Think Wizards will make a new Format?

[DownSyndromeKarl]

I think it's about time. There's been a lot of talk lately about how expensive Legacy is getting. Do you think Wizards should/would make a new format? We have the two-year format in Standard and the seven-year format in Extended. Magic is old enough now that they could make a fifteen-year format that would be considerably less than Legacy. Goyf's would still be in, but we'd lose duals and in a couple years, FoW. It'd almost be like "poor-man's Legacy". I'm not saying I'd play, but it'd be another step for new players to take before diving into Eternal formats.

Just a thought.

[android]

I'm going to say no.

A New pauper format, yes. Any common, any set. All uncommons restricted. That would be an awesome format.

[coraz86]

I started playing in Weatherlight, and I remember being really bummed out when Extended rotated up to Invasion. Hell, I wasn't happy when Invasion rotated out; I love my Deeds and Vindicates and shit.

A couple years ago at an Invitational, they ran an event called Bring Your Own Block, which was Block Constructed with whichever block you felt like playing. It was quite interesting. Something like that would be a bitch to administrate, but it would also reward those of us who kept up with Standard for the Mirage-Onslaught era and now basically have shit to show for it. It also would make people think differently, and I think it might reward creativity in a different way.

I like the idea of a fifteen-year format though. That's pretty cool. It also seems the most likely, given that it wouldn't be tough to run. Then again, Mark Rosewater has been talking for years about what to do about the gap between Legacy/Vintage and Extended, so I don't know how rapidly something like that might come about.

[SilverGreen]

And what's next? A five-year format? A ten-year format? A sixteen-and-a-half one?

We have no satisfactory support from Wizards in what refers to Eternal formats already, almost every solid tournament we have is held by "unofficial" supporters. Even Extended is barely supported by them. Other than a handful of PTQ's and one PT a year, it's a dead format during 9/12 of months.

I think you should save your energies (or energie$, actually) to enter the upcoming MTGO Legacy that'll debut somewhere in 2010. Take your virtual Dual Lands and FoWs while they cost a bit less (in case of duals) than their real counterparts. I'm particularly eager to play this new format, as it'll more likely raise the conpetition level highly above the MWS server's level (at least at the tournament's top tables, as long as card availability will be a huge and tough issue for some time), and it'll simulate the real world environment with much more precision.

At least, unlike MWS, MTGO's engine will prevent a lot of play and deckbuild atrocities, and it'll be a HUGE improvement per se. :laugh:

[beastman]

I think they are gonna start hyping up EDH before they create another format.

[SilverGreen]

I started playing in Weatherlight, and I remember being really bummed out when Extended rotated up to Invasion. Hell, I wasn't happy when Invasion rotated out; I love my Deeds and Vindicates and shit.

A couple years ago at an Invitational, they ran an event called Bring Your Own Block, which was Block Constructed with whichever block you felt like playing. It was quite interesting. Something like that would be a bitch to administrate, but it would also reward those of us who kept up with Standard for the Mirage-Onslaught era and now basically have shit to show for it. It also would make people think differently, and I think it might reward creativity in a different way.

Now this would be REALLY interesting. An inter-blocks format (even an online one), something along the lines of "Bring Your Block" or "Choose Your Standard", would keep the older cards fresh, helping them to maintain their value and promoting more cards to "playable" status. It would let players keep their pet decks and be happy, and would make good "metagaming" a really hard and rewarding experience. I personally would love a format where I could play Odissey block's Mirari's Wake, or Ice Age's Necro again.

[Piceli89]

They could do it, but personally I wouldn't care. Legacy is just too good to pass up, money issues or not.

[anonymos]

I am half in favor and half against this idea.

I'm in favor because they could call it "Overextended".

I'm against it because Legacy is gaining in popularity. Sure, it costs a fair amount to "buy in", but that is a long term investment. I know at the store I play at I am the only person who actually runs revised duals because I'm the only one who has them. The guys winning credit are slowly upgrading them as they get enough to pick their own up.

[jimirynk]

New format should be 60 card highlander with its own b&n list, now don't say edh or vintage.
I think the format would be more relaxed than t1 and taken more serious than EDH.

[android]

Yeah, the problem with making EDH a supported format is that it's really a multi-player casual format where people often team up to kill the guy with the good deck. It doesn't seem fair that you couldn't just win on the merit of your play skill and bringing the best deck to the match. I also don't like the idea that if you happen to get matched up with say two+ people who are teammates and/or friends, the chances of you winning the match go straight to zero. 1 on 1 EDH is kind of lame if you ask me so I wouldn't even play in a format like that.

