[Discussion] Do you think Modern Magic threatens the viability of Legacy or Extended?

[Clark Kant]

Modern will only be monetarily easily accessible to early adopters. Once the format starts taking off, if the format starts taking off, I would expect Zendikar fetchlands and Ravnica duals to go up higher than they are currently. $400ish for a set of Rav Duals may be about right now, but if the format becomes popular you could expect that to double fairly easily. The sets aren't in print anymore and they'd be integral in manabase stability. While there may not be the same supply problem as True Duals in Legacy, the lands alone will create a monetary barrier. You'll also probably want Jaces, Tarmogoyfs, Bob, Cliques, EE's, ... last I knew those weren't 5 dollar cards either.

Yes, but the Ravnica duals could be reprinted easily in a future set, as many times as needed. The same goes for Bob, Clique, EE, and maybe even Goyf at some point.

Also, the Ravnica duals are not unfair, fetching a Ravnica dual involves Lightning Bolting yourself. That's a fairly big drawback against any aggressive deck.

[SpikeyMikey]

Masques/6th would necessitate a significantly larger ban-list but I agree it's a much better breakpoint. Wizards stated that this format is not replacing anything, that it's just an experiment but I imagine it's being groomed as an Extended replacement for some time down the road. Extended is famously unpopular with players and exists only because of the PT's. Legacy on the other hand is famously popular right now but is unacceptable as a PT format because of the poor availability and sky-high prices of staples.

Modern is a format that captures much of the spirit and feel of Legacy while not presenting the cost concerns that keep Legacy from being heavily supported. Will it eventually supplant Legacy if they move forward with it? Maybe. SCG will hold out as long as they can on replacing Legacy with Modern at their opens even if Modern does catch on because Legacy has a larger pool of singles to sell.

Having done a fair amount of playing on Workstation, I can say that right now combo is the only tier 1 approach. Control is too weak and aggro can't diversify their answers well enough to deal with the various combo strategies (hypergenesis, dragonstorm, 12 post, etc.). I've been doing well with B/G Melira/Persist. Contrary to statements earlier in the thread, the format feels nothing like Extended. It feels like Legacy lite, with an FT only a turn slower (on avg.) than Legacy.

[Sims]

Yes, but the Ravnica duals could be reprinted easily in a future set, as many times as needed. The same goes for Bob, Clique, EE, and maybe even Goyf at some point.

Also, the Ravnica duals are not unfair, fetching a Ravnica dual involves Lightning Bolting yourself. That's a fairly big drawback against any aggressive deck.

Well they can't precisely be reprinted at will. They have to do reprints in ways that will not negatively affect standard and standard goes in cycles where they want you to play multi or want you to play as little multi as possible, though that seems to be waning as of late and everything seems to be multicolored. But you're right, reprints there can ease that pain but that doesn't fix the major staples (Goyf and Jace are mistakes that they said they wouldn't reprint, for instance) and all the legacy playable 15-20 or more cards (thoughtseize, bob, clique, stuff of that nature) would probably go up a bit farther... It just doesn't seem as budget as people are claiming it to be. Cheaper than legacy, yes, but i think we need a dose of realism here as well and not just zeal about a cheaper format.

Also- Jitte is banned because it is dominant in aggro strategies and SFM is legal. SFM will already be dropping 4/4 lifelinkers on your face, do you really want it dominating the piss out of your zoo/goblin/fae deck when they grab jitte and you never get back in the game? Counterbalance still exists, so with proper deckbuilding Thopter/Sword would still be a deck if sword were legal, and Hex/Depths would easily be a deck (thoughtseize, duress, hexmage, depths, nighthawk, obliterator) if Depths was legal... Hell, it might even be like CYOS or Old Extended where HexDepths/ThopterSword was the SAME deck.

The banned list makes sense outside of Grave Troll. Unless they're printing some ridiculous enabler in M12 or innistrad outside of zombie infestation that would allow Dredge to be good, i'm just not seeing the reason why Troll should be banned.

