A lot of good points and, here in the Atlanta area the scene is still alive but, the BIG cardshop Super Games cancelled all Legacy events and ran them once a month and even then, could barely get them to fire. Now they have brought them back and I will attend one in the near future but I have no hope for them. The attendance is just abysmal for the most part. Now I have largely cashed out of legacy but 2 of my buddies still play ever or every other saturday and they say they get ... 10-12 average showing up and then 15-20 on a really good day.
Now comparing that to Modern, I play every other thursday (they run once a week) and the attendance is 32-38 people in that range, I have never seen less than 30 show up.
That being said I have made the switch to Modern and here is why, variety (and the ability to build a deck without selling my motorcycle). This is one of the reasons I believe legacy is dying, people get burned out. When my buddies come back they play against the same crap everytime, Miracles, Stoneblade, Delver Variants, all running the same 40-45 cards main and while some of those players do have the ability to play other decks, they basically know which people are running what at almost any given time.
Sorry, long point but this is just my perspective, when I play Modern I run into a variety of decks and literally never play the same deck twice in a 4 round tournament, the control decks run different cards, as do aggro, burn, etc. You don't run into the decks running the same 40-45 cards unless its Affinity, UR Storm, Scapeshift, and a few others that have a mainboard pretty set in stone, but even then, there might be 0-3 of those decks in a field of 30ish people. Anything can win in Modern, Homebrews can do well if tuned for the meta, IMOP the format allows for a lot more creativity, hell, last 2 weeks I went 3-1 and 3-0-1 with a decks running cascade spells and 16x suspend creatures!
"I just shot Marvin in the face!"
"Why the fuck'd you do that??"
Since I've started playing Legacy a couple of years ago there are now 3 sanctioned weekly legacy events that I can drive to in under 45 minutes. Before it was 1, so people can say what they will about Legacy dying, but for me, it's never been more active. Also the average turnouts for these are around 20 players.
Modern sucks.
I still have a lot of faith in the future of legacy. But that might be due to the thriving legacy community in central MA that always seems to be growing. The popularity of legacy here isn't because of SCG opens, or Grand prix. I think SCG could drop legacy entirely and people would still continue to play because the local player base is enthusiastic about Magic in general and Legacy in particular.
I have one event weekly, down from several not too long ago. Our weekly event was getting 20-25 people as late as this spring and is now down to 8-10 (12 if we're lucky). There are now 2 consistent weekly Modern events with that turnout or better on my side of town, plus all kinds of IQs, PPTQs, and GPTs for it in the greater metro area.Originally Posted by solidbass
I will always prefer Legacy because I like to play fast combo, prison, and old cards in general that aren't available in the Modern. However, to dismiss the format because it's not Legacy is incredibly short-sighted. It is a MUCH healthier and more diverse format than Legacy is (or has been in years) and seems much more open to new brews breaking in. I play both, and enjoy both. I would enjoy Modern more if less things were banned, and I would enjoy Legacy more if the format was less stale.
Lord of the Chalice
Stompy Discord: https://discord.gg/6cesvkz
Yep, I've basically switched from Legacy to Modern as well. Legacy allows you to play different decks, but unless you're going a super linear strategy you need to play the same blue cards in every deck. My favorite part of magic is the creativity from deckbuilding, and Legacy has pretty much completely lost that. I used to keep track of every legacy tournament result that came out from any size tournament because there was so much variance in decks. The next biggest deck could be a pile of 30 new cards that no one had ever played with before.
And then... that all stopped. You look at any SCG result, any other local tournament result, and all you see are the same decks +/-5 cards and have been that way for years. It takes 30 seconds to go over what happened this week in legacy, because every deck is immediately recognizable. Every once in a while people put 2 Monastery Mentors in an existing deck and it's the new biggest thing, but that's not at all what I got into Legacy for.
I played in the days where the power level of cards in the format allowed all sorts of decks to be played. Sneak Attack was a bad card because the best thing you could do was Bogardan Hellkite, but I played the crap out of my Survival + Sneak Attack deck (featuring 1x Academy Rector + 1x Form of the Dragon). There was no ultra-consistent win that killed off fringe-playable decks and was the optimal choice. Optimal choices didn't come because of netdecking, they came because of power creep to huge fatties (emrakul, grizzlebrand) and variance killing (millions of better blue cantrips). We used to have threads here on the Source that argued over the minimum number of blue cards you needed to fit in if you wanted to play FoW. Does anyone else remember that?? There was a time where you didn't have a million blue cards in every deck, mainly because the cantrips were terrible (Has everyone forgotten about using stuff like Predict?).
