Changes to the SCG Opens in 2015

[Michael Keller]

Obviously, this change by SCG is a net negative to the Legacy community, but while reading the article, I was thinking they made a mistake even before I got to their schedule (until then, I thought Standard and Legacy would be equally represented at the $20K Opens).

The Standard $20K Opens are a pretty exciting change if you're a hardcore Standard player, and it might induce Standard grinders to travel slightly longer distances to attend events they otherwise wouldn't. But any increased attendance SCG might get at these new Opens would be offset by plenty of other factors including:

- Casual Standard players who are unable or unwilling to commit to two days
- Casual Standard players who are hardcore Legacy or Modern players who would no longer play in the Saturday event if you have to play Day 2 to even have a shot of prizing
- Grinders who are competitive in Standard, but strongly prefer playing Legacy (or Modern), and would consider skipping the former despite the increased prestige SCG is trying to manufacture

The vast majority of players at the current Standard Opens are casual players who think it's pretty cool that the SCG is in town, and while I imagine many of them would still play in the $20K Open, some of them will have schedule conflicts. In addition, keep in mind that SCG had already experimented with "Double Standard" events in 2012, and they were an unmitigated disaster, with the Sunday Standard Open having 38-52% fewer players than the Saturday one (in other words, comparable to what the attendance would have been with a Legacy format). It is unsure whether this can be attributed to scheduling conflicts (Sundays are generally more inconvenient) or player fatigue (a lot of players are probably put off by playing Standard for two straight days), but in any case, both these problems will plague the new proposed setup.

In addition, you have players like myself who absolutely love Legacy and don't find Standard very appealing, but might have otherwise considered playing in Standard on Saturday to get some practice for the Invitational or to just hang out with friends. But to pay $50 to play a format that I don't even like, with the understanding that I have to play (and probably do reasonably well) on Day 2 to even min cash?! I would snap-drop from Standard to play Legacy on Sunday regardless of how I was doing, so there's simply no reason for me to register for the Saturday event anymore, since the practice simply isn't worth $50. I know I am far from the only player in my circle of friends who feels this way, and I imagine the sentiment is shared at least by some Modern players as well.

Keep in mind that while the player base of Legacy and Modern players is significantly smaller than that of Standard players, the proportion of hardcore players in those formats (especially in Legacy) is significantly higher than the corresponding proportion among Standard players, and as a result, the total number of dedicated players in each format is more comparable than one might think. This is a large reason why attendance numbers for Legacy and Modern GPs are consistently higher than those for Standard GPs, so I don't think SCG's effort to emulate the Grand Prix model with their new Open series will be as successful as they would hope. There are a ton of Standard GPs within driving distance even in the often-neglected West Coast, and none of them have ever been appealing beyond the possibility of having a sweet Legacy side event.

I must admit that I would be enthusiastic about these changes if the new Open Series schedule included a majority of Legacy Opens, rather than Standard, but that is only from my perspective as a hardcore Legacy fan. I still stand by the points I made that the entire concept of a two-day Open is a mistake for SCG, regardless of the choice of format for these Opens.

Furthermore, changes have also been made to the Invitational format. I'm not a player who can justify traveling great distances to play Magic, even at a well-supported event like the Invitational. I am absolutely dismayed to find that the only Invitational I can reasonably attend next year (Seattle 2015) will be Standard/Modern. I find Standard absolutely unbearable, and while Modern is a considerable improvement, I consider it only tolerable. I would have been much more excited if it were a Modern/Legacy split with a Legacy Top 8, and I suspect many other players would have preferred it for the merits of those respective formats over Standard. For an Invitational event, it's not like attendance numbers or cost of entry into a format are significant concerns (as they would be in the Opens which draw more casual players), so it would have been much better to see SCG choose the more interesting and skill-testing formats. I've been qualified for Invitationals for almost three consecutive years now, and I have declined to participate in any (until likely the upcoming Seattle Invitational) because they just weren't appealing to me. The new changes are so much worse, and as a result, I have lost any incentive to ever play in local Super or Elite IQs, since the prize support on their own isn't very appealing and the Invitational bid has become pretty much useless to me.

That being said, I don't think the sky is falling, and even with the significantly diminished exposure and prize support, SCG still does much more to help the Legacy community with its $5000 Premier IQs than most stores, and I intend to continue to attend these just as I would attend their Legacy Opens when possible. I do worry that the decreased exposure would cause innovation in the format to stagnate, although at the same time, I find that SCG's insistence on featuring their grinders at these Legacy Opens resulted in a significant "hive mind" mentality that may have been partially responsible for the decreased format diversity we've seen in recent years, so it's probably a push in that front.

