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Thread: How to save Legacy

  1. #1

    How to save Legacy

    With the creation of Pioneer, two formats are on the chopping block. One is Modern, the other is Legacy. The next two years will see one of these two formats die and its playerbase cannibalized by the others. So from now on, it is war.

    Legacy *is* by far the *better* format, but it currently stands to lose out. So us Legacy players must find a way to turn the tide.

    I've lived in China for the past 12 years. The playerbase here is basically 99% Modern. There are a lot of players I've met interested in Legacy, since Modern is shit, but there is ONE issue that prevents them from buying into Legacy -

    Dual lands.

    When I talk to players here about Legacy, they ALWAYS say, "yeah I would love to play Legacy, but I'm afraid of buying fake dual lands." Obviously, this is a very real concern in China.

    Sure, this might be a China-specific case, but it points to the larger issue at hand. Duals ARE the biggest entry barrier to Legacy. Duals are going to be the reason Legacy is going to die to Modern.

    Dual lands must be incised to save Legacy. WotC isn't going to revoke the Reserve List. This is the only way for us to win this war.

  2. #2

    Re: How to save Legacy

    Quote Originally Posted by jiazhouhuaqiao View Post
    With the creation of Pioneer, two formats are on the chopping block. One is Modern, the other is Legacy.
    Half right.

  3. #3

    Re: How to save Legacy

    To be honest, I think all modern players are more likely to move into pioneer, but legacy isn’t going to die.

    Legacy actually makes sense as a format, for one. It’s just a banlist, and everything else is game. Modern has an arbitrary starting date, and has no real nostalgia or historic significance.

    I think the restriction of dual lands is problematic, but it is what it is. I’d wanna get my playset of candelabra too, but hey.. it’s too much for me. So I’m having to play a different deck.


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  4. #4

    Re: How to save Legacy

    By now there are a lot of decks that only play a single copy of different dual lands. Take a look at the top 8 of the last GP. One thing we would need would be a dual lands cycle with an imperceptible drawback in Legacy, like they enters tapped if an opponent has the commander in play, or if the opponent has a face-down conspiracy card (a card with Hidden agenda). Maybe a legendary cycle of those "impecerceptible drawback dual lands" will impact less the "Reserved List spirit". With another cycle with a similar "drawbacks" a lot of problems will be solved. Yes, there still will be cards like Mox Diamond or Lion's Eye Diamond, but a lot of new players will have the chance to build competitive tier decks more easily, and with those they can win other Reserved List cards.
    Even Lion's Eye Diamond can be "reprinted" with a slighty different text: it will be sufficient to print a "tap" symbol on the new "Lion's Eye Diamond" and ban the original one, that should retain much of its value because of the Reserved List.
    What we need is to make our voice loud.

  5. #5

    Re: How to save Legacy

    Quote Originally Posted by jiazhouhuaqiao View Post
    With the creation of Pioneer, two formats are on the chopping block. One is Modern, the other is Legacy. The next two years will see one of these two formats die and its playerbase cannibalized by the others. So from now on, it is war.

    Legacy *is* by far the *better* format, but it currently stands to lose out. So us Legacy players must find a way to turn the tide.

    I've lived in China for the past 12 years. The playerbase here is basically 99% Modern. There are a lot of players I've met interested in Legacy, since Modern is shit, but there is ONE issue that prevents them from buying into Legacy -

    Dual lands.

    When I talk to players here about Legacy, they ALWAYS say, "yeah I would love to play Legacy, but I'm afraid of buying fake dual lands." Obviously, this is a very real concern in China.

    Sure, this might be a China-specific case, but it points to the larger issue at hand. Duals ARE the biggest entry barrier to Legacy. Duals are going to be the reason Legacy is going to die to Modern.

    Dual lands must be incised to save Legacy. WotC isn't going to revoke the Reserve List. This is the only way for us to win this war.
    Legacy isn't "dying". It wasn't supported before SCG and did just fine. There was a 1600-person GP just a few days ago and I'd argue in the last three weeks more Legacy events than I can remember are popping up across the my region geographically.

  6. #6
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    Re: How to save Legacy

    Quote Originally Posted by jiazhouhuaqiao View Post
    Dual lands.

    When I talk to players here about Legacy, they ALWAYS say, "yeah I would love to play Legacy, but I'm afraid of buying fake dual lands." Obviously, this is a very real concern in China.

    Sure, this might be a China-specific case, but it points to the larger issue at hand. Duals ARE the biggest entry barrier to Legacy. Duals are going to be the reason Legacy is going to die to Modern.

