I'm not saying the sky is falling yet, but the changes in the recent past are pretty worrying.
- SCG only half-heartly supports Legacy now, so their card stock doesn't crash
- Wizards is currently hellbent on killing the Eternal events on MTGO (aka "the future of Legacy due to the Reserve List"
GP numbers are still decent, but who knows if they don't cut Legacy GPs for the next years?
You need to be more specific and provide more context. Like which recent change, and what the specific recent change was on MTGO to lead you to believe that Wizards is hellbent on killing Legacy. Not everyone here follows MTGO Legacy Daily.Originally Posted by Barook
Go read the play points announcement.... 6 Tix to play in a daily, and if you go 2-1 you get 60 play points which are worth less then 6 tix to anyone who understands basic economics. (assuming a pack is at 3 tix, then you can get in a draft for 11 tix, but it is 140 PP placing 1 play point at .07857 tix, they only equal if a pack is at store price which will not happen)
There is other things, but that is the most recent.
They regularly cut events in the past few months, including the always available 8-man queue.
Last week they announced a major revamp of the prize structure (hint: it sucks ass), so tons of people sold out. In reaction to this, they made the Daily Events (the only event type that didn't rip you off, at least before they changed it last week) for Eternal formats and Pauper basically glorified 8-mans where you have to go at least 2-1 to break even. And you can only win packs to sell if you go 3-0. Did I mention that you have to wait the full time until everybody is finished? So you're probably wasting 3 hours for nothing as end result while you could jammed tons of games without interruption for free in the Tournament Practice room.
Legacy DE attention is down by at least 30% even before the changes come into effect on August 12th because so many people sold out in reaction to the changes. Quite a few DEs don't fire anymore while they all fired before the announcement. Once the changes happen, Legacy WILL be dead for good. Then they'll cut it due to "lack of interest", as seen before with other events.
It certainly seems like Legacy is "down" ever since SCG shifted away from Sunday Opens. I know they still have premier IQs or whatever, but they're not streamed, and they hardly cover any Legacy anymore on their site. It's a shame, it felt like Legacy was taking off before that. Now their IQ numbers are switching from Legacy to Modern being the bigger draw. I suppose that was always destined to be the case...but before they pulled the Legacy support, every Modern player I knew was trying to build a Legacy deck. Now most of the people around here are selling off Legacy (grudgingly) to buy into Modern (grudgingly).
I'm a crusty "old" player who would play nothing but Vintage, Legacy and 93/94 if I could, so I'm probably biased...but I'll never understand the draw to Modern. It's the Communist Soviet Union of MtG formats.
Playing online seems weird and boring to me. Hint, im also a crusty old guy. The key to keeping it alive, is to just keep playing it. Shit, if people sell out their collections, build a second or third legacy deck. Lend it to friends for LGS and SCG events. Actually playing legacy will hook players.
Modern? Ugghhhh......
Right, so when Legacy "dies," what happens then to every Magic card pre-dating 8th Edition? Why would Wizards be stupid to essentially competitively invalidate thousands of cards spanning over a decade to cater to what would be its "replacement" in Modern?
Vintage is virtually impossible to break into seriously with maybe a handful of sanctioned events a year. I honestly believe that if Wizards somehow, someway wanted to shake things up, they'll evolve it again into something else (which seems completely unnecessary).
Legacy is a free for all format. It encompasses everything from the beginning to now. That freedom to play whatever you want essentially seems obvious from a gamer's freedom standpoint. In a competitive card game with multiple sanctioned formats, it just seems odd that the one format where you can play anything and almost everything is always the format spoken of being shut down for good. It's just mind boggling with that creativity and deep card pool Legacy always gets shafted or spoken of in a negative light.
What killed legacy was in majority SCG - pricespikes connected to their market(ing) behaviour (to put things into perspective playable deck costs 2 months average paycheck where I live now), include demographics of typical legacy player and you have it... you have less time - work/wife/kids, your play and relation to the game gets worse (also the game evolves to something "worse" - new prints, mechanics, netdecking), when cards cost 5-15x more than you bought them it's hard not to sell... while this happens there is noone to replace you (pricetag, other less complicated games/hobbies alternatives), If you keep in eventually the situation gets real bad and you're bound to see the same faces in each tournament in diminishing numbers, then your relation gets more loose and end...on this spiral the only way is downwards, costs to break it are too steep - for those who are still tempted we have modern, even though more debilitated a cheaper way to play and now mass adopted highlander variants... this is slow degenerative process and may not apply for North America at first sight where the legacy circiut aspirations may have driven more people to enter the format/circiut, but in overall the trend is very negative imo... legacy is to exist in strong communities and major events only in few years unless something breaks the equation (counterfeits, reserved list, something really crazy)
Wotc has shown continuous incompetence to manage the game, not to speak about legacy, everytime i read about Modo I'm so glad I resistedI have no idea how such things could ever happen to an online game or how can it still exist in this form, looks more like a bad economy experiment
I doubt legacy will ever truly die, but I could be wrong. I mean if the format loses even more support (as in, no more GPs for instance) and everybody panics and tries to sell out, and that in turn causes prices to fall, then those prices will eventually get so low that I would expect other people would start to buy in. People that maybe always wanted to buy in, perhaps, but couldn't due to prices being too high. We might not get the 3 yearly GPs but I'd imagine there'd still be select tournaments around the world albeit sporadically (but that is basically already the case). Maybe a single SCG-open, maybe Eternal Weekend, maybe Bazaar of Moxen, maybe something else.
