[Disscussion] The possiblity of Legacy PTQ

[C.P.]

It seems that Legacy will be played in the day 2 of the Worlds, and that made me think of Legacy PTQ.

Of course, it will make Legacy staples expensive, and possibly making some people turn away from the season. What other possible problems are there? What are the ways of making it possible, barring some random reprint? Just how high is Legacy's entry barrier?

Also, Assuming nothing will be done to lower the barrier, how would the format look like? Would it do more harm then good for the format?

[Nihil Credo]

Unless duals are banned, I'm not seeing a PTQ season devoted entirely to Legacy.

However, an idea that came to my mind is: why should every PTQ season consist entirely of a single format? What stops Wizards from saying something like "Qualification for PT: Montevideo will consist of PTQs in the Block Constructed and Legacy format, at the storekeeper's choice"?

[andrew77]

I don't really think price should matter. IMO they could have type one ptq's and i'd still attend. Well, even if i didn't have a full set of p9 i'd attend. If you ask me i'd love the following ptq seasons... Type 1, Legacy, 2HG Extended. Those are definately the most fun formats around although extended and block are decent enough. Type 2 is horrible IMO. They should do away with it.

[emidln]

It seems that Legacy will be played in the day 2 of the Worlds, and that made me think of Legacy PTQ.

Of course, it will make Legacy staples expensive, and possibly making some people turn away from the season. What other possible problems are there? What are the ways of making it possible, barring some random reprint? Just how high is Legacy's entry barrier?

Also, Assuming nothing will be done to lower the barrier, how would the format look like? Would it do more harm then good for the format?

TES can be built for the cost of some crap rares, Burning Wish, Orim's Chants, Gemstone Mines, and Lion's Eye Diamonds. This is a highly competitive deck that would probably see widespread adoption similar to the levels enjoyed by TEPS in the past extended season.

Goblins is completely available in extended minus Goblin Lackey, Aether Vial, Rishadan Port, and Wasteland. Goblin Lackey might become a $20 card, along with wasteland and port jumping a bit, but the deck would be no more expensive than current type 2 or extended decks, especially if you play Goblins in extended, or played it in the past.

An R/G aggro-prison deck in the style of Vaka Beats would probably surface as well to combat a surge of TES and Goblins. I'd imagine that it might include stuff like Magus of the Moon, Rolling Earthquake/Earthquake, Chalice of the Void, and Trinisphere.

[C.P.]

So decks that can be built in reasonable budget:

TES - I'm not sure if I agree on this one. Assuming the region does not have Legacy supporters, cards like LED are hard to find. It is a reasonable budget deck nonetheless. Price of Chant, LED, Burning wish will go up. Others are fairly affordable cards, so I don't see any reason that they would be hard to get.
I'd assume it would cost you around 400 - 500 to build it once it gets popular.


Goblins - Cards that makes the backbone of the deck are fairly recent, making the deck reasonable budget option. Wasteland and Lackey might go up to unreasonable degree. Also, since some so called pros are always claiming Legacy is all about Goblins fighting jank, it might get over hyped.


Others - RG beats, Sui Black(barring Sinkhole), Angel Stompy are all reasonable options. If Goblin outbreak comes true, AS might be the deck to go with.


Slightly more expensive deck choice will be something like Threshold. Non-land cards, excluding Force of Will, are totally reasonable. Most of them are commons, or saw print recently. The question is How expensive Duals and Forces will get? Will it skyrocket as Reset or Sea Drake did? Or will it just see some reasonable amount of increase?

[Illissius]

Why has the price of old cards gone up? There is still the same amount of them around as before, meaning supply is unchanged, and as they are no longer widely played, demand has, if anything, decreased.

[Whit3 Ghost]

The one thing I'd be a little nervous about would be the fact that the format might degenerate into as the coverage team for a PT stop put it: 7 Rock decks and 1 Goblins deck, with the goblins deck winning the thing.

I would expect, as Emidln put it a 3 deck metagame at the ptq's themselves, with GPs and larger tournaments staying more diverse.

[C.P.]

