I'm disappointed that I won't be able to play my new drinking game in 2015.
The P-Chapin SCG Endurance Special
(don't shoot the puppy edition)
Rules:
1) At the beginning of each televised match, pour a shot. Don't drink it.
2) When Chapin says, "Daddy's home. And he's angry." drink all the shots.
This is very important. I'm also lucky in having a great local scene (2 weeklies, very strong player base), but I think I'm a little more concerned than you are that the reduced exposure will result in less new blood entering the format. I'm not sure I'll mind this (fewer 15 year olds that don't understand their deck or how to be civil in general isn't the worst thing), but it isn't the best for the long term health of the format. My bigger fear is that the format moves more to MODO because people want to play but don't have access to cards or a strong enough local scene to justify investing in cards. I haven't seen a big uptick in Vintage events even though lots of folks seem to be playing on MODO, so I'm not sure if interest in electronic Legacy is going to spur more interest in paper Legacy.
As for hive mind effects, that's an interesting point. I've always found the popularity of Deathblade to be way out of proportion to how good a deck it is especially relative to UW, UWr, or UWb Blade, but the core SCG grinders really seemed to like it and I definitely saw more of it after one of them wrote an article or made a video or played a feature match with the deck. This may be the case for other decks as well, and we'll have the opportunity to see it next year, I guess.
It's weird to me that no one thinks of this as a reasonably positive thing. Of course legacy opens couldn't stay the way they were- they weren't nearly as popular as standard opens. It would be a bad decision to continue with them in their previous form. The change to two day main events makes sense; the single day events were getting too long. I've been expecting SCG to abandon legacy for a while- they're a business, not a group of enthusiasts.
People speak to decreased attendance for standard, like lordofthepit, but I think he's wildly out of touch. It's clear that standard just has a much higher number of active players, perhaps by an order of magnitude.
I know in the not-so-recent past I skipped an SCG because I could only play one day, as I didn't own a legacy deck. The SCG was a few hundred miles away and I had friends going. I think this opens the audience of SCGs to many of those people. Increased prestige for the winner helps too.
For many people here, I think this means more legacy. I know many legacy players that are slightly older, don't play another format, and don't do SCGs because there aren't local ones and it doesn't make sense to travel for one day of magic. Those players traveled to attend GP NJ and would love more legacy GPs.
Well this announcement is three more legacy GPs in the year. Those events are certainly ones people are capable and willing to travel to, at least in talking to people at my local legacy event. If you think that's not true, then you think even these few legacy events are going to be gone by the second half of the year. That's the bet that SCG is making- that people will be willing to travel to their "legacy GPs". And I don't know if those will get the thousand players they need to stay as is. SCG has shown that they'll make the decision that makes business sense.
The valid complaint is about exposure. The fact that legacy just isn't going to be on camera as much anymore in competitive events. The fact that this is just all part of the inevitable but slow moving heat death of legacy. Outside of an invitational weekend, legacy opens are half the size of standard ones; of course they aren't going to run many of them.
I was close to selling my legacy cards before I realized they had kept the invitationals as mixed format. Thought I was getting a cool paycheck. Maybe next year.
It would be nice if they could still stream some games from the top tables of the sunday Legacy IQs, even without commentators.
These are not additional legacy GPs. GPs pay out 54k and give pro tour invites which pays out 250k. These new opens pay out 20k and give you the chance to travel across the country to play standard/modern for 50k. The EV for an open that is far away is garbage when you factor in time, travel and hotel costs.
The no coverage also sucks. On a Sunday, while I'm working, I'll pop up the coverage as something in the background.
The EV for most magic tournaments is garbage. If you're right and people don't treat these as GPs, then SCG won't host any of them in the second half of the year.
I don't have the data, but I'm confident that it supports my conclusions because I believe SCG has investigated things and do not believe they would make intentionally poor business decisions.
I don't know anyone who knows Shawn that would describe him as "in touch".
Elves Discord Channel: https://discord.gg/2EVsdw2
Well I found out everything about a half an hour before the start of SCGRichmond this past weekend.
I will still be pushing Legacy but it's going to be different now on most weekends. The first time on camera I was nervous and part of me didn't want to go on. Now I'm finding myself thinking that I will miss having less chances at it. Though in my own situation I'm lucky enough that I can still probably attend each weekend that the main event is Legacy.
As for now, I'll cya in Atlanta/Portland/Seattle.