While it sucks that the format is being overtaken in popularity, and therefore also coverage, by Modern (and that seems an unstoppable trend now) because it means there will be less content for us to access I guess as long as it's possible for me to play Legacy every week at my LGS (and yes, even that could be threatened, but I'm not too worried) then I'm happy to keep my cards and keep playing. As I only really have the opportunity to travel once a year to play magic anyway it doesn't really matter that much to me if that trip is to a 1500-person GP or a 700-person BoM.
excellent postWhat killed legacy was in majority SCG - pricespikes connected to their market(ing) behaviour (to put things into perspective playable deck costs 2 months average paycheck where I live now), include demographics of typical legacy player and you have it... you have less time - work/wife/kids, your play and relation to the game gets worse (also the game evolves to something "worse" - new prints, mechanics, netdecking), when cards cost 5-15x more than you bought them it's hard not to sell... while this happens there is noone to replace you (pricetag, other less complicated games/hobbies alternatives), If you keep in eventually the situation gets real bad and you're bound to see the same faces in each tournament in diminishing numbers, then your relation gets more loose and end...on this spiral the only way is downwards, costs to break it are too steep - for those who are still tempted we have modern, even though more debilitated a cheaper way to play and now mass adopted highlander variants... this is slow degenerative process and may not apply for North America at first sight where the legacy circiut aspirations may have driven more people to enter the format/circiut, but in overall the trend is very negative imo... legacy is to exist in strong communities and major events only in few years unless something breaks the equation (counterfeits, reserved list, something really crazy)
Wotc has shown continuous incompetence to manage the game, not to speak about legacy, everytime i read about Modo I'm so glad I resisted
What I think will keep legacy going is having local, low level, proxy events. If people can afford to try a couple of decks and learn the format they will be far more willing to buy in. Legacy is a damn intimidating format, even to watch, for people new to the format. Having an accessible, low cost way to try the format will increase interest. In fact, that's how I got to pretty much quit playing modern.
Meh...
I look forward to watching my grandkids from hell as they go on Antiques Roadshow and are told they should be able to auction off my collection to pay for their college education.
Well, the future of legacy doesn't seem so birght, for various reasons. First and foremost the cost is prohibitive, support is vanishing from either SCG or WOTC's MODO, people rather buy into modern because it has cheaper entry level and bigger player base (or at least on local leve). Modern is also more new player friendly. People are slowly but surely selling out from legacy (not only MODO), this is especially true for smaller communities. People with smaller incomes can't justify to have at least one deck worth around 2.000$ just for one single monthly event and then even if they afford one deck for that one singel motnhly event then they are not getting the broad experience of legacy by playing themselves different decks, they are almost enprisoned to that deck and that is not good from longterm point of view for that player as well as for local communities.
Where I do see possible resurgence or at least keeping the same baseline of players for legacy is locally. Yes we lost SCGs momentum of big and streamed tournaments but hey, legacy was alive and well (maybe even moreso?) before SCG has had their eye on it. We need to take care of local player base and especially local tournaments. Make sure these events are frequent so that you will retain player base, make sure your events are "marketed" well in advance so people are aware of them, create some "hype" around them, grab/spark people's attention. I don't think this is an issue with legacy player base as we are on a more mature end but create a positive and healthy playing atmosphere. Especially locally you can try and play with diferent decks even if they are not exactly tier 1/1,5, this will create some more dynamic games rather than to have a constant stale or entoxicating meta.
With a lot of effort (some pointers above) you may just be able to retain or very slowly grow local playerbase. From that local playerbase you can than plan for bigger events. USA still has SCG and there are some other vendors that I also think are hosting larger events. In Europe we need some more bigger events but still have some in Italy, Spain, France and nowaday also Czech Repulic (Prague). Maybe I'm not all that familiar with German/Austrian legacy scene but I know there are quite few legacy players from there (at least Germany). Don't you guys have any bigger events?
All in all it's not that grim, but we are close to the tipping point where legacy is literally in our hands and if we don't keep it alive we will lose the "momentum" and legacy will slowly but surely fade away.
Also @ Sloshthedark: really excellent post!
Legacy is just the best and most fun format, as you have access to such a huge pool of cards. And honestly, is playing Magic all about sanctioned events? I hope not. Big SCG events are fun, but so is playing with three other people at an LGS.
Once you have a Legacy deck, you have it. Sure, you could sell it and recoup money, but you could theoretically sit on it for a decade and play when and where you can without major new buys, unlike modern.
I dont know, I guess I like the anarchistic, outlaw format that allows everything and can thrive with or without the papal blessing.
Well said.
This thread brings tears to my eyes, thought mostly in a positive way. So much so I'm sigging a couple of gems from this thread. I love Legacy not only because this is the best format imo, but also the sense of community that comes with it. To those who play on regardless of negative trends due to love of the format, I salute you.
In regards to Legacy:
There certainly isn't any money to be made in legacy anymore. You can come up and win a dual land every now and again, or maybe even a few hundred dollars if you spike an iq. I think the die hards will make up he bulk of the player base from now on unless someone else picks up where SCG left off.
I love the people you meet playing legacy though, and they will often be friends for life.
Well, in my area (italy) legacy events with ten proxies created a big and fun legacy community.
But you know what wizards did? Basically they sent emails to all local game stores stating that proxies will be now considered the same as counterfeit cards, and any store that would run events with proxies could lose the ability to run prereleases/fnm's and so on. This happened some months ago, they tried to run events with zero proxies but due to low attendance now most stores gave up on legacy.
They are really doing their best to kill legacy, unfortunately, and this is not a thing we can stop in any way.
Worst case scenario we go the Vintage route and run more community-supported proxy tournaments. I wouldn't mind that at all.
Were these sanctioned or unsanctioned proxy events?
If sanctioned, then wizards has a point, if unsanctioned, then there have none.
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