    Dual lands must be incised to save Legacy. WotC isn't going to revoke the Reserve List. This is the only way for us to win this war.
    Alternative: errata all dual lands to have the appropriate sub-types for their color combination (Island, Swamp, Mountain, Plains, Forest.) This would do 2 very important things:
    1) Make any and all dual lands fetchable, allowing for perfect mana without needing true dual lands as much. Would they still be the best dual lands? Yes, by a fair margin. But people could play Wooded Foothills into Copperline Gorge 3 times in a game before Taiga would be strictly better.
    2) It would take away any misunderstanding from newer players that Karplusan Forest isn't a Forest-Mountain and is instead just a non-basic land that produces red and green.

    EDIT: Also, Legacy is doing just fine. I've been saying to others that Pioneer is great for Legacy because it will take players away from Modern, therefore creating lower demand for Legacy/Modern crossover staples and eventually feed into Legacy. The next couple years could become a great window of opportunity to really get into legacy if Pioneer cannibalizes enough players from Modern.
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  7. #7

    Re: How to save Legacy

    If your friends want to play an Eternal format but are scared of counterfeits, try a constructed format defined as
    [Vintage cardpool] - [Reserved List] - [additional bans as needed].

  8. #8
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    Re: How to save Legacy

    1. print snow covered legendary tundra.
    2. Print more cards like ice fang coatl.

    half of the player base will take 1 - 2 duals out for some snow covered legendary tundras.

  9. #9
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    Re: How to save Legacy

    Quote Originally Posted by jiazhouhuaqiao View Post
    When I talk to players here about Legacy, they ALWAYS say, "yeah I would love to play Legacy, but I'm afraid of buying fake dual lands." Obviously, this is a very real concern in China.
    This blows my mind.

    1) Deal with reputable shops and people.
    2) Buy a loupe.

    Fear no more.

    Also, if you know someone who knows someone making counterfeits, pass on the info to WOTC, because WOTC isn't making much progress in stopping the proliferation of Chinese counterfeits. Having assistance from people in China might help. You're a lot closer to that issue than those of us in the U.S.

    Quote Originally Posted by jiazhouhuaqiao View Post
    Dual lands must be incised to save Legacy. WotC isn't going to revoke the Reserve List. This is the only way for us to win this war.
    Nope. This is as foolhardy as No Reserved List Legacy. It's not Legacy. Don't remove the aspects that give Legacy its identity.

    I can't create a scene in China, but you can. Host events, network with stores, stream events if you have audio-video equipment, promote the format.

  10. #10
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    Re: How to save Legacy

    How many different variations on reserved list threads do we need?
    Quote Originally Posted by Dice_Box View Post
    You don't get to play the most powerful cards in the format and then bitch when someone finally says no. You also don't get to bitch that it's not fun when someone finally tells you no instead of voyeuristicly watching you masturbate with Cantrips.

  11. #11
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    Re: How to save Legacy

    Quote Originally Posted by thecrav View Post
    How many different variations on reserved list threads do we need?
    And the Reserved List causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their portfolios: and that no man might buy or sell cards or Chinese rip offs, save he made a post about the Reserved List or the number of its Threads: 666.
    Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Safety View Post
    You sir are a ninja of fine quality.

  12. #12

    Re: How to save Legacy

    Quote Originally Posted by cire View Post
    and the reserved list causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their portfolios: And that no man might buy or sell cards or chinese rip offs, save he made a post about the reserved list or the number of its threads: 666.
    all hail the reserved list!

    Hail!

    Hail!

  13. #13

    Re: How to save Legacy

    Quote Originally Posted by ESG View Post
    as foolhardy as No Reserved List Legacy
    There’s nothing foolhardy about testing No Reserved List Legacy as its own separate format. If it’s fun it’s fun, and if it’s lousy it’s lousy. I’ve never heard of a tournament in this format or seen a decklist, but I would be curious. In the best-case scenario, in which the format was fun to play, the format would inherently be able to support more players than Legacy, just as one strength of the Pauper format is that it’s inherently easier to afford. (No, I’m not saying New Format would be as affordable as Pauper.)

  14. #14
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    Re: How to save Legacy

    The foolhardy part would be to think that that format would still be Legacy (as the OP implied). There are plenty of other formats, and many of them are fun. Just because we play Legacy doesn't mean we can't also play other formats. If you Google "No Reserved List Legacy," you'll find plenty of things to explore on that topic.

  15. #15

    Re: How to save Legacy

    Sure, it would not be Legacy. It would have to be its own format.

