This is kind of a four parter. First of all, the common linking source for this group is The Eternal Glory podcast.
This podcast is hosted by three dudes, Phil Gallagher, Brian Coval, and Bryant Cook, who on the About page are posing in their finest ‘Substitute Teacher Resume Picture’ which it turns out is kinda appropriate since Phil and Brian are teachers. I don’t know if Bryant is or isn’t, sorry Bryant. I guess I know which of the three content creators I’ve been paying the most attention to.
These three dudes have a podcast, where they talk about Legacy as a format, looking at things like what I’d call stratas of the format; not necessarily the ‘up to date let’s have discussions about it immediately, the latest and hottest decks’ but rather sort of long-form conversations about things that decks and families of decks can do in Legacy.
You might have heard me refer to Legacy as ‘a bad format nobody plays.’ I stand by that in general – certainly when we’re talking about Magic in general, Legacy is not a format that we should be trying to promote because it’s inherently limited, and even its most accessable form (Magic: The Gathering Online or heavily proxied play groups) is kinda shaky as hell. Yet despite that, I have watched a lot of Legacy content this year, and it’s all entirely from paying attention to this podcast and two of its hosts.
Phil and Brian are both teachers who have become kind of full-time content creators this year as the lockdowns continue. They make interesting videos based on donations – you pay them some money, and give them a Legacy deck, and they’ll show it in play and talk through changes. It’s a pretty great system and it means that I get to see a lot of cards in Legacy that are some people’s favourites. Sometimes they’re tiered cards, sometimes they’re just things from the random wildness of Legacy in action.
Legacy isn’t a ‘good format’ in that it’s hostile to new players and complicated in a way that even a complicated game like Magic: The Gathering isn’t. You kind of have to love it for its own sake. And these people do, and I can enjoy their love, which they show and communicate honestly and well.
They all have youtube channels; I can’t speak to Bryant’s, but I can speak to Brian’s, which I follow, and Phil’s, which I regularly comment on. Watch a video on the commute to work, or before bed on a night, make a funny comment about something funny in the video, and that’s all.
There’s one from Brian I liked, and Phil playing my favourite Legacy deck (which is ridiculous to say):
I have had some sour experiences – Phil’s audience seem to want to negotiate about whether or not I should use words they don’t understand? – but they’re great channels I enjoy watching.
Oh and this isn’t to say anything bad about Bryant’s channel. I just don’t know anything about it.