A Call to Arms: In support of the Legacy Format
To everyone here, but also no one in particular:
It's sort of disheartening to see so many of us get so down about this format that we all play and love. There's for sure a lot to be bummed about, notably the looming-ever-closer-doom-and-gloom that is the Legacy apocalypse, in which the four horsemen of the cardpocalypse (reserved list, MTG arena, Discord, WotC decreasing Legacy tournament support) bring forth Doomsday except it's not the cool kind with entire spreadsheets of 5 card piles.
Despite that however, I think the format's in one of the best places its been in over the past several years. The last few standard sets have all had strong Legacy playables and Modern Horizons brought with it a bevy of tools, some of which have even spun off into entirely brand new archetypes. Additionally we've got some great sanctioned events coming up, with a well scheduled GP in Atlanta the weekend of September 21st and Eternal Weekend announced well in advance to be on the weekend of November 2nd. Discord, for all its shortcomings, is an incredible tool for spreading ideas and sharing data that I believe can effectively coexist alongside a more permanent repository of knowledge such as The Source.
Let's not forget why we're all here, this format kicks ass and has enough depth to keep us interested year after year despite its occasional hiccups and format warping nonsense. I'm not by any means proposing we ignore the reality of the situation, which is that there's no shortage of factors working against the growth and sustainability of Legacy. But at the same time let's not get too bogged down in the negativity of it all. I've seen enough threads on this forum complaining about the state of things and while I agree with a lot of what's been said there, I'd also like to start a dialogue on what we as individuals can do to preserve and maybe even grow the format.
There's no concrete end goal for a thread like this, I just felt the need to get my thoughts over the last few months down into words. With that said, if any of you have some great ideas for how the legacy scene can be improved, or even some suggestions for how this forum can be better run to better serve the community, I'd love to hear about them below.
Re: A Call to Arms: In support of the Legacy Format
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Jesture
the four horsemen of the cardpocalypse (reserved list, MTG arena, Discord, WotC decreasing Legacy tournament support)
1) The Reserved List is an issue, but if WOTC continues on a path of printing cards similar to ones on the Reserved List, then it could matter less in the future. For a while there was an active thread here about budget decks (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...egacy-Guide-V5), and I thought that was a pretty decent resource, although, like everything, it loses value if it's not updated. I recall Turbo Depths being really good and really cheap when Blooming Marsh was printed in Kaladesh. BR Reanimator was another Tier 1 budget deck. Burn and Dredge have had periods where they were well-positioned.
In 10 years, I, personally, have never known anyone who really wanted to play Legacy but couldn't. I have met hundreds of players in that time. Everyone in my area who has been interested has found a way, whether that meant borrowing decks or slowly scraping together money for duals from their fast-food or grocery store job. The money issue still boils down to comparative costs over time. Legacy has long been a format with a higher buy-in price but lower costs over time. It is comparatively more expensive now than it was a decade ago, but that doesn't mean it's unaffordable. Everyone starts somewhere.
2) Arena is whatever. I don't play it, and I didn't play MTGO. I play paper Magic. If you live in an extremely remote area or a Magic wasteland, then I can see how having an online Legacy outlet would be more important. I'm sure others will have suggestions or ideas about online play.
3) The angst about Discord seems to be that it moved daily deck discussion away from these boards. For people who use Discord, is there any interest in posting a summary every now and then in the deck threads here? Like, "Today we debated the merits of Portent vs. Accumulated Knowledge in Miracles, and these were the arguments: ______." I mentioned Miracles because AnziD posted a similar thing in that thread about Snapcaster Mage vs. Mission Briefing six months ago.
4) WOTC support was a nicety; it's not essential. If you have the budget and inclination to travel to large tournaments, there are always at least a few Legacy vacations you can take each year. The Legacy Tournament Announcements and Results thread is a good place to watch for these (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/f...ts-and-Results).
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Jesture
if any of you have some great ideas for how the legacy scene can be improved, or even some suggestions for how this forum can be better run to better serve the community
The fundamentals are the same as they were a decade ago: Build a scene from the ground up. Get a shop, or more than one shop, to run Legacy events. Figure out what works for your area, taking into account event frequency, buy-in, prizes, proxies vs. no proxies, judging, and other details. The events don't need to be sanctioned by WOTC; you just need people interested. You then build on that over time. Social media, photos, and video are great publicity tools if people take the time to use them. Make your events fully enjoyable to attend and people will come back. I've contributed to lots of these types of threads over the years, and I recall thecrav being involved in those too.
Re: A Call to Arms: In support of the Legacy Format
When discussing proxies it is important to untangle the individual constructs that are causing legacy decline or stagnation.
* Card Availability -> Print runs are very high compared to oldschool/vintage cards. For most cards, there is more than enough for everyone.
* Card Accessibility -> The price is artificially high due to an influx of capital into mtg finance, a lot of this comes from the cryptocurrency boom of 2017. Reserved list price index is loosely connected to the Bitcoin index. The same is true for contemporary art, cars with a collectible value, etcetera.
Magic is a collectible card game. The death of legacy is the ultimate, inevitable conclusion if Magic's popularity continues to grow, and this is how it should be.
1) If the game is a success, the cards that dictate the highest share of game play become more desirable
2) If the cards become more desirable for play factors, the price goes up depending on the print run size and age (card availability).