    I googled and found several discussions, but no tournaments or decks. If your googling was better than mine, let me know. People have been talking about this for years. It would be a pity if the idea was never tested.

  16. #16

    Re: How to save Legacy

    The problem is not the entire reserve list, it is specifically the dual lands. The vast majority of Legacy played Reserve list cards (Replenish, Gaea's Cradle, Serra's Sanctum, LED, basically all of the non-dual land cards) aren't a problem. Dual lands are the only thing that's killing Legacy.

    There are three shops in Tianjin and I've been picking up a ton of MH singles this week and talking to them about the issues with Modern and Legacy and the card market in China and it's pretty complicated.

    Summing up some of the key points -

    a) Legacy's only selling point is that it's the best format to play, but this is shadowed by the advantages Standard, Pioneer, Modern and EDH have over it.

    Standard - pro: cards are easily available and players are always available, burn is a powerful and easy deck for new players. Cons: Format is currently shit, cards don't retain value
    Modern - pro: players are always available, supports a wide variety of tier 2 and tier 3 decktypes, cards retain and gain value Cons: Format is shit
    Pioneer - pro: uses cards from the past 4-5 years which are easily available, burn is viable here as well, pretty cheap to buy into Cons: Format is shit
    EDH - pro: can use any card, doesn't need more than 1 copy of any good, doesn't need specific cards, cheap to buy into, variety of strategies, products specifically suport the format. Cons: difficult to organize 4 players for some games

    In comparison Legacy-
    - cards are difficult to require
    - even when available, many singles are painfully expensive compared to other formats (dual lands, force of will, wastelands, jace, etc...)
    - very few players makes it difficult to organize games. There are basically 4 Legacy players in all of Tianjin. Beijing has I think about 8. There might be about 35-40 Legacy players in all of China, and 75% of them live in either Beijing or Shanghai.
    - the local players basically all know each other's decks. Without new players, it's hard to keep the format fresh
    - obviously then, for shop owners there is very little local market for Legacy singles so most singles sit or move overseas

    b) the card market and player base are both extremely complicated issues
    - first, there are many difficulties in building a player base
    - basically, the biggest issue is that Magic is just too complicated. Even if you handed new player a Legacy deck, they don't understand how to play it. This is also true for Modern. In fact over the past year, the one thing I've seen shop owners do over and over again is explain to a player how a deck works, going card by card explaining its interactions. The only format which isn't overly complicated is Standard.
    - products designed for beginners are bad buys and don't have any valuable cards. The main culprit here are the Core set precons. Yet they are the only viable entry product for China. The biggest issue is that the Challenger precons are only available in English. So that niche isn't being filled by a product. Challenger decks here sit on the shelf since basically the average player can't use cards in English. Core set precons sit on the shelf because they suck. And Commander precons sit on the shelf because they're too complicated. So really the only product for new players is drafting and seal core set.
    - besides the complexity issue and the obvious expense issues, the third constraint for growing a local playerbase is time. Chinese people just don't have the free time to commit to Magic as a hobby. Most card shops are open only about 3 hours on weekdays, from 5pm to 8pm. People have to work or go to school so no one comes to the shops until 5 or 6 pm. So there isn't much time for shop owners and experienced players to work with newer players teaching the game, and generally players don't have the time to read up on the game online on their own either.
    - finally, Magic is just too expensive of a hobby for its chief demographic. Free public education in China only covers two years of high school. So for most teenagers, either you drop out after a year or two of high school, OR you go the college path. The typical college students doesn't work so they don't have much
    disposable income. Once you graduate, you probably get married or start dating so that's where all your income goes. So really the main demographic for card games are high school dropouts, and Magic is a very expensive hobby on the average salary of the type of work you get without a high school or college diploma.

    Will post some observations about the card market later but it's pretty complicated as well.

  17. #17

    Re: How to save Legacy

    Quote Originally Posted by jiazhouhuaqiao View Post
    Standard -Cons: Format is currently shit
    Modern -Cons: Format is shit
    Pioneer - Cons: Format is shit
    I gotta say, this made me laugh. Not to mention that it's completely true on all counts.

    Also as someone who has zero interest in EDH, Legacy is the only format for me, RL or no RL (although I wouldn't mind getting into Vintage if I was a billionaire).

    Apparently it's harder in China but I'm currently building a sub-$1k deck. It'll probably take a few months but I'll figure it out with some saving.