Primary legacy deck High Tide primer
Ok I changed my mind. I'll shake Leremy's hand while scowling at the both of you. Cya in an hour or so.
On topic: I don't like the changes. But I'm not smart enough to vocalize my feelings in any form other than a guttural "No! Nononono!"
Elves Discord Channel: https://discord.gg/2EVsdw2
It's way easier to be negative on everything and be right if it goes poorly and benefit if it goes well than it is to be positive about something and be disappointed if it goes badly. That pretty much drives internet commentary by itself (that, and the fact that people who are angry or upset tend to be much more vocal than those that are satisfied.)
I expect this is a positive move for SCG moving forward. This is probably the best possible solution to the logistical problems with Opens breaking 1k players, and since they tend to schedule Opens a quarter at a time, it allows them to be flexible based on demand. 2k Players at one of the Legacy events (which happens to be giving away $5k cash to the winner)? Add an Legacy open or 2 to the next scheduling. And whether Legacy players want to admit it, Standard and Modern will typically pull a much larger turn-out week to week. Having an (effectively) GP-level Legacy event once a month in the US is probably too much saturation.
It's kind of amusing that the scuttlebutt has always been that SCG was propping up Legacy to sell expensive eternal singles, but now that we have the largest Legacy GP ever, they are killing their golden goose.
Check out my Legacy UBTezz Primer. Chalice of the Void: Keeping Magic Fair.
-----
Playing since '96. Brief forced break '02-04. Former/Idle Judge since '05. Told Smmenen to play faster at Vintage Worlds.
-----
Most of the 'Ban brainstorm!' arguments are based on the logic that 'more different cards should get played in Legacy', as though the success or health of the format can be measured by the portion of cards that are available and see play. This is an idiotic metric.
One way to look at this is that there's 3 more GP style legacy events a year, with a side of legacy 5k's every weekend. It's still being supported but with Wizards pushing Modern it seems that SCG was the only large-scale legacy provider. Combining that with their pricing and the prohibitive costs of playing legacy it's obvious that changes had to be made. Personally I like the changes as I've gotten into standard/modern recently due to the much more open format.
ps Don't sell your staples unless you're "certain" that you can buy them cheaper later on.
Additionally: There was no way that we (Europeans) came to the U.S. just for one Sunday Legacy Open. With these Opens being bigger and 2-day-events now the chance is real!
Greetings
Having a handful of marquee Legacy events is nice. It's rather unfortunate that they are all centered around the New England / Northeast area of the US. Indianapolis is still accessible by most of the east coast too. I'm all curmudgeony because West Coast doesn't have the same access to those events (at least for Q1+2 2015). I don't think the change has much impact on Legacy aside from slowing its growth rate, while at the same time plateauing or reducing the prices on some staples.
The main issue is the reduced Legacy coverage, which has a big impact on highlighting the format and (hopefully) advancing the metagame evolution by consequence. It means I will be watching less SCGLive, and likely start to resume Legacy streaming on MTGO. The only issue is of course MTGO being an MS DOS program, but that's another topic for another thread.
I doubt I will event attend the Standard Open in Los Angeles.
West side
Find me on MTGO as Koby or rukcus -- @MTGKoby on Twitter
* Maverick is dead. Long live Maverick!
My Legacy stream
My MTG Blog - Work in progress
My biggest issue with the announcement isn't that they changed it from a two 1-day events to one 2-day event, its that over a 6 month period there's 1 Legacy Open for every 5 Standard (and only 1 Modern for every 7 Standard).
I understand Standard is the most played constructed format and that SCG makes more money off of standard than legacy. Even one Legacy for every 3 Standard Opens would make me satisfied. While I'm happy that they will at least have Premier IQs of the non-Open formats, but the lack of non-Standard opens is really disappointing me.
"If we don't know what we are doing, the enemy certainly can't anticipate our future actions!"
-Anonymous
Does anyone have data on viewership numbers on SCGLive for Saturday and Sunday?
I notice that generally when I've observed the numbers, the Legacy Opens get better viewership numbers that Standard, but I was listening to the SCG Podcast by Cedric and Patrick Sullivan recently which suggested that the Standard Opens actually get better viewership. Is this actually the case (aside from comparing the Standard Finals to Round 4 of Legacy)?
As long as I can play the format for nice prizes, that's all I care about. Star City is providing this service, so I'm fine with it.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)