An SCG employee has confirmed there will be vintage side events here but no further information has been given.Originally Posted by Undomian
According to magicgp.com they're underwhelming: If you go 4-0 you win 18 packs of Khans.
One sample event (there's more of these on other days), on Saturday, is the Vintage Challenge. $20 entry, prize payout:
4-0: 18 Khans of Tarkir booster packs, 80-ct. pack of Brainstorm sleeves
3-0-1: 15 Khans of Tarkir booster packs
3-1: 12 Khans of Tarkir booster packs
2-1-1 or 2-0-2: 9 Khans of Tarkir booster packs
2 Wins: 6 Khans of Tarkir booster packs
Other: 3 Khans of Tarkir booster packs
I'm not super excited about hauling a $14,000 deck to New Jersey for a shot at 18 packs of Khans for $20 entry, when for $40 I could buy 18 packs of Khans at the LGS.
♀
Strongly agreed. I'm not planning on bringing my vintage deck to this event. ESPECIALLY in New Jersey, which has a horrendous track record as a state with things getting stolen.
12 more sleeps!
Can't wait!
Anyone know what time the venue opens on Saturday? I doubt I'll be able to make it by Friday and would like to try and pick up a couple last-minute additions.
I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of outcomes. The ability to make a decision 5 straight times, lose 5 times because of it, and still make it the 6th time if it's the right play. - Jon Finkel
"Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings."
Ben's post seemed to imply to me that there would be an actual vintage event. This looks doesn't look like much more than "yea, we'll let you fire an eight man if you want."
Ideally, we'll all still be playing the main event when 6 rolls around. With a scheduled start time of 10A, it's likely to only be around round 6 by the time this event attempts to fire. Unless they announce something bigger or someone wants to arrange something, I'll be leaving my power at home.
Legacy challenge at 2P Friday is interesting. I'll be hauling my ass from the airport to try to make that.
Regarding the Hype, if the numbers are realistic, i can kind of understand it. Modern GP Richmond had over 4,000 people. This location is even more accessible by a larger population, and given the EV just for entering it's possible a bunch of people will enter and just port over modern decks or something, or budget legacy decks. The reddit thread suggests some people might even just register whatever and get the swag. We might see a lot of Round 1 drops for people just wanting brainstorm gear and to play side events during the day.
Plus there's other things to consider like a person playing Jund in Modern just needs the dual lands more or less to play it in Legacy.
Delver decks only require duals, forces and occasionally wastelands to port over.
If someone has an extensive enough modern pool, they may realistically not need much in terms of legacy cards outside of duals, wastelands, and force of will. Buy/borrow the duals for the colors your need, get force of wills if you run blue, and wastelands. The GP has been hyped for months, enough time to get what you would want even if you never played the format.
We could potentially see people budget their mana base and play shocks. It's not impossible. Is it less consistent? Sure, but if you're going to this and all you're missing from any of these decks is the duals, a half decent player could probably just use shocks and play around with their sequencing and still half-ass the event. Notably cute over eternal weekend was that one of the top 8 decks was substituting with shocks. The person will not likely Day 2, much less Top 8 a 6,000 person GP that way, but it won't stop people from enjoying some legacy fun I'm sure.
The biggest GP for Legacy would be interesting, but I'm wondering how the experience will actually turn out.
To be realistic, I've seen a fair amount of shock being played in DC last year.
"Well let me tell you something, Mean Gene! It's been a long time coming, dude! I can remember dreaming way back when I was saying my prayers and taking my vitamins as a little 'Maniac with that Beta booster that I could be at the top of the mountain with the best of 'em, brother! But that was a different time and a different place, big man. I've seen the world change so much around me, brother; things just aren't the same anymore. But those dreams never die, brother! You know, it took a long time for Hollywood to get to where he is, man - all the beatings and losses I've had to take those many years ago. It all leads to this, brother! Oh yeah, that's right! And as I stare into the thousands of eyes of all those players looking for a chance at immortality, I've had to look at myself in the mirror, dude. And I looked deep into the dark trenches of my soul where no man or animal wants to go! I realized that fear - fear is what pushed me to be a better player, brother! And as we descend upon the biggest Grand Prix ever, dude, it's time to find out if it was all worth it! It's time for fear to take over, man!
I've had the 'Maniacs asking me if I can get there on the first go-around, brother. And I thought about it long and hard while training, big man! And you know something Mean Gene, 'Hollywood' is known for being the city of stars, brother. And with 'Star City' presenting the biggest Grand Prix ever, you can bet the dreams of that little 'Maniac twenty years ago will show the world that it doesn't matter how you start... it's how you finish, brother! So in closing, whatcha gonna do New Jersey and Star City Games, when Hollywood runs wild on you!"
You would know
It's ok, those packs are mine!
Matt Bevenour in real life
You're welcome to them!You would know
It's ok, those packs are mine!
I haven't had anything stolen from my person, thankfully, although a few years ago a friend of mine had his partially japfoil Rector Fit + a bunch of 12post cards I was loaning him stolen. He did his best to get me back money / value for what was lost of mine, but it was still a bit of a wake-up call. Jersey's a dangerous place for cardboard.