  18. #18

    Re: How to save Legacy

    This is why Legacy *is* in the most most vulnerable position, is the format that is on the chopping block. Legacy as it is currently cannot increase the size of its playerbase, because it is hard capped by the supply of dual lands. This is why, if you've been reading the tea leaves for the past year, Wizards has been signalling hard that they are dropping support for Legacy to focus on Modern and EDH, discontinuing the Masters sets and pushing Modern Horizons and Commander products. The Master sets as well as FTV simply have no market. Iconic Masters is unsellable.

    Even Vintage can grow its playerbase - by cannibalizing the Legacy playerbase. If you are a Legacy player, you have to have clear eyes about the possibility that within two or three years the majority of the players and cardstock in Legacy will be carved up by Vintage, Modern and EDH. The Masters sets and reprints in EDH had been holding that off, but now The Wall has fallen and Winter is Here. Which would make me quite sad, because I love and care about decks that don't work in other formats, like Solidarity and Standstill and Enchantress and Food Chain.

    Modern and Pioneer are shit but Wizards has the ability to fix that whether through the hammer or the mint. It cannot solve the problems with Legacy. Modern and Legacy are going to end up merging into a format that's somewhere in between both. Wizards can move Modern to be more like Legacy (which is the reason for Modern Horizons), but the only way to move Legacy is to ban the dual lands and other cards from the Reserve List.

  19. #19
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    Re: How to save Legacy

    Quote Originally Posted by jiazhouhuaqiao View Post
    This is why Legacy *is* in the most most vulnerable position, is the format that is on the chopping block. Legacy as it is currently cannot increase the size of its playerbase, because it is hard capped by the supply of dual lands. This is why, if you've been reading the tea leaves for the past year, Wizards has been signalling hard that they are dropping support for Legacy to focus on Modern and EDH, discontinuing the Masters sets and pushing Modern Horizons and Commander products. The Master sets as well as FTV simply have no market. Iconic Masters is unsellable.

    Even Vintage can grow its playerbase - by cannibalizing the Legacy playerbase. If you are a Legacy player, you have to have clear eyes about the possibility that within two or three years the majority of the players and cardstock in Legacy will be carved up by Vintage, Modern and EDH. The Masters sets and reprints in EDH had been holding that off, but now The Wall has fallen and Winter is Here. Which would make me quite sad, because I love and care about decks that don't work in other formats, like Solidarity and Standstill and Enchantress and Food Chain.

    Modern and Pioneer are shit but Wizards has the ability to fix that whether through the hammer or the mint. It cannot solve the problems with Legacy. Modern and Legacy are going to end up merging into a format that's somewhere in between both. Wizards can move Modern to be more like Legacy (which is the reason for Modern Horizons), but the only way to move Legacy is to ban the dual lands and other cards from the Reserve List.
    This post makes absolutely no sense. First Iconic masters is not selling is because the cards are junk. The FTV sold like hot cakes. Good luck finding one in any store.

    As for your opinion that Modern Vintage and EDH are eating up the stock supplies...that makes absolutely no sense as well. The people playing those formats would have access to cards to play legacy. It is not like people sleeve up their cards to only play one deck.

    The only barrier holding legacy back is NEW players, young players, who cannot get the chase cards in legacy to play with...so they settle for formats like modern or standard. So really...its not really taking out the card stock supply.

  20. #20

    Re: How to save Legacy

    Quote Originally Posted by jiazhouhuaqiao View Post
    - very few players makes it difficult to organize games. There are basically 4 Legacy players in all of Tianjin. Beijing has I think about 8. There might be about 35-40 Legacy players in all of China, and 75% of them live in either Beijing or Shanghai.
    There was a 100 player tournament in Beijing at the start of November and probably 90% of the players were Chinese?

    First Iconic masters is not selling is because the cards are junk. The FTV sold like hot cakes. Good luck finding one in any store.
    Agree, for example Ultimate Masters (after Iconic Masters) was very popular. Some of the FTV don't sell as well, but those are the ones with bad cards in them.

    As for your opinion that Modern Vintage and EDH are eating up the stock supplies...that makes absolutely no sense as well. The people playing those formats would have access to cards to play legacy. It is not like people sleeve up their cards to only play one deck.
    I will disagree with this in particular with EDH: if 4 different EDH players want e.g. 1 Gaeas Cradle each, then none of them are going to play Legacy Elves, but thats 1 Elf-deck worth of Cradles that won't be used in Legacy (same logic applies to other cards e.g. Dual lands). But the statement But I agree that "vintage can grow by cannibalizing legacy" makes no sense for the reason you say (both formats require a similar pool of cards and people with vintage decks could continue to play legacy easily).

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