Legacy has a problem, an enormous elephant in the room, and that elephant is the reserved list. In the ’90s, there was a little set called Chronicles that reprinted many staples, causing their values to plummet. Retailers reacted with furious anger at Wizards, and the reserved list was born: a select list of cards that hadn’t yet been reprinted in a base set and now never would be. It’s a legal pact that is rock solid, and even Wizards’s announcement of the new Eternal Masters summer set had a note: The reserved list will not be violated.

The Dual-Lands Problem

Most reserved-list cards are terrible, but there’s a set of ten that are a necessity in most Legacy decks: the dual lands. And because these dual lands will never be reprinted, they’ve steadily risen in price, alarmingly so in the past year. We’re talking $400 for a single blue dual land.

Obviously, a format with $400 lands is daunting for even the most spendy Magic player, so this puts Legacy out of reach for most unless you already own the cards and have owned them for many years—or you’re willing to put in the equivalent of a car’s down payment for a single deck.

Enter: Eternal

Enter the Eternal format. A small team led by Chaz Volpe of Quiet Speculation and MTGGoldfish, and Saffron Olive, also of MTGGoldfish, has spearheaded Eternal as a format that makes use of the entire history of Magic while still keeping deck prices down thanks to the possibility of reprinting every card in the format.

Chaz and Saffron are using Reddit as a discussion and organization platform for this exciting new format, and though Reddit is known for vitriol, it seems to be going pretty well so far.

Why Get Involved with Eternal?

“I guess I sort of planted the seed for the format by writing an article about No Reserved List Legacy a few months ago (although the idea has been floating around for a long time on various forums),” says Saffron. “I feel that having an Eternal format that is sustainable over the long term is important, not just for players, but also to keep the history of the game intact, and thanks to the reserved list, I don't believe Legacy is sustainable over the long haul. The low supply of certain reserved-list cards puts a hard cap on how many people can play the format. While my idea solution would be the end of the reserved list, Eternal is our attempt to make the best of a less-than-great situation.”

Is Eternal Meant to Replace Legacy?

“Eternal is a format that can complete that three-format structure that WotC originally had in place: Standard, Extended, and Legacy,” says Chaz, implying that Eternal will replace Legacy in the top tier of three. “Legacy and Vintage can still exist, and I think they should. They still have a place and purpose in the MTG community, but I just feel Legacy is too far gone because Wizards really can't do anything about it.”

Saffron, though, sees Eternal as filling a gap between Modern and Legacy rather than supplanting any existing format. “One of the great things about Magic is that there are a ton of different options and formats that you can play, ranging from Pauper to Vintage,” he says. “My hope is that Eternal will be another option on this list and fill the gap between Legacy and Modern. From my perspective, Modern is more like Standard than a true eternal format, and many new players are priced out of Legacy thanks to the low supply of certain reserved-list cards. I imagine Eternal fitting in between these two formats and offering a sort of “Legacy-lite” gameplay, but with long-term stability thanks to the fact that every card will be eligible to be reprinted.”

What Are the Initial Rules for Eternal?

There is always a danger, though, that if a format catches fire, staples that are playable in that format will start to rise in the secondary market. It’s happened to formats as diverse as Commander to Old-School Magic to Canadian Highlander, even, and Eternal only has to catch on a bit before prices would start to rise on, for example, shock lands. That’s true especially over the next few months, when shock lands won’t be used much at all in any competitive Modern deck.

Both Chaz and Saffron have stated that as more and more Eternal is played, and more different types of decks crash into one another, the banned list for Eternal is subject to change. It’s a safe bet that the Eternal banned list will eventually evolve into its own thing, totally distinct from the Legacy list.

Tournament Organizers and Shops Are Already Getting Involved

“Fantastic,” says Chaz. “I would urge them to follow the subreddit and be a part of the community. I think it's great that tournament organizers are already so excited about the format. I think it really has a chance to be a successful format. Hopefully reach the end goal of having the full support of Wizards—much like Commander.”

“I think it is great that people are excited enough about the format to start scheduling events,” says Saffron, though he has some slight reservations. “At the same time, I think it's important to remind everyone that, up until a few days ago, Eternal was just an idea. Is Eternal the next Tiny Leaders or the next Commander? I have no idea! So before we start scheduling GPs, there are a lot of games of Magic to be played as the community tries to figure out whether Eternal is a good format and what its future might hold.”

Sample Decks

Here are a few decks taken from the subreddit that could be good in Eternal. Try them out, and let us know what conclusions you come up with. It’s a very young format, so it’s hard to say what will work and what won’t. That’s the fun part.

Eternal Infect ? Eternal | Steve Horton

• Creatures (14)
• 1 Viridian Corrupter
• 4 Blighted Agent
• 4 Glistener Elf
• 4 Noble Hierarch
• 1 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy

• Spells (27)
• 1 Become Immense
• 2 Berserk
• 2 Crop Rotation
• 3 Daze
• 3 Force of Will
• 3 Vines of Vastwood
• 4 Brainstorm
• 4 Invigorate
• 1 Green Sun's Zenith
• 2 Gitaxian Probe
• 2 Ponder

• Lands (19)
• 1 Forest
• 1 Dryad Arbor
• 1 Wasteland
• 3 Breeding Pool
• 4 Inkmoth Nexus
• 4 Misty Rainforest
• 4 Wooded Foothills
• 1 Pendelhaven

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 1 Flusterstorm
• 1 Force of Will
• 1 Hydroblast
• 1 Karakas
• 1 Krosan Grip
• 1 Nature's Claim
• 1 Necropede
• 1 Spell Pierce
• 1 Spellskite
• 2 Submerge
• 1 Surgical Extraction
• 1 Viridian Corrupter
• 1 Wasteland

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Eternal Eldrazi ? Eternal | Steve Horton

• Creatures (22)
• 2 Endbringer
• 4 Eldrazi Mimic
• 4 Reality Smasher
• 4 Thought-Knot Seer
• 4 Endless One
• 4 Phyrexian Revoker

• Spells (12)
• 2 Warping Wail
• 3 Spatial Contortion
• 3 Trinisphere
• 4 Chalice of the Void

• Lands (26)
• 4 Ancient Tomb
• 4 Cavern of Souls
• 4 Eldrazi Temple
• 4 Mishra's Factory
• 4 Wasteland
• 2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 4 Eye of Ugin

• Sideboard (15)
• 3 Ashen Rider
• 2 Dismember
• 4 Ratchet Bomb
• 4 Thorn of Amethyst
• 2 Warping Wail

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What’s Next for Eternal?

The Eternal committee, the subreddit, and the Magic-playing community will start playing Eternal matches, first modifying Legacy decks as appropriate, and then coming up with new decks that could never compete in Legacy. The format will grow and evolve from there, and who knows? Maybe it’ll turn official, like Commander before it. When it comes to Magic formats, it’s Survival of the Fittest—though not literally so, in Eternal’s case. That card’s on the reserved list.