Why has the price of old cards gone up? There is still the same amount of them around as before, meaning supply is unchanged, and as they are no longer widely played, demand has, if anything, decreased.

And it will increase if there is PTQ. And supply does not stay the same. If anything, it will decrease.

[Clark Kant]

I don't think the barrier to enter legacy is high at all. And I don't think the prices would rise that dramatically because of a PT tour.

Virtually anyone that wants to can build a solid legacy deck for very cheap.

Most of the best cards in legacy Swords, Lightning Bolt, Brainstorm are all very cheap.

Duals and FoWs were legal in extended till 2003. And shock duals make perfectly decent replacements for the duals if necessary. Most legacy decks don't use FoWs.

There's a lot of competitive decks out there that don't need any superexpensive cards.

My cheapest competitive legacy deck costed me around $60. I bought two ebay auctions containing a 4x set of all Mirrodan commons for dead cheap, bought 4 Ravagers and a couple of uncommons and commons (bonesplitter and arcbound workers) and wound up with a perfectly tuned Affinity deck.

Mono Blue Control is cheap to build.

As others mentioned...

TES is cheap to build.

Goblins is cheap to build esp if you play it in Extended.

Angel Stompy is cheap to build.

And if you use a bit of creativity, you can make budget decks that are almost as good as the decks they are mimiking (Sui Black similar to red death or deadguy for example), a UG gro deck etc.

Pretty much, there are multiple viable budget choices for each archeatype.

Perhaps there should be a seperate place on the source for people just to tune and tweak budget lists.

[C.P.]

Fetchlands in Extended saw a price increase when we saw PTQ. Mind you, Fetchland is one of the easier ones to get in Legacy.

How many copies of FoW or Duals do you think is around? Certainly less then Extended staples. If Demand goes up for those cards, the price may get ridiculous. See Reset and Sea Drake. They are Played in one deck and one deck only, yet they have absurd price tag due to its rarity. Of course, there are more copies of FoW and Duals around then Resets and Drakes, but they also have larger demand. When Pro tour is at stake, It is not unreasonable to assume that the price will go up. The question is, How hight it will go up?

The Tabernacle saw bit of play in legacy and it's price doubled. I looked on offline(as I don't use Ebay often) for them for 6 month, and barely managed to fine two. Now let's say some pro breaks the format with it...

[Pinder]

And besides, certain cards used often in Legacy are either new (Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant, Serra Avenger), or have been recently reprinted (Pithing Needle, Squee, Quirion Dryad, Incinerate, Hyppie). I mean, you could build a Gro deck with Tarmogoyfs and Dyrads for not too much, and the cards a readily available. Aside from maybe FoW and the manabase, there isn't a while lot that would prohibit players from building Legacy.

[cdr]

Legacy PTQs are not happening. Ever. Sorry.

Legacy at Worlds is more likely than Legacy Grand Prix - be thankful legacy got GPs.

[andrew77]

Legacy PTQs are not happening. Ever. Sorry.

Legacy at Worlds is more likely than Legacy Grand Prix - be thankful legacy got GPs.

I don't knwo if legacy pqq's will never happen. I would say it's unlikely, but wizards seems to be paying mroe and more attention to the format. GP Columbus was also a huge success attendance-wise. The attendance of such a grand prix would mean that legacy ptq's would work in some areas. IMO what wizards could do is run an extended/legacy ptq season where legacy ptq's are held in the areas that attract lots of people and that usually get 2-4 ptq's in the same season anyway. For example Alaska would still get their extended ptq while here in NYC/NJ we could have 1 extended ptq and one legacy ptq and both would attract over 100 people.

[Van Phanel]

Wizards themselves ended this discussion:


am sure that most of you at home reading this are not currently qualified for Worlds and are much more concerned about whether or not you need to be worried about this for the upcoming Pro Tour season.

"There has certainly been some discussion but there are no plans to run Legacy PTQs in 2008," assured Scott but added: "We haven't finalized 2009 yet. Someday...maybe..."

from BDM's article (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/bd290)

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

A PTQ season would be ludicrously expensive, but making it an annual format at Worlds and a GP format seems fair. I could even see a single Pro Tour every few years.