3) Players that don't go to tournaments (for instance due to time constraints) will become more focused on collecting rather than playing
4) Card availability dwindles as they get stashed away in collections
5) Increased scarcity / lower supply makes the market depth very shallow
6) Market is susceptible to cornering
7) Predatory speculators pump cards
8) Veblen law goes into effect
Cards like original art Foils, Oldschool/Vintage, Beta, even some Masterpieces and pimped basics most strongly follow the laws of a Veblen good
Veblen goods are types of luxury goods for which the quantity demanded increases as the price increases, an apparent contradiction of the law of demand, resulting in an upward-sloping demand curve. A higher price may make a product desirable as a status symbol in the practices of conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure. A product may be a Veblen good because it is a positional good, something few others can own.
- Veblen Good
Re: A Call to Arms: In support of the Legacy Format
Quote:
Originally Posted by
ESG
It's not nearly as extensive and doesn't have the exact same aim, as it doesn't include budget versions of decks and all those brews, but I saw this and made an up-to-date list of cheaper Legacy decks.
Re: A Call to Arms: In support of the Legacy Format
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Scott
It's not nearly as extensive and doesn't have the exact same aim, as it doesn't include budget versions of decks and all those brews, but I saw this and made an up-to-date
list of cheaper Legacy decks.
Nice! Thanks for posting that.
Re: A Call to Arms: In support of the Legacy Format
Quote:
Originally Posted by
ESG
2) Arena is whatever. I don't play it, and I didn't play MTGO. I play paper Magic. If you live in an extremely remote area or a Magic wasteland, then I can see how having an online Legacy outlet would be more important. I'm sure others will have suggestions or ideas about online play.
Good to know there are others who feel this way. I got as far as making a MODO account and spending a bit of money on drafts before deciding it was too different from paper magic for my taste. Of course there's the point to be made about local scenes and availability, but if the legacy scene's already there then I see no reason not to support it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
ESG
3) The angst about Discord seems to be that it moved daily deck discussion away from these boards. For people who use Discord, is there any interest in posting a summary every now and then in the deck threads here? Like, "Today we debated the merits of Portent vs. Accumulated Knowledge in Miracles, and these were the arguments: ______." I mentioned Miracles because AnziD posted a similar thing in that thread about Snapcaster Mage vs. Mission Briefing six months ago.
I like that idea, sort of a paper trail to follow for people who don't have Discord but might be interested in that type of discussion. My main gripe with the shift is how it adds another barrier to entry for newer players looking to learn about the format. Adding some notes or a brief outline of topics already discussed in the form of a forum post might give new players some clues as to where to go for more meaningful discussions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
ESG
The fundamentals are the same as they were a decade ago: Build a scene from the ground up. Get a shop, or more than one shop, to run Legacy events. Figure out what works for your area, taking into account event frequency, buy-in, prizes, proxies vs. no proxies, judging, and other details. The events don't need to be sanctioned by WOTC; you just need people interested. You then build on that over time. Social media, photos, and video are great publicity tools if people take the time to use them. Make your events fully enjoyable to attend and people will come back. I've contributed to lots of these types of threads over the years, and I recall thecrav being involved in those too.
Funny you should mention thecrav, he's a local and has been instrumental in organizing a lot of the grassroots vintage/old school/other format scenes in the area. It was actually him and a couple of others that inspired me to organize a charity tournament to help bolster the local legacy scene. Without WotC sanctioned support, I think it's fair to say that formats live and die by the contributions and support of their players so it's really up to the legacy community to make sure that legacy remains healthy and prevalent where it can.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Scott
It's not nearly as extensive and doesn't have the exact same aim, as it doesn't include budget versions of decks and all those brews, but I saw this and made an up-to-date
list of cheaper Legacy decks.
This is awesome, thanks for taking the time to cobble this list together! I think it's worth mentioning that Death and Taxes is absolutely a competitive (tier 1 if you believe in tiers) strategy, so prospective newcomers to the legacy format don't have to give up their spikey tendencies in order to fit within a budget.
Re: A Call to Arms: In support of the Legacy Format
Quote:
Originally Posted by
ESG
The fundamentals are the same as they were a decade ago: Build a scene from the ground up. Get a shop, or more than one shop, to run Legacy events. Figure out what works for your area, taking into account event frequency, buy-in, prizes, proxies vs. no proxies, judging, and other details. The events don't need to be sanctioned by WOTC; you just need people interested. You then build on that over time. Social media, photos, and video are great publicity tools if people take the time to use them. Make your events fully enjoyable to attend and people will come back. I've contributed to lots of these types of threads over the years, and I recall thecrav being involved in those too.
You've got to be the change that you want to see. You want a Magic tournament? Host a fucking Magic tournament.
I've considered writing up a full rundown of how I run Magic tournaments but, to be honest, I don't think it's worth the effort. (Which is really saying something considering how easy it is) No one wants to put in the effort. I'll hand over my stack of blank deck sheets and explain how to use the pairings software. Only twice has anyone taken me up on that. Other times, if I'm not available, there simply isn't a tournament.
Perhaps groups would be well-served by having rotating "organizers." This month I do the work, next month you do it, etc. This spreads the load, ensures everyone knows how to do it, and ensures everyone gets to have tournaments where they're not working.
My usual go-to when I have a subject I'm too lazy to type about is to record a podcast. It's way less effort to stream of conscious into a microphone. Almost two years ago, we recorded exactly that podcast: https://lonestarlhurgoyfs.com/2017-0...nity-Building/