You want accessibility and about as diverse a meta-game as possible, you'd have to go with pauper magic. Choose your block or standard wouldn't work as we all know certain blocks/standards are far superior to others and everyone would just gravitate to one or two unbeatable decks. The price of those cards would skyrocket and we'd be right back where we started.

[Mayk0l]

I agree, competitive EDH is a bad idea. Competitive means it'll draw Spikes, which means the format automatically becomes boring and cheezy seeing as there are so many insane plays possible, and playgroups often deliberately keep those plays out of their decks to keep things fair.

Then again, nobody really suggested EDH as an official format.

[Forbiddian]

I agree, competitive EDH is a bad idea. Competitive means it'll draw Spikes, which means the format automatically becomes boring en cheezy seeing as there are so many insane plays possible, and playgroups often deliberately keep those plays out of their decks to keep things fair.

Then again, nobody really suggested EDH as an official format.

The problem with competitive EDH is that EDH currently leaves it up to players to judge what is too good. Everyone wants to win, and everyone respects the people who do win. But in EDH, you try to gang up on the person who's winning to keep the game more balanced.

It's what makes EDH fun and attractive -- you're adding the x-factor of politics to Magic, where you now have to weigh the danger of having people gang up on you with the danger of having a deck that might not be powerful enough. But there's no way to leave the politics factor in and move it to a 1v1 environment.

Also, if you're worried about cost, a top-line EDH deck ALREADY costs as much to a lot more than a Legacy deck. You have 100-105 cards instead of 75. If EDH became a sanctioned format, there would be a huge rush to get the strong EDH legends, etc.

[Koby]

I second the idea of 60 card singleton.

The format has successfully been implemented on MTGO. It can also be "shifted" from Legacy, to Extended, to Standard. It is a flexible filter through which other sanctioned formats can be run.

[Malchar]

The only reason that I'm worried about Legacy is because the rules allow all cards except for a short list of banned cards. On paper, it looks really similar to Vintage, except that the list of cards is slightly different and they are merely restricted. As more and more cards get released, there's a bigger chance that Wizards will want to make another format that works like extended. If they make more formats (there are already a lot), then they might get rid of old formats, and Legacy is probably the most vulnerable. Some people might say that it combines the worst things about Vintage and Extended: There are expensive cards, but the format is still vulnerable to recent power-creep. It seems all to easy to turn Legacy into "Extended II" or something. After two years, everything before Ice Age rotates out. A few years later, some more stuff rotates out. The banned list would be changed as appropriate.

[MMogg]

I second the idea of 60 card singleton.

The format has successfully been implemented on MTGO. It can also be "shifted" from Legacy, to Extended, to Standard. It is a flexible filter through which other sanctioned formats can be run.

Thirded. I love the idea of a Singleton format with its own banned list. Not EDH, but more like German Highlander. It's just so much fun.

Anyway, I wouldn't worry about adding more formats because they can add as many as they want, and that doesn't equal popularity. They have Tempest Block Constructed as a format, who's up for a tournament of that? Anyone . . . ? Guys . . . ? *crickets chirp*

I'm a huge fan of playing Magic variants. The problem, though, is finding people to play them.


Complete side note: Try this fun variant. Get an ole box of jank commons. Make sure they are randomized by color and casting cost.
You deal each person 7 cards and make a pile/deck with the rest of the cards, which everyone will draw from.
From those cards you can play any card as a spell with the same casting cost. So, Twiddle can = Ancestral Recall or Grizzly Bears can = Goyf.
Each turn you draw from the central deck.
Place any card upside down to = any basic land.
Spells can only be declared once. First come first served.
No looking up cards... gotta be by memory.

And that my friends, is Mental Magic.

[IsThisACatInAHat?]

The only reason that I'm worried about Legacy is because the rules allow all cards except for a short list of banned cards. On paper, it looks really similar to Vintage, except that the list of cards is slightly different and they are merely restricted. As more and more cards get released, there's a bigger chance that Wizards will want to make another format that works like extended. If they make more formats (there are already a lot), then they might get rid of old formats, and Legacy is probably the most vulnerable.
The short answer is "don't be." A more thoughtful answer would be Legacy is swelling hugely in popularity (which is solely responsible for recent price spikes) and as a result is gaining more official recognition than ever. For years, Legacy had nothing but scattered support mostly based in the northeast US. Now it's got 2 GPs plus a dozen SCG 5ks and local tournament support like never before. Legacy is provably very different from Vintage and considerably more likable by Wizards standards- they tend to approve of formats with lots of creatures and decks that play the game like it was "meant to be played." Vintage is still largely viewed as broken and inaccessible both by Wizards and much of the player community.

