Working full-time at weird hours has made it harder than ever for me to pay attention to spoilers. I pay attention to them and I form some thoughts, but mostly I leave the discovery of new cards to the people out there grinding every weekend.

Once they find them, however, I pay attention. If you're not on board with this one yet, then you haven't been paying attention:

The first time I cast Treasure Cruise was in Vintage. My Vintage deck now plays four copies. As such, I can't imagine not playing four in Legacy or Modern. This is the first time in a while where I've found the discussion of a card's banning to be interesting.

There's no way that Cruise should be legal in Modern while Ancestral Visions is not. Same for Cruise versus Thirst for Knowledge in Vintage. There's no comparison as egregious to be made with regard to Legacy legality, though Cruise arguably warps the format more than Gush would. The fact that I can't say with certainty which would warp the format more is troubling in itself.

It seems to me that WotC can either unban/restrict some cards, ban Treasure Cruise, or, for whatever reason, uphold an inconsistent standard.

Dig Through Time may or may not be on the chopping block with Treasure Cruise, and, as of now, I could see it going either way. There are decks that objectively want Dig more, but I don't see it as being nearly as oppressive. Dig doesn't improve the Dig decks as much as Cruise makes the Cruise decks.

It's just true that efficient decks with high velocity push more decks out of a format than slower decks with more inevitability. People also seem less convinced about adopting Dig at this point, though I would say it's absolutely wrong not to be playing it in decks like Sneak and Show in Legacy and Scapeshift/Splinter Twin in Modern.

At any rate, you can wait until the legality of Cruise changes or play it in the interim and can adapt or die.

Today we'll talk about its presence in Legacy.

The most obvious way to adapt is to just play your own Cruises. A lot of people have opted to play Bob Huang's list card for card, and it's definitely very powerful. In my opinion, the sideboard can use some tweaking:

The maindeck is something that you could likely run back with minimal experience and spike a tournament. Brainstorm is still the best card in Legacy, and Treasure Cruise is very likely second best. Playing both can lead to incidental success.

Kevin Jones didn't change much for his Legacy Championship winning decklist, with his spiciest maneuver being a maindeck Pyroblast:

I had considered the same technology for the Open this weekend, and, seeing as I played against eight blue decks, I would not have regretted it.

Now, if we want to get clever, there are a lot of cool things we can try. I spent most of my weekend on site at the SCG Opens in Minneapolis, but I managed to catch a bit of the Legacy Championship streaming here and there.

The first match I turned on was in round 9 when a Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas deck squared off against Punishing Maverick. Punishing Maverick has a historically positive matchup agaisnt Delver, so it wasn't surprising to see it doing well. Thalia, Garden of Thraben and Gaddock Teeg got waaaaaaaay better when everybody picked up Treasure Cruise.

Spirit of the Labyrinth also gained some value, though it seems that Maverick and Death and Taxes are shying away from it. This could very well be because of the high volume of Forked Bolts floating around and the fact that these decks square up pretty well against the Delver decks without the fragile hatebear.

While it wasn't surprising to see Maverick doing well, the Tezzeret deck had some serious spice. Some serious maindeck Leyline of the Void spice.

Now, it doesn't seem great to have graveyard hate just to combat Treasure Cruise. After all, it's one card. A card that pitches to Force of Will at that. However, as more experienced Legacy players would expect, those Leylines are coupled with Helm of Obedience:

While I don't think Leyline is a smart play against Treasure Cruise in itself, and I wouldn't bring Rest in Peace in against Treasure Cruise decks that don't play Tarmogoyf/Deathrite Shaman, but I'm not about to say that a two-card combo that comes with some incidental value is bad.

My biggest qualm with Tezzert decks has always been that they have access to blue but don't play Brainstorm. A lot of awkward concessions are played to make Tezzeret work and they leave the deck filled with a lot of air. I won't pretend like I don't have the temptation to do cool things, though.

Now, if we're talking about cards that hose Delver decks, look no further than this one:

If you don't have access to this card, you'll see this as useless and possibly rude advice, but people do and it's worth having on your radar as a powerful option.

It traditionally shows up in Lands decks, though if people play stock UR Delver and keep all the Blood Moon and Price of Progresses in their sideboards, then this type of strategy seems poorly positioned. However, Tabernacle looks amazing out of the sideboard of Nate Sturm's Punishing Maverick deck. Knight of the Reliquary is a tough card for Delver decks to compete with outright. When it tutors for Plague Wind, things get dramatically harder.

Now, if you're looking for cards that aren't expensive to combat Treasure Cruise Delver decks, specifically those that can be played in your own Treasure Cruise deck, then I would bring your attention to Deathrite Shaman and Notion Thief.

Deathrite Shaman may or may not be adopted universally by Maverick decks going forward, but they will for sure continue to be a fixture of the Sultai Delver decks.

If you aren't already holding some of these, I don't think there is a very long window before they start to climb upwards of $10. The card is absurd in Legacy and playable in Vintage. Foils are already far too rich for my blood, but non-foils will in all likelihood gradually accumulate value for a long time. Being banned in Modern impacts their growth potential, but it also makes a reprint less likely. At any rate, owning less than four Deathrites seems inexcusable and acquiring a grip seems wise.

Notion Thief is a fragile card, and one that costs a lot of mana. But is it a blowout.

I fully expect to see Notion Thief's play increase in both Legacy and Vintage, though the mana cost makes it unlikely for more than 2 copies to show up in a given 75. That said, foils strike me as being criminally under-priced at this point in time. Many can be acquired for under $5, which I would have guessed was half of what I would have had to pay.

The card seems like it has a lot of EDH appeal, too, though it might make EDH players complain too much and stigma could keep it off of the casual tables. I'm not the guy to ask about such things. Consecrated Sphinx is also a real problem for Notion Thief there, but I can't imagine foils staying this low off if its Legacy success alone.

~

Treasure Cruise changed a lot about non-Standard formats.

It may have just outright ruined Modern, but assuming it stays legal in Legacy, we have barely scratched the surface of how much can actually change. Both the evolution of Treasure Cruise and anti-Treasure Cruise decks and every reaction that is drawn from every action have only just begun to unfold.

While it's true that the stock Huang list can and will win tournaments, there's actually a ton of intricate metagame fluctuations and changes in relative card strength that have occurred because of Cruise. Learning these changes and capitalizing on them before other players adapt will give a serious edge to clever Legacy minds.

I played a variant of Izzet Delver this weekend and at a couple local Legacy events before the Open and, from my experience, it has been remarkable just how much it changed the strength of nearly every card in the deck.

Next week I'm going to gather my thoughts and see how well I can break down the things, such as how much better Brainstorm got and how much worse Stifle got, but for now the best advice I have is to dive into the format and witness what all has changed first hand.

The blue decks definitely got better, but many non-blue cards gained a lot of stock as well. While Treasure Cruise may ultimately be too oppressive, I think this type of shift is great for the format, assuming attendance to tournaments doesn't decline.

Ultimately, declining attendance is what got Mental Misstep banned, and if people continue to play and we see more Top 8s as diverse as that in Minneapolis, then a ban actually strikes me as unlikely.

Thanks for reading.

-Ryan Overturf
@RyanOverdrive on Twitter