Murktide, much of the same was occuring to force out other decks and other variations of the Murktide decklist. Given the tight mana restrictions of Psychic Frog, and the need to be able to play it on curve, players won’t deviate from the two-mana version of the deck. This same effect is seen in Dimir Murktide decklists. Psychic Frog is strong enough to prevent folks from exploring adding white, red, or green to these blue-based tempo decks. To increase the diversity among existing archetypes while not completely removing them from the format, Psychic Frog is banned.
Could Something Else In Legacy Have Been Banned Instead?
Since there isn’t really anything quite like Psychic Frog, there wasn’t much other options available to the teams behind Magic: The Gathering to ban to reduce the power of these Dimir decks in Legacy. Short of banning other key cards in the archetype like Entomb or Reanimate, the deck would have continued to be just as strong.
The problem with banning a card like those two, however, is that it would be too much of a gutting of the archetype, so it wouldn’t so much be a reduction of power as it would be a complete removal of the deck entirely from Legacy. Not to mention, there would still be a very powerful blue and black Frog running around that would continue to dominate the format.
Will Psychic Frog Ever Be Unbanned?
While there’s no such thing as saying never in Magic, it seems unlikely that Psychic Frog will make its way back into Legacy anytime soon. While there is plenty of removal in Legacy to deal with the Frog, having such an efficient creature in the format causes it to be a bit of a focal point in the match, paving the road for bigger threats to safely remain on board.
With the need to ban Psychic Frog it is unlikely that Wizards of the Coast will print another card similar to the Frog either, since they would not want to risk having to ban yet another card from the eternal format.
Magic: The Gathering
- Franchise
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Magic: The Gathering
- Original Release Date
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August 5, 1993
- Player Count
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2+
- Age Recommendation
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13+
- Length per Game
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Variable