The biggest argument against Legacy at this point is "rising costs make the format inaccessible." To this criticism I would respond thus: first, it's still eons cheaper and more accessible than Vintage. There's truly no comparison between an "overpriced" (I would say correctly priced according to popularity) $60 USea and even a beat up $600 Mox Sapphire. Second, the majority of complainants are almost definitely 99% composed of a small but vocal minority who probably don't comprise the target market for extra sets of Legacy staples. In other words, the small minority of people who whine and bitch about price so much probably already have most of these cards anyway and they're probably all on sites like The Source so you hear a lot more from them than the thousands who buy with naught but a wince and a smile. Last, skyrocketing popularity creates an incentive for Wizards to do the opposite of shut the format down (or remove the reserved list). More likely than not the only side effect from Wizards is a handful of eternal staples will become DCI Promos and Judge gifts, while some of the really irrelevant jank might see official reprinting like Negator.

What you can do is ignore the rumors of the death of legacy or removal of the reserved list because [Hasbro/ Wizards/ companies/ CEOs/ people] like money and doing either of the above would lose them a lot of it. It's completely unconscionable to me that someone can actually believe (swear, even) that Legacy is in danger of being hosed because it's becoming exponentially more popular. Or that the reserved list, that which is 98% responsible for the stability of the secondary eternal MTG market, is in danger of being waxed, even if it has the unfortunate side effect of keeping a handful of college kids from entering the format. Just think about those for a second and either statement will begin to sound more and more impossibly ridiculous.

To more directly answer the topic question, there are a handful of formats available on MTGO that aren't played with paper magic. That seems like a great platform for Wizards to test the waters to see what works and what doesn't and have immediate, complete electronic data at their fingertips. I'd wager any format eligible to become "official" will first appear in MTGO, since that's how they decided to unban Entomb, DH and Metalworker. 60-card singleton with a healthy banned list would be great, though. They could call it Vintage-lite and then that would be the real poor-man's Vintage! Fantastic.

[ryO!]

No not at ALL, wizard makes the most of his money with T2 and T2 is still more than alive, and legacy has never been so popular.
The current formats are just fine Anyblock format T2 Extended and legacynd even vintage.
If you wanna have fun just play with your friend with your own rules / cards restriction and for god sake stop b*tching around.

This is a pointless topic ... Legacy ALWAYS was expensive, and now that it's being really popular, let's not forget that it's what everyone whished for, everybody is whining. Legacy is not in danger at all, it just has never been as much popular. Prices are skyrocket high ? Please don't tell me than most of you don't have a decent legacy deck, and i don't see any new comer crying about the prices. We all started from somewhere, and none of us had, just after snaping his fingers, a playset of all dual land in Alpha miscut, missprinted, in korean language foil and signed by Garfield, Obama and Michael Jordan. I remember when i was was youger back in 1995 when i started, most of the cards seemed unaffordable and at that time for a youg guy like me they were, so i dealt with it and played with what i could afford. As we all grew older, we have more resources and one card at a time we can build a decent legacy deck and please quite the BS about legacy's prices being comparable to Vintage P9. The current formats are just fine and if you are that bored just play for fun with your friend. I to be honest never had that much fun when i played MTG with friends like a drinking games with old school cards and crap one's. Ideas like turning legacy into an extended II are the WORST idea i ve ever heard. And no your don't have to own 4 duals of every kind 4 tabernacle 4 Imperial recruiter 4 "w/e the staples is" to have fun in magic or even to be competitive. Legacy is just FINE, for exemple we have now like 1 small touney (20 to 40 people and run by gaming shops) per week or every two weeks where i live and damn finally i can play legacy more than once a year ... Unbanning cards like Entomb, Metal worker, DH is just fine it contributed to make the metagame even more rich which is a GOOD thing for legacy, i mean there are some many decks to play and still new ideas to come. And that where the difference stand between legacy and vintage where there is only one or two valid powered archetype. And damn for legacy sake please stop GOSSIPING AROUND about any single thing.