They've said multiple times that they won't let you register just for the swag but they've also said you can do the insta-drop. There's now a conversation on Twitter regarding whether you can register and show up late, effectively having only registered for the swag. Thus far, SCG's response is "we can probably work something out."
Personally, I desperately hope that is not the case. If so, they're going to be ruining round one for a lot of people. At least a round one drop requires that I meet a new person who shakes my hand as they sign the slip.
That's why they have so many judges for this event. That way they can attend to everyone with their hands raised and yelling when the round 1 timer starts.
Find me on Twitter: @beanaman
Thank you for this. It's fantastic."Well let me tell you something, Mean Gene! It's been a long time coming, dude! I can remember dreaming way back when I was saying my prayers and taking my vitamins as a little 'Maniac with that Beta booster that I could be at the top of the mountain with the best of 'em, brother! But that was a different time and a different place, big man. I've seen the world change so much around me, brother; things just aren't the same anymore. But those dreams never die, brother! You know, it took a long time for Hollywood to get to where he is, man - all the beatings and losses I've had to take those many years ago. It all leads to this, brother! Oh yeah, that's right! And as I stare into the thousands of eyes of all those players looking for a chance at immortality, I've had to look at myself in the mirror, dude. And I looked deep into the dark trenches of my soul where no man or animal wants to go! I realized that fear - fear is what pushed me to be a better player, brother! And as we descend upon the biggest Grand Prix ever, dude, it's time to find out if it was all worth it! It's time for fear to take over, man!
I've had the 'Maniacs asking me if I can get there on the first go-around, brother. And I thought about it long and hard while training, big man! And you know something Mean Gene, 'Hollywood' is known for being the city of stars, brother. And with 'Star City' presenting the biggest Grand Prix ever, you can bet the dreams of that little 'Maniac twenty years ago will show the world that it doesn't matter how you start... it's how you finish, brother! So in closing, whatcha gonna do New Jersey and Star City Games, when Hollywood runs wild on you!"
Within a minute of showing this conversation on Twitter to some friends, I had someone ask if they could register, not go, and have me pick up their stuff for them.
I can at least understand wanting the playmat but not wanting to spring for the added expense of the trip/lodgings, and so on. Showing up just to drop...that blows my mind.
I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of outcomes. The ability to make a decision 5 straight times, lose 5 times because of it, and still make it the 6th time if it's the right play. - Jon Finkel
"Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings."
I'm not shocked at all. Let's look at the swag:
1 GP Foil Promo Batterskull - TCG mid is $17.04 . The cheapest one shipped is $15.33
1 Brainstorm Playmat - hard to price, but I looked into similar playmats (prices listed below to prevent clutter). The long term value of this is certainly above $50. These playmats are often even higher value right after the event as they haven't spread around to the collectors yet. It's also certainly a collector's item that will hold value for quite some time. I'd conservatively place the value at $100, but let's just say $50 for argument's sake.
1 Pack of 80 Brainstorm Sleeves - On the super low end, assume the same price as a regular pack of sleeves which is around ~$8.
1 Brainstorm Deckbox - On the low end, deckboxes are around $5.
With that, we're looking at a minimum value of $78 - a $28 profit on your $50 entry. Combine that with good side events and I'm not at all surprised that people would show up, enter, and insta-drop. I'm also not surprised that people would try to find ways around SCG's stated policy that, "Registration rewards are only available to participants in the Grand Prix."
My concern is that at such high levels of EV just for dropping out, you're going to have a lot of players with no round one opponent. As much as I love a bye, an unexpected bye is no fun. I'll be quite curious to see how much smaller the pairings list is for round two.
My solution:
Hand out the swag during round three. At this point, everyone in the tournament is still live for day two. The only people who are not playing are the few who have three byes. These players could pick up their stuff during that round. This at least requires the value-seekers to show up for three rounds of Magic. Even if they insta-concede, the increased time commitment is likely to turn off a lot of people.
Prices for highly-desirable playmats, based on the average price of the last five (if five available, otherwise, all recent) sold listings for a single playmat:
GP Richmond (Eternal Witness) - $35.20
GP Vegas (MMA Sword of Fire and Ice) - $53.84
Eternal Weekend 2013 (MMA Tarmogoyf) - $100
Eternal Weeknd 2014 (Cruiclbe of Worlds) - 53.99
On the subject of Vintage, people have been discussing playing on tMD here even though the EV is obviously terrible. I think the EV on going, playing a little Legacy, getting your playmat and stuff, dropping if you do bad and playing Vintage is worth it, but maybe that's just me. That's what I would do if real life things weren't keeping me from going.
I am probably going to see if any of my New York friends are going and see if I can pay them for the registration perks, because I would definitely pay 50 bucks for all that.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
SCG already said how they are handling this. When they collect deck reg at the players meeting, they will give your your Premium voucher, your Batterskull, and a voucher for the Brainstorm swag. Anytime after this, you can go to their Customer Services Booth, and turn in the voucher. So it wouldn't surprise me to see a bunch of people leaving to enjoy their byes, a bunch rushing to the pairings boards, and a bunch rushing that booth at the end of the meeting.
~ Team Unicorn Motto
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