[MirrorMask]

hmm one guy said about prices going up after the format settles. What worries me is this, if the demand for the modern extended's cards go up so will the prices for much legacy stuff as well as the prices for the new sets. Think about it. Cards that wouldn't be played in standard might be very good in modern as well as legacy. If modern is here to stay then my guess is that it will draw more ppl than legacy cause of lower budget(in theory). This will maybe double the demand for certain cards cause they will be used in 2 to 3 formats. So in the end not only duals,fows,leds etc will have insane prices. The only way, as i see it, to keep the prices down and support well all the formats is to CANCEL the reserved list and to start making products for all the formats(boosters, pre cons , mini collections etc). Its supposed to be a GAME not stock market. F... horders,collectors and on line sellers we give no shit for them.

p.s back in 2004 underground seas went for 15 $ ... now? 100+ WTF??? cardboard must be scarce nowadays ...

[Sims]

Okay so i did some thinking on my lunch, and in a format without Force of Will I'm actually starting to buy banning Grave Troll.

Zombie Infestation in M12
Oona's Prowler from Lorwyn.
Bloodghast
Narco
Bridge
DR
Iona
FKZ
Terastadon/Woodfall
Angel of Despair
Blazing Archon
Phantasmagorian

Two 2cc Discard outlets that would enable reliable dropping of a dredger into the yard that dodge Misstep. Sure they get hit by Spell Snare and Spell Pierce but those maindeck might be questionable in a format that will arguably be centered around creature interactions, plus the option of just DDDing Phtasmagorian and rolling from there. Granted I can't think for the life of me of a reliable draw card that will stack up to Breakthrough or Coliseum, but you'd likely have more time to be able to dredge maybe once a turn and still setup a DR on Iona, FKZ, or something...

The shell is almost viable, even without all the power that the deck got from odyssey block.

Edit:

Drowned Ruskla or whatever the hell that card is
Burning Inquirey
Goblin Lore
Merfolk Looter

With Grave Troll I think the deck could get there.

[Mr. Safety]

"A lot of people want to play their hobby of magic more seriously, but they don't want to drop car-payment-sized chunks of money into them. I think there is a resurgance of older people getting into or back into magic(...)."

True, feel the same here, even if I am not 31.

"Golgari Grave-Troll is another big question mark...it's one of the more powerful drege enablers, sure...but there are so many decent graveyard hosers that it should be a non-issue."

This is just awkward, all playable Dredge enablers (Putrid Imp, Tireless Tribe, LED, Careful Study, Breakthrough, Ichorid, Cephalid Coliseum, Cabal Therapy; even Brainstorm and Hapless Researcher) are NOT legal and Crypt, Extirpate/Extraction, Relic, Leyline are. What are they afraid of? Burning Inquiry+Zombie Infestation (M12 reprint)? lulz.

You can play a much more block-based dredge deck and abuse Life from the Loam/fetchlands and remember that Narcomoeba and Bridge from Below are still legal...not to mention Darkblast, Stinkweed Imp, Golgari Thug, Dakmor Salvage, Wistful Thinking, Compulsive Research, and Thirst for Knowlege. I think you'll see Dread Return and Iona showing up, too...

EDIT: oops, sorry, I should have read the above post by SIMS, he said what I meant to but better...

[Admiral_Arzar]

Of course it could get there with Grave Troll, but it will be 1-2 turns slower at least than Legacy, and notice that all the good graveyard hate is legal in modern. I'm not worried about dredge dominating the format even with Grave Troll - there aren't even any good 1 cc discard enablers.

[SpikeyMikey]

Sims: easy one. Ideas Unbound from Kamigawa.

Edit: you guys talk about a creature driven format and it is, but not the way you mean. Control is balls right now. If you're playing on MWS you'll see that the only decent are either putting Emrakul into play (Post, Hypergenesis, Elves) or doing lethal without the combat step (Dragonstorm, Swans and my persist although I think I'm the only one running BG Persist). Since the combo decks all win turn 4 or 5 at the latest (Hypergenesis on turn 2 or 3 but it's a glass cannon a la Belcher), aggro is in a really rough place and control is a morass of situational bullshit counters and isn't flexible enough to actually beat anything consistently.

That's the major reason I feel Masques needs to be the cutoff. The format needs Counterspell and Foil and Daze wouldn't hurt. I think Ritual and possibly even Vamp would be acceptable, if and only if, Tendrils and maybe Desire were banned (Desire is cute but I think Dragonstorm might be better in OverExtended just because it wins instantly whereas Desire can fizzle). There are other cards that concern me more like Piledriver. But it would open some interesting avenues as well as checking the proliferation of combo.

[Sims]

Nice. Even better, Less splash colors the better.