I am not at all concerned about loss of other Legacy events. I think the entire concept of SCG singlehandedly supporting the Legacy community is vastly overblown. Some of you may be aware that I've been maintaining a thread full of stores that support Legacy, so I am more in tune with regular weeklies and large events in North America than most. There are still large Legacy tournaments all throughout the United States, and SCG's decision has essentially no impact on tournament support anywhere else. I may be seeing things with rose-colored glasses because I'm fortunate enough to be in Seattle where we have one of the best Legacy scenes in the world, and the situation is much less optimistic in Podunk, Buttfucksville; but the Card Kingdom weeklies, let alone their weekend dual land events or those of other stores, represent in aggregate more exciting events to me than the occasional SCG Seattle Legacy Open. And now we're fortunate enough to have a second Card Kingdom "branch" (Mox Boarding House) opening up in Bellevue, with likely even more frequent dual land/high staple events.

Just off the top of my head, I know there are similar awesome ones in Knightware, MTGDeals, the AZChamps.com Series, the Vancouver Classic, Jupiter Games, TOGIT, The Meadery, Tales of Adventure, Mythic Games, Bazaar of Moxen, Ovino, Prague Eternal, LCL, and many others. It is these local events that have always made up the vast majority of the Legacy experience, even as the SCG Open Series has taken up a disproportionate amount of the exposure (and justifiably so, as they have done an excellent job up until now!).

Huge fuckin' thumbs up.

[Lord Seth]

Furthermore, changes have also been made to the Invitational format. I'm not a player who can justify traveling great distances to play Magic, even at a well-supported event like the Invitational. I am absolutely dismayed to find that the only Invitational I can reasonably attend next year (Seattle 2015) will be Standard/Modern. I find Standard absolutely unbearable, and while Modern is a considerable improvement, I consider it only tolerable. I would have been much more excited if it were a Modern/Legacy split with a Legacy Top 8, and I suspect many other players would have preferred it for the merits of those respective formats over Standard. For an Invitational event, it's not like attendance numbers or cost of entry into a format are significant concerns (as they would be in the Opens which draw more casual players), so it would have been much better to see SCG choose the more interesting and skill-testing formats.

Modern/Legacy for an Invitational would be cool. Even just one Invitational doing that would be nice.

[GoblinSettler]

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.

[btm10]

I am not at all concerned about loss of other Legacy events. I think the entire concept of SCG singlehandedly supporting the Legacy community is vastly overblown. Some of you may be aware that I've been maintaining a thread full of stores that support Legacy, so I am more in tune with regular weeklies and large events in North America than most. There are still large Legacy tournaments all throughout the United States, and SCG's decision has essentially no impact on tournament support anywhere else. I may be seeing things with rose-colored glasses because I'm fortunate enough to be in Seattle where we have one of the best Legacy scenes in the world, and the situation is much less optimistic in Podunk, Buttfucksville; but the Card Kingdom weeklies, let alone their weekend dual land events or those of other stores, represent in aggregate more exciting events to me than the occasional SCG Seattle Legacy Open. And now we're fortunate enough to have a second Card Kingdom "branch" (Mox Boarding House) opening up in Bellevue, with likely even more frequent dual land/high staple events.

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.

[why]

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.

[M+1]

It would be nice if they could still stream some games from the top tables of the sunday Legacy IQs, even without commentators.

[testing32]

stuff

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.

[ESG]

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.

Where are you seeing this? Did you misread or misinterpret something?

Lordofthepit is big on data, so he's likely more in touch than most people. I doubt you can provide any data, but if you can, I'm sure it would be welcome.

[why]

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 cost.

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.

Lordofthepit is big on data, so he's likely more in touch than most people. I doubt you can provide any data, but if you can, I'm sure it would be welcome.

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".

[danyul]

I don't know anyone who knows Shawn that would describe him as "in touch".

LOLOLOLOL. Will you be at Card Kingdom tonight? I dunno who you are but I must shake your hand.

[feline]

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.

[lordofthepit]

LOLOLOLOL. Will you be at Card Kingdom tonight? I dunno who you are but I must shake your hand.

You'd shake hands with Ranjan?

I didn't even shake hands with him before agreeing to the VSL bet that I knew I'd win.

[danyul]

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!"

[Ellomdian]

It's weird to me that no one thinks of this as a reasonably positive thing.

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.

[zulander]

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.

[Einherjer]

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

[Koby]

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.

[gibbousm]

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.

[lordofthepit]

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)?

[Michael Keller]

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.