To me Legacy is already dead. I know all of the decks, all of the playstyles, and none of them interest me at all. Modern is right now the same creative space that Legacy used to be, I've just gotten over the fact that it's called something else (which a hilarious number of people on here haven't). Back in the days of Goblins vs UW Standstill in Legacy, there were opportunities abound to play fun decks like Survival of the Fittest or UBG midrange. I went something like 7-3 with BG deathcloud at GP Cleveland, starting with 0 byes. Remember when everyone flipped out over UG Next level thresh? Well that type of environment does live on in Modern. Yeah, you don't get to play Force of Will, but back in Legacy days long past, not even 50% of decks did, and most of the time they were scrounging up blue cards to fill in for cards to pitch which actually lowered the power of their deck(!). I used to be an exclusive Legacy player just like many on here, looking down my nose at other, lesser formats, but that was a dumb viewpoint to cling to since Legacy now is not at all what it used to be.
Modern isn't 100% what I'd want it to be, but it sure as hell fits what I want out of magic more than Legacy does now. If you can build a solid deck out of left field and know how to play, you can go at least 2-2 at a weekly tournament. Heck, I 3-1ed with a UR deck that maindecked Leyline of Sanctity, Blood Moon, and Simian Spirit Guides, and had way more fun playing it than any deck I've played with in Legacy in the past 3 years. It hurts not getting to use some older cards... I'd love Armageddon or Cabal Therapy, but that's a price I'm easily willing to pay if that means we'll have a format that isn't completely trashed by the best card.
Some people really like the hyper competitive environment of Legacy right now where you only have to memorize a list of decks and anything else being played against you is probably terrible, but that's not why I ever played magic. It'll probably live on but I know many people are as bored of the current state of it as I am, so numbers will likely continue to drop for a while as people realize that.
Feels like groundhog day. The narrative about the current state of legacy mirrors that of vintage in its decline on themanadrain.com, and the narrative on modern mirrors the narrative of legacy during its boom on mtgthesource.com
Yeahhh, my Eternal access is pretty much limited to EDH and Commander these days, so.
I'd love to play Legacy again, I think. I say "I think" because I'm really really rusty. My decks are budget as fuck OR they are ancient lists. I freaked out once because I inherited a collection that had 1x Time Spiral which I promptly put in my SPRING TIDE LIST, k? Besides that and my 8-year old Goblin list, I'm like... Elvis Presley in a meta full of Justin Timberlake.
Like, really, between this and having daughters that are 14 years apart, and realizing that there are hobbies and interests in my life that if I just had some fucking focus I could really get out more than I put in (coding, resuming my guitar study) or like... fuck, just playing Hearthstone and even with that and getting salty about BMing shitshrimp that try to friend me after we play just to talk shit... like, I just think about my Magic cards and lose my appetite.
I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I've had to settle, or maybe I choose to settle because I'm unwilling to travel just to play Legacy Magic. I dunno. It doesn't matter; I still think about resolving SFMs in a meaningful way and feeling like that would be fun and good. I just know that it's really unlikely that I'll ever have opportunity to do that. I feel kind of like the good cards I do have are just sitting and I'm hoping they appreciate in value until they hit some "good enough" value -- and man do I hate it when people do that, so I'm rather ambivalent with regard to my current situation.
I couldn't quite find the words to say what you said here, but you really summed up how I'm starting to feel about both formats. I've kept my own interest in Legacy alive by playing a lot of off-the-wall stuff, but your potential for winning with decks that don't follow a very narrow set of specifications is low even if you are a good player. I do remember the debates about how few blue cards were playable with FOW, hadn't thought about that one in a long time. Legacy has become boring, and if you had asked me 4-5 years ago if that was possible I would have emphatically answered "no." Heck, if you'd asked me a couple years ago if Modern would be a healthier and more diverse format I would have asked you to share whatever drugs you were on.
Lord of the Chalice
Stompy Discord: https://discord.gg/6cesvkz
I think the biggest thing to note here is that the Modern format, at least in my eyes, was garbage for a long time. Then they banned Birthing Pod and I think right now is the most fun it's ever been. BP killed so much design space that I actually just didn't play for over a year. Since it's been banned the format has been really fun for me.
At least you acknowledge you have grandkids from hell. Little turds, everyone knows it!
I'll have to take your word for it on that one due to lack of experience. The Modern scene where I used to play completely died after the second round of bannings (Cloudpost et al) so I played an incredibly small amount of Modern up until GP Denver early this year when I got back into the format. I do remember it sucking quite a bit back in the day though.
Lord of the Chalice
Stompy Discord: https://discord.gg/6cesvkz
Hah!In that scenario, I was in hell watching them (like Sting).
But yeah, I'm sure the little turds will help send me there early, just so they can sell my cards.
Same boat here. I think Legacy is just seeing death by 1000 cuts over the last couple years. New printings narrowing the design space for decks, constant SCG results shaping the meta, huge price increase, the introduction of Modern drawing off some players. I don't think proxy events are really going to help, because a bunch of people are just walking away from the format.
