"Hey, that Legacy GP NJ was a huge hit! You know what is a great idea is?"
Let's cut down the number of Legacy opens in the first half of 2015 down to three!
Sure, they're still running 5k Premier IQs for Legacy, but less prices and no coverage for Legacy sucks.
And according to Twitter, they also fired Chapin and Oysp since Hunt, Cedric and Patrick Sullivan are the only commentators left.
There's lots of negatives here so I'll leave those to everyone else. Let's look at some positives:
1. This leaves a hole where there's clearly demand for streamed legacy. I know that in the past, I've decided not to stream MTGO matches because SCG was also streaming at the same time. There will almost certainly be more people streaming legacy on weekends now.
2. This leaves a hole where there's clearly demand for big legacy events. Unfortunately, the high cost associated with these events means that only the bigger stores will be able to fill the gap. With the frequent complaints about the lack of opens in the west, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a group like Channel Fireball dip their toes in the water. Similarly, I wouldn't be at all surprised if TCGPlayer expanded their offerings to include legacy.
3. There were certainly people playing in the legacy opens only because it filled out the rest of the weekend. With Standard now a two-day event, expect to lose these individuals who would best be described as not-legacy-focused. With the reduction of these players, demand will go down slightly, hopefully causing the format to become a bit more accessible, at least monetarily.
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
What I noticed that there are two Modern 20K event. Maybe they're moving in to Modern. I'm cool with that, but with that coverage, Modern staples only seem to go up in price. So much for an affordable non-rotating format.
Personally I like this move with Legacy. As what thecrav said above, more people will be streaming on Sundays. I would rather watch competent people with their specialty decks than a random SCG employee play U/x/x Delver.dec
Who knows? Maybe this will increase the number of people playing Legacy on MTGO on Sundays
I am convinced that WotC is "dumbing" the game because of all the stupid posts they come across on MTG-related forums
It's not as bad as i imagined. We still get a secondary legacy event almost every week, but it's effectively half of what it was before. I don't like this at all, and hope someone else get on board to give us some streaming legacy, else this format instantly die the moment SGC decides it .
However it seems really bad for them financially, unless they've already cleared all their legacy supplies and maybe the largest Legacy GP ever was a way for them to do that.
And then you run into random scrubs playing UR Delver or Burn round after round.
I'd love to see other groups pick up the remains that SCG left, but how likely is that?
Reading the article I can understand why they want to change to the GP structure. The downside is 75% standard and the rest being split between two other formats means very little big Legacy events. Additionally, unless they start a backup Twitch channel, we are going to see very little coverage. There might be Top 8 or Top 4 for the backup event (depending on how much they want to do coverage). Personally I will not be tuning in on Sundays evening anymore though.
My Legacy Decks of choice: Pox, Miracles, D&T or Lands.
Online Trading Reference Checker
I mean that's actually just not true. I'm sure SCG sees GP New Jersey as a failure. They had space and judges and staff for 6,000 people; they missed their goals by a whole 2,000 people. They refunded thousands of dollars to each vendor because they didn't meet target attendance numbers. GP New Jersey might have been the third largest GP of all time, but SCG put a lot of resources into advertising and ensuring that this was the largest GP of all time (as their last few have been). They may have even lost money.
I'm almost certain that SCG made this decision before GP New Jersey; it's a big one and I can't imagine waiting until a week before. If their minds weren't made up, GP New Jersey certainly pushed them away from legacy.
I think such changes were sort of inevitable. At this point, if the three legacy opens in the first half of next year don't meet the attendance of standard opens, expect to see those gone as well. Right now the bet is that with a few opens, legacy afficianados will fly out from across the country making them large.
Personally, needing to play legacy in invitationals will keep me invested in the format. The dearth of legacy events heralds death for some, and I have friends who are getting out of legacy now.
I think it's pretty unlikely. There's an opportunity cost in hosting large legacy events, in that you're going to likely have a smaller audience for them. I think signs point to it being an incorrect business decision. If you're ChannelFireball, why aren't you just hosting standard events? The west coast is underserved in general *anyways*.