[crow_mw]

Maybe I am a bit ignorant here, but 15 year format or even new eternal format = legacy - restricted list, would just be too simmilar to Extended. Remove Duals and FoW from legacy and majority of the decklists between the new format and Extended would be extremely simmilar. Reprints should help if cards out of restricted list get too expensive. Only the restricted list is a problem, as both removing it and keeping it has a negative impact.

[anonymos]

I'm a huge fan of playing Magic variants. The problem, though, is finding people to play them.


Complete side note: Try this fun variant. Get an ole box of jank commons. Make sure they are randomized by color and casting cost.
You deal each person 7 cards and make a pile/deck with the rest of the cards, which everyone will draw from.
From those cards you can play any card as a spell with the same casting cost. So, Twiddle can = Ancestral Recall or Grizzly Bears can = Goyf.
Each turn you draw from the central deck.
Place any card upside down to = any basic land.
Spells can only be declared once. First come first served.
No looking up cards... gotta be by memory.

And that my friends, is Mental Magic.

I <3 you. Not in any non heterosexual way, so don't get creeped out. My friends and I have a box dedicated to this. We actually mixed in about a dozen basic lands to play as nonbasics to add to the dumb. Personally, my goal is to basically play 5c enchantress every game. My friends have more or less memorized the list of tranquility type cards because of this.

My suggestion if you do decide to add basics is to ban things that search for basic lands. Our tutoring rule has you find the type that the tutor states...IE Enlightened Tutor can't find a creature that costs 2WW to be moat, but it can find an enchantment that costs U that you can play as ancestral next turn. Worldly Tutor is broken with our stack as it turns out.

[Brad Herbig]

Complete side note: Try this fun variant. Get an ole box of jank commons. Make sure they are randomized by color and casting cost.
You deal each person 7 cards and make a pile/deck with the rest of the cards, which everyone will draw from.
From those cards you can play any card as a spell with the same casting cost. So, Twiddle can = Ancestral Recall or Grizzly Bears can = Goyf.
Each turn you draw from the central deck.
Place any card upside down to = any basic land.
Spells can only be declared once. First come first served.
No looking up cards... gotta be by memory.

And that my friends, is Mental Magic.[/INDENT]

I love this game.

[Jaynel]

I love this game.

I play with facedown lands having every basic type, just for shenanigans with Tendrils of Corruption, High Tide, Gush, etc.

[Ozymandias]

I support the idea of "Make your own standard." Pick two blocks from Ice Age onwards, and one core set from 5th onwards, and then ban out the truly broken stuff like Necro. 16*15*7=1680 possible pools to pick from. Immense diversity but probably not too much insanity.

[johanessen]

Complete side note: Try this fun variant. Get an ole box of jank commons. Make sure they are randomized by color and casting cost.
You deal each person 7 cards and make a pile/deck with the rest of the cards, which everyone will draw from.
From those cards you can play any card as a spell with the same casting cost. So, Twiddle can = Ancestral Recall or Grizzly Bears can = Goyf.
Each turn you draw from the central deck.
Place any card upside down to = any basic land.
Spells can only be declared once. First come first served.
No looking up cards... gotta be by memory.

And that my friends, is Mental Magic.

I also play mental magic with my playgroup. It's fantastic

[MULocke]

I love this game.

I miss playing mental magic all the time. That game rocks.

Did you ever play with us at stx brad?

[whienot]

... "Make your own standard." ...

They did this at Worlds one year, didn't they? I always thought it was a great idea, just forgot about it.

[MMogg]

Wow, I'm amazed so many people play Mental Magic! I really had no idea it was so widespread. So much fun and very skill intensive so it's kind of hard to get beginners in on it. I haven't played in years. :frown:

[dahcmai]

I remember something about "Build your own block" actually going to be a newer format. Probably the best choice.

I'm not a fan of the singleton formats since control and combo tend to be amazing since it's a lot easier to beef up on counters than it is to beef up on good decent attackers. After you get past the first few good creatures, your pool starts to look kind of sad. A lot of control decks are practically singleton anyway, especially if you use Vintage stuff.

[psu42]

I think BYOB is a good format.

I think another thing they could do is a psuedo-extended. "X"-extended, where X is the oldest legal block.

This would be easy to implement, and you could go back to like Tempest or whatever really, I guess it wouldn't matter.

Tempest-Extended would basically what it was several years ago before rotation. Or Invasion-Extended, etc, you get the idea.