@Azar: I know the deck would be slower than legacy and all of the hate is still there, it's just a matter of how much slower. If you don't open Crypt and think you're good because you'll have time and your opponent DD-s Phantasmagorian... you may be in a bigger world of hurt than you'd think. Cause unless you've got misstep, eot they drop Stinkweed, life from the loam, bloodghast into the yard and then say land, Burning Inq... It's no breakthrough, but it might be enough to get some tokens, narco, the bloodghast, etc. on the battlefield and give you a race. It's by no means going to be Legacy Dredge in modern, but it'd probably still pack a punch.

[4eak]

Without GGT, here might be a Modern Manaless Dredge shell:

// DDD - 20
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Golgari Thug
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Darkblast
4 Dakmor Salvage

// Free Draw - 12
4 Street Wraith
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Gitaxian Probe

// Free Dudes - 12
4 Chancellor of the Forge
4 Bloodghast
4 Narcomoeba

// GY-Goodies - 16
4 Dread Return
4 Bridge from Below
4 River Kelpie
1 Blazing Archon
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
1 Angel of Despair
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria

Not an amazing deck, but still decent. GGT would be nice to have. Banning it, however, doesn't seem all that back breaking to me. Ban Bridge from Below instead of GGT and the deck dies. Hell, memnite might even be worth running -- the deck loses a lot without the ability to put free dudes (namely Ichorid) into play consistently.

Going for a Mana-route, there are very good options as well. Drowned Rusalka and Burning Inquiry, as mentioned previously, are a good start.

I think there might simply be better combos than Dredge.


peace,
4eak

[Mr. Safety]

Of course it could get there with Grave Troll, but it will be 1-2 turns slower at least than Legacy, and notice that all the good graveyard hate is legal in modern. I'm not worried about dredge dominating the format even with Grave Troll - there aren't even any good 1 cc discard enablers.

Loam + Raven's Crime

Fetchlands will be rampant, so Loam is a solid option in Dredge. Inquisition of Kozilek is still pretty powerful, and don't forget Thoughtsieze. You don't NEED Cabal Therapy in Dredge, it's just the more powerful option in the current legacy.

Kudos to Spikey Mikey for remembering how great Ideas Unbound was when Dredge was in extended. AND he mentions one of my pet casual projects I'm working on with Dragonstorm... +100 points

[troopatroop]

I don't give a fuck about Modern Magic, and you're all embarassing for doing so. Play a real man's format.

[SpikeyMikey]

Actually, I just have a head for Magic cards and that one sticks out because of the hype when it first came out. Anything that looks remotely like Ancestral Recall gets a lot of scrutiny when it's spoiled.

[Sims]

I don't give a fuck about Modern Magic, and you're all embarassing for doing so. Play a real man's format.

So when are you buying your Drains and Bazaars to play some old 1.5?

Nick, just cause you don't care about Modern doesn't mean other people don't and it doesn't mean that Wizards won't push it. If that does happen I'd like to at least have some idea of where I'd go should that happen and Legacy starts to take a downward spiral. I know well enough that I likely won't be able to really give up this game, and while I could probably get by just on Commander, that's not what most of the stores around here play. If Modern went mainstream, it'd get support, and I'd have the choice to either play it or play little to no Magic.

[joemauer]

Asking if modern magic will kill Legacy is like asking if standard will kill Legacy. Well not quite.

Wotc could make a format to compete with Legacy but Modern Magic in it's current form will not be it. MM is plagued with too many problems as it was created. Most sane people knew extended would be bad as soon as Wotc announced the new rotation. Same with the announcement of MM. Why start with a block that needs 7 cards banned, followed by a set with 2 more cards banned(mirridon and kamigawa).
This format could start at Ravnica and only need two or three cards banned to start with. Or do overextended which seems uber fun. Modern Magic seems like a compromise where no one is happy. Also, this format would be dominated by combo more so than Legacy ever was. Legacy players like combo decks more than Standard players(this may be an unfair stereo type). So this means new players who like standard and may have a lot of modern magic legal cards won't try it because combo isn't fun. Then there are the Legacy players who aren't about to invest more money to play a weaker Legacyesque format. Most Legacy players don't have to buy new cards for their decks very often. Legacy players need a lot of incentive to invest money in a whole new deck even if it's cheap.
So I don't think MM as it stands now will appeal to many players, same as extended format. All this being said Legacy is getting dangerously expensive and extended is Very unpopular so something has to be done. This is not IT though.