Could be that part of it isn't the format itself, but the aging player base. Seems like a lot of players have kids now, own property, or just have other life obligations in general.
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 gonna lie.. the narrowness of decks has definately gotten to me at times. run brainstorms, digs, forces (or blue in general), or just accept losses.
Birthing Pod was absolutely fine in Modern up until Khans of Tarkir, when Siege Rhino got printed. However, it wasn't just Siege Rhino that made it so good; it was also Treasure Cruise. Why Treasure Cruise when Birthing Pod didn't play it? Because that card (and Monastery Swiftspear) made Delver into a crazy great deck. So a lot of the decks that normally could just crush Pod were being held down because they weren't that good against Delver.
Personally I think they could've sorted things out by unbanning cards, though.
Eh, for me it's not the cantrips. I know this is just opening a tremendous can of worms but those cards are only as good as the cards they find. To me things feel stifled because of a handful of objectively excellent cards that have been printed over the past few years. It feels to me like a lot of decks now are just piles of the best cards in XYZ color combination, and a lot of those cards push you towards building a deck a certain way.
Delver, Snapcaster, Pyromancer, Mentor, and DRS all favor building a deck that's heavy on cheap spells and light on creatures and land.
The whole Miracle mechanic pushes you towards a critical mass of library manipulation.
Then you've got the huge bomby stuff like Griselbrand, Emrakul, and Omnomnomniscience that are just begging to be cheated into play.
Finally, there's a ton of excellent hate now like Thalia, Rest in Peace, Surgical, DRS(again), Canonist. So a lot of really lopsided matches got more even, which is good in some ways, but makes meta gaming seem less critical than it used to.
I think banning some amount of the "cantrip cartel" is probably the quickest and easiest way to give the format a big shake up, just sad to see something as iconic as Brainstorm on the chopping block for something as utterly boring as Delver of Secrets.
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."
you definately nailed what I couldn't really put into words.. agreed completely.
Did you just reference St. Augustine In Hell? That song fucking kills. Gotta love a drummer that can play a hat in 4 on top of a tune in 7.Hah!
But yeah, I'm sure the little turds will help send me there early, just so they can sell my cards.
Let's be real: The only thing that will actually kill Legacy is the reserved list. Yes, there are problems with the metagame, but that can be solved with bannings, unbannings, new printings, or some other actual development of the format. Of course, that's just not going to be a priority for WoTC because they know the percentage of their player base that can even potentially play the format is capped and shrinking, because the availability of mana is restricted.
That is, even if you could evenly parcel out every dual land in existence so that the biggest number of players each has one viable legacy deck (and some people will get stuck with Plateau decks while others get Underground Sea decks, so we're using a liberal definition of "viable"), that number would still be a shrinking fraction of total Magic players given the growth of the game. If the cards were accessible, at least new players could take a shot at new angles on the format. But cards are locked in existing players' collections, LGS' cases, and ebay shops. Every time a person skips a GP or SCG for whatever reason, and doesn't lend their deck to another player, you risk a noticeable dip in attendance.
I agree with posters who are warming up to Modern. I've been playing that Death's Shadow Zoo deck and it is a blast. And it is refreshing to play four rounds and only see maybe 3-4 cards in common between two decks. (Actually, I think the only card that was in two decks that I played last time I played modern was Lightning Bolt in a Naya deck and a RUG Scapeshift deck.)
However, even Wizards' support of modern is lukewarm at best. There were 8 Modern GPs this year. There were 6 standard GPs in season 2 alone. And don't get me started on the inane focus on limited. I understand that limited appeals to some players, but there's nothing about limited that requires Magic cards -- it could be a totally different product.
So you've got a format that's locked in concrete, and a company whose current strategy is extremely hostile toward changing that fact (everything about WOTC development is about standard and limited, and removing the RL gets less likely every year). Legacy may be on a troubling trajectory, but it's not because of the game being poor or the player base getting older. The company is simply uninterested in customers who don't want to play limited or standard. It's short-term thinking, and who knows if it will be successful.
I think the format might get a better shakeup if wizards banned a couple of the mistake cards that have pushed the format in this way, while un-banning a couple cards that either were banned prematurely, o the format has progressed to the point they would no longer be too broken.
Ban Delver and tempo decks take a huge hit, possibly enabling some other aggro decks to emerge, Axe Grisslebrand and you hit Sneak and show and Reanimator probably without actually killing either decks, banning Dig would weaken Omni-tell and miracles without killing them.
Unban a couple cards that support/form non-blue primary decks and we might get some "new' archetypes emerging to shake up the meta-game, preferably something that creates a strong non-combo deck in green, and possibly something for red.
Also, IIRC port is not on the reserved list, so re-printing it to drop its price a bit would help, as almost all the current non-BS lists need 4 ports.
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