If there's a future legacy series, I think it'll be started by format enthusiasts, not by a business.
I wouldn't be suprised if that change was planned long ago and they used GP NJ to unload their inventory because prices are likely to drop now.
In the end, it's a business decision and people vote with their wallet - if people stop supporting SCG by buying cards since they don't support Legacy that much anymore, changes might occur.
You don't actually believe that will happen, right?
Where would they get a backup stream when they actually cut down the coverage team to three people?
I don't, but they also moved away from the double Standard disaster two years ago towards more Legacy in 2014.
I understand complaining on here, but why not complain to them directly? They have a contact button. Tell them you won't be watching and you won't be buying from them because of this. I just did.
Definetely not, namely not the high part. Very few ppl will sell for cheaper than they bought. Why do this, unles they're in a serious need for money?
If you want to be pedantic about they can have one person on each channel and one person hopping around where needed.
As a business streaming is a marketing technique to promote events and sell cards/increase attendance. SCG have announced what they are doing for the first half of next year. If this somehow effects profits they will reconsider; for the time being though it looks like goodbye Legacy coverage from them.
My Legacy Decks of choice: Pox, Miracles, D&T or Lands.
Online Trading Reference Checker
Just a question: do you guys think a decrease of coverage will have an effect on the pricetag of Legacy-staples or do you recon 'Legacy will be Legacy', so no?If you want to be pedantic about they can have one person on each channel and one person hopping around where needed.
As a business streaming is a marketing technique to promote events and sell cards/increase attendance. SCG have announced what they are doing for the first half of next year. If this somehow effects profits they will reconsider; for the time being though it looks like goodbye Legacy coverage from them.
I doubt the prices are going to drop much since price memory is a bitch.
This also gives another big TO to step in try to make larger legacy tournaments. Eternal Weekend and Eternal Extravaganza were both well attended.
I wonder how the fact they're 2-day events rather than 1-day events now will affect attendance.
I'm also disappointed by the lack of Opens near where I live. :(
I'm not excited about the new changes, mostly because the West Coast, once again, gets totally screwed. Living on the East Coast, however, the changes are good news. 3 mini Legacy GP's and softer IQ's on Sundays are technically good news for the hardened grinder, but not great news for the general player. The West Coast loses a lot by not having any major events, and prize support going back to the 5k from 10k.
The mini-GP's seem like SCG is trying to move and be a pseudo-Wizards - if you noticed, they'll be having other vendors at their events. AKA they're selling space to sell cards at their events. They know they're popular.
As for GP NJ, saying it wasn't a success is bullshoi. Sure, they had staff for 6000 people, meaning 200 judges. The cost of paying those extra judges for the 2,000 people they didn't get is peanuts. Judges usually work for a box a day, and it's not like SCG pays much on boxes, especially when Wizards gives you product to support the event. They took in a cold hard $200,000 in cash (actually more, but rounding down) just in entrance fees, nevermind vendor table fees (where bidding starting at $6,000 each...STARTED) and they had over twenty tables there. The venue itself does cost money, but it is not an enormous fee.
Legacy SCG's, the 10k, need about 250 people to break even on prize support, cash to cash. Most of the time, we were getting near there but they made money on buying up staples from people at pennies on the dollar.
Point is, they're not a company losing money, they're a company that has lots of pull on what gets supported and what doesn't. They're a company with financial interests. If you have a well reasoned complaint, send it to them. Tell them how you want them to come here and host this tournament, and you've got money to spend. We all do.
Legacy in North America isn't going to die, don't you worry. Will prices cool for a few weeks while randoms unload? Sure, it'll happen, and I'll gladly pick it all up on the cheap. But Legacy just isn't dying, it's mostly that the West Coast is going back to the old structure, and the East is getting good things again.
Form an articulate statement about how you want the 10k for Legacy back more often, and send it to Pete Hoefling (sp?). Send it to Ben Bleiweiss. I'm going to contact them. Let them know you'd prefer the old way :)
-Matt
It is worth pointing out that complaints from players did make Wizards of the Coast rescind their plan to make every Pro Tour a Standard format.
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