[DownSyndromeKarl]

Wow, I'm amazed so many people play Mental Magic! I really had no idea it was so widespread. So much fun and very skill intensive so it's kind of hard to get beginners in on it. I haven't played in years. :frown:

You ever see the Unhunged set? Richard Garfield PHD ftw

[MMogg]

You ever see the Unhunged set? Richard Garfield PHD ftw

Unhunged? You mean there's a set entirely devoted to penis reduction surgery? :eek: :wink:

I just checked on Gatherer. Funny shit. Those Un- sets always make me laugh.

[DownSyndromeKarl]

Unhunged? You mean there's a set entirely devoted to penis reduction surgery? :eek: :wink:

I just checked on Gatherer. Funny shit. Those Un- sets always make me laugh.

haha, it was late, I was tired, back off :P

[stuckpixel]

Pauper would be my choice. BYO-Standard/Block could be interesting also. BYO formats would also permit older and newer players to easily integrate, which is currently a problem.

Dunno if your LGSs are anything like mine, but the crowds for the different formats are very, very distinct.

[MattH]

BYOS is an excellent format. You could even lump AN-AQ-LG-DK-FE together and call that a block, the number of cards is just about right. Have to ban a few things like Workshop and Mana Drain (probably) but overall it works fine.

I guess you could lump Portal/Starter into a block also. Yay?

[Mark Sun]

BYOS is an excellent format. You could even lump AN-AQ-LG-DK-FE together and call that a block, the number of cards is just about right. Have to ban a few things like Workshop and Mana Drain (probably) but overall it works fine.

I guess you could lump Portal/Starter into a block also. Yay?

I saw a BYOS with Tempest/Time Spiral for Slivers. Actually looked incredibly fun :eek:

Probably one of the cooler combinations I've seen.

[android]

I just thought of a fantastic idea....

wait for it...

Monochrome Magic! I know, it already exists in some form.

Okay, the more I thought about it, the more complex the format became.

How about this though; your deck can only be one color (including Brown), so six colors. No multi-color. I know that kind of sucks and makes, by default, a bunch of cards banned. But really it's a cool idea I think because it puts to the test the balance of the color pie in terms of mechanics. It would probably be more balanced if it were only commons with uncommons restricted though. Some rares just make their color degenerate. Excuse me if I reference any rares below as I'm really just reciting from memory.

One thing that would be really interesting would be the atypical utility cards that are printed in some colors. Cards like Phyrexian Tribute, Mind Bomb and Inheritance. Certain colors would be completely dead in the water against certain strategies; i.e. Black vs. Enchantments. I think it would be a very interesting format. Part tribal, part card type focused, part linear strategy face-off, etc..

[MattH]

I saw a BYOS with Tempest/Time Spiral for Slivers. Actually looked incredibly fun :eek:

Probably one of the cooler combinations I've seen.

Ravnica/Odyssey for dredge. :P
Add 7th edition for Tolarian Winds :O

[Ozymandias]

Dredge is not nearly as scary without Dread Return, Narcomoeba, or Bridge from below, so you are actually better off with old-school Stu Wright dredge from Rav/TS, with a better core set for you. Maybe 5e for Nether Shadow.

Goblins needs to make some tough choices:

Saga-Lackey, Matron
Invasion-Ringleader
7th-matron
Onslaught-Piledriver, Warchief, Incinerator, Siege-Gang, Fetchlands (Obviously in)
Mirrodin: Aether Vial

Zoo suffers quite a bit. Ravnica Block provides the manabase, but you need good beaters, and your choices are limited. Time Spiral or Alara seem like the obvious choices.

Faeries gets to take Lorwyn block and then either kami block for Jitte or TS block for Visions.

That's just spitballing, but there are so many other random decks. Like cascade/Living End works with just ALA and TS.

[MWest52117]

Invasion/7th/Onslaught Goblins is basically Extended Goblins from about 2-3 years ago. M10 is also an option if you want Goblin Chieftain and Warren Instigator. Patriarch's Bidding seems fun too. Faeries would want Kamigawa block; Jitte > Visions. You can run Ponder in place of Visions, or you could just use 5th Edition as your Core Set for Brainstorm. Boros Aggro would just take Ravnica, Zendikar and M10.

[Exospaciac]

I would love to see Build Your Own Standard get popular. It seems like such a fun format.

On topic, no I don't think they'll be announcing any middle ground between Legacy and Extended.
I do hope they do something about Legacy card availability, then there'd be no reason to make another format.