[Rune]

@OP: Yes. By now it's pretty clear to me that the format will die sometime in the foreseeable future. It's only a matter of how soon and what format will replace it. Modern Magic might not be it, but if they keep throwing enough shit at the wall, eventually something is gonna stick.

Hasbro has no interest in this format existing as anything else than a niche format, since it only reduces their profit. Using myself as an example, I (re)started Magic and began playing Standard and cracked a lot of packs. After realizing that cracking packs is stupid and that Legacy is about ten bajillion times better than Standard, I very rarely bought new WotC products moving forward. I'm sure there are many others that have done the same, and I don't think Hasbro are huge fans of this kind of consumer behaviour taking place on a larger scale.

The format is also getting stupiditardedly expensive to get into. I hadn't really realized this until I started selling my collection, but some of the staples, like FoW and Wasteland, have increased by 300-500% in price since I began playing Legacy. For now, people still buy into the format, but I really wonder how close to the breaking point the prices have come.

These things make me believe that Hasbro will continue their strategy of slowly phasing out Legacy as a relevant format until it's actually replaced by one of their much more profitable 'new age' eternal formats.

Next up: Total number of Legacy GPs cut in half and replaced by Modern Magic GPs instead. (?)

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I don't think that it's inevitable that Legacy will die. I think the real question is when the supply of core staples will enter a terminal price spin, because that's going to set the stage for the decline. Earlier this year it looked like that might've been happening, but then prices dropped a bit and have stabilized since.

If Legacy is popular enough and established enough, Wizards is much less likely to simply let it die and replace it with another format. And while Wizards is insistent on not breaking the reserve list now, time breaks all bonds.

[Tiago_B.]

I don't see it as a mechanic issue so much as a convenience thing. There are an awful lot of questionable cards in those blocks--dark ritual, brainstorm, fact or fiction, goblin ringleader and piledriver etc.--that might start the format in places the designers don't want it to be (I mean, faeries with brainstorm?). IMO, it's probably easier just to axe those three blocks and wash your hands, jobs done. Not to mention the fact that the modern card border does give everything a nice, consistent look to it.

I agree with most of that.

Tarmogoyf seems too powerfull for the format as well. They could ban it, as well those cards you said, and a few others (Mind's Desire, Dragonstorm, Tendrils), it just feels like they wanted to skip all that work, which looks terribly lame.
I honestly think that including Onslaught, Invasion, and Mercadian Masques blocks would be of great benefit to the format. If those 3 blocks were included, id get a playset of Psychatogs lol, i sure miss playing with them (and Counterspell).

The format will be ridiculous in the beginning, but with the right bans, it might stick around.

Right now, the banned list is a joke, and when the format has 3 perfectly reasonable blocks cut-off just because 'its easier this way, so we dont have to actually ban those', it looks like a huge pile of crap of an excuse from WotC to cut those 3 and call it modern, and say its just 'because of the looks'.


Also, i never liked the 'new' look, i just got used to it. Artifacts look cool, but other than that, i rather have the old-school visual. But that's my personal prefference. I do agree that it might be preferable to most other players to have things the way they are, specially to new players.

[Clark Kant]

Double post.

[Clark Kant]

Hasbro has no interest in this format existing as anything else than a niche format

Legacy is the only format that still gets sanctioned events regularly where you can play with Alpha and Beta cards.

That is important to Wizards I think. To have a format where even the oldest cards ever printed are still legal, gives Magic more of a history, and more security. It's basically an assurance from Wizards saying look, we will never abandon any cards we print, even portal cards (with a few rare exceptions for the purpose of power level).

I think for that purpose alone, and for the purpose of magic's history and it's legacy, Wizards should make sure that Legacy will be always be a format they support.

Like I said, I think Wizards should support four formats with sanctioned events (Legacy (for historical value), Modern (for budget minded players who do not want their cards to rotate out), Standard and Draft).

Wizards does make money off legacy. Legacy players buy tons of singles, like Jaces, Stoneforge Mystics and Batterskulls.

And legacy players also draft and buy sets like Commandeer, and help keep their local magic communties likely and thriving. Many are shop owners or run playgroups as well. It would be stupid for Wizards to turn it's back on them.