SCG - Any reason for all the changes?

[yankeedave]

Now, as you may have noticed, StarCityGames has been making sweeping changes to their writing staff, dropping such well known names as Oliver Ruel and Steve Mendenendndnedian, for other, newer writers.

Does anyone else feel that the money that you are being charged for Premium access isn't as worthwhile now, as the level and flavour of writing isn't as good as it was, or are you happy with the changes?

I, for one, will miss Steve and Oliver's articles, and whilst I know I can get them somewhere else, SCG has gone down in my eyes.

Opinions?

[cdr]

You're in the minority. Star City realized that they had been on autopilot for too long, and were losing their market leadership in writing. They brought Ted Knutson back to fix this.

You may have been a fan of the Ruels and Menendian, but again, you were in the minority.

[ramanujan]

I can say with certainty that I am a fan of Menendian. I looked forward to his articles each week and enjoyed his style. Unlike most magic writing I found that Menendian had something to say that was worthwhile. He didn't bat 1000, but I can't think of a writer that was better. He pushed his formats and provided insight that few can. While I appreciate that SCG is trying to improve the quality of the writing, I think that a mistake was done here. To be quite honest, I doubt that I will continue to pay for premium for another year.

Good luck and thanks for all the fish

[jazzykat]

To my mind the best writers on Legacy are Bardo and the Voltron guy (Nightmare isn't too far off though). I read some of Menendian's stuff on Legacy and I scratched my head. Along time ago I used to read his Vintage stuff and it was flat out the best

[dahcmai]

I miss some of the writers they got rid of. They used to have a standard writer I loved. The guy only wrote about random decks he made and he had a really decent deck building skill. If you tuned up any of those decks for your meta, you could play just about any of them and do decently. I loved that. Forgot his name, though he was premium up until some argument about him getting angry about a handshake thing when he lost and he disappeared not long after. I though that whole argument was stupid, but his articles were fun to read.

I like Steve's Vintage stuff quite a bit and the articles he makes where he basically just spills out a bunch of numbers. I actually liked that.

I'm actually starting to be quite the fan of Matt Elias oddly enough too.


Though I will admit, I'm dropping my premium account since they rarely write about anything I care about anymore. Just recaps of their own tournament experience in which case I don't care or writing about tournaments that anyone with a brain can figure out what happened in. Too boring considering the info is common knowledge.

I really can't stand articles that only talk about some past recent tournament and how some deck won and how it might be the next big thing. Ummm, duh. It's new and it won something? omg! Yeah we get it. Chapin is starting to get really bad about that too. The thing that really gets me most is the people who pull decklists from MTGO and talk about them. ugh, we see those all the time, why would we care about those at all? Those guys are so behind the curve it's not even funny. It's like looking into yesterday tech.

[Sims]

I honestly haven't read many Articles on SCG that weren't by specific source writers in a long time. They don't offer me information I don't already know, and they don't have the flair that certain legacy writers do. You want fun writing? Dig up some of the old Tournament reports from PR about the roadtrips to Amrod's or Change the Name. Seriously, these articles need 100% more Keeney.

Maybe it's becuase those were the articles I was reading all along... Matt and Adam's tournament reports, some of the legacy discussion about tech and just analyzing the meta. I'd rather have Stephen's metagame breakdowns, Adam's Deckbuilding, Doug's little tidbits of things to test that might not be T1 but at least t2 and fun to play, and Matt's hilarious tournament reports over almost anything else written on SCG or CFB. I seem to remember Dan putting out a few amazing articles on SCG that made me sad when they went away, too.

Aside note: I do also enjoy Josh and Frogboy's (sorry man, I forgot your name) articles too. I know many of the Legacy populace don't always agree with them, but in general I do think their articles are worth the read and have quite a bit of knowledge packed into them. Maybe it's cause I used to test on Apprentice with Josh in '04 right after the Seperation. But I respect their opinions more than most of the other writer's on the internet, and even people on these forums.

TL;DR version: SCG premium was never worth it to me. I didn't have one before, i won't have one now.

[blueneverfails]

To my mind the best writers on Legacy are Bardo and the Voltron guy (Nightmare isn't too far off though). I read some of Menendian's stuff on Legacy and I scratched my head. Along time ago I used to read his Vintage stuff and it was flat out the best

Suck up!!!!!!!!!!!! Anywaze I enjoyed Steves articles, and a person that knows Steve on a little more personal level, having played with him many time and had lots of talks at BD's, he puts alot of effort into his articles and really tries to keep his articles fresh and new. I think sometimes his legacy is farfetched, but about 2/3 of the time he writes great stuff, and his vintage stuff is awsome all the time. The other guy, I didn't read his articles that much, so I'm not surprised.

[Kuma]

Yeah, without Menendian on their writing staff, I won't be renewing my premium subscription.

Steve's articles were enjoyable to read. He always made his case, and provided data to support his claims. You might not like what he had to say, but it was hard to argue with his data. It was a welcome change to read articles that were based on evidence instead of speculation and theorycraft.

[jazzykat]

Suck up!!!!!!!!!!!!

Guilty, I will unabashedly suck up if that gets Bardo out of retierment. His articles were actual writing.

[kusumoto]

No Steve = no premium for me. The reason I got premium in the first place was to read his Vintage articles. I guess SCG only cares about Standard now.

[yankeedave]

No Steve = no premium for me. The reason I got premium in the first place was to read his Vintage articles. I guess SCG only cares about Standard now.

I am going to wait to see how Andy Probasco (the Brassman on TMD) and Brian DeMars (Forests_failed_you on TMD) do with regards to Vintage before I stop my subscription. But Steve was my main reason for taking it out and now its free on Quiet Speculation, I am no longer too interested in the other articles.

[paK0]

Well, while Steven wrote some......not so awesome Legacy atrticles I enjoyed reading his Vintage stuff (even though I don't play). Luckily they kept Matt Elias, I enjoy his stuff as well.

I'll keep premium for a while, I think the new guys deserve a chance, but regarding the Eternal section they have to be on quite a level to match up with the "old" ones.

[BrassMan]

Hey now, I'd like to think I've garnered at least some amount of respect from the legacy community. I'm pretty sure historically my legacy results have been better than Stephen's (though I realize a statement like that opens me up to a potential truth-beating). Not to say that Stephen isn't a talented and prolific writer, I'm just pretty sure I can do Legacy justice. I was hired on specifically to write Vintage, but Ted explicitly stated I could write Legacy any time, and I plan on taking advantage of that offer.

I have some general-magic stuff planned for Monday, and right now is a pretty tumultuous time for Vintage, but I'm not going to let SCG drop Legacy content. I'm new to writing so regularly though, and inspiration is hard to find, so I'd love as much help from you guys as possible. What do you want to read about? What are the best and worst Legacy articles you've read? Most importantly, how can I make premium worth it for you. The more you can help me stay in the loop, the better. Feel free to post here, PM me, IM me/email me - I want to make a column worth coming back to.

[majikal]

I'm a fan of the new changes. I stopped paying for Premium on a regular basis when Knutson left the first time, and now that he's back, I'll probably resubscribe. Andy's a cool guy too. If he ever finds the white bitches, I hope he writes about it.

[mujadaddy]

Hey now, I'd like to think I've garnered at least some amount of respect from the legacy community.
Where's your avatar pic?

[BrassMan]

If he ever finds the white bitches, I hope he writes about it.

I know, right? where *are* they at???

[Bardo]

Guilty, I will unabashedly suck up if that gets Bardo out of retierment. His articles were actual writing.

Thanks, Jazzy.

Life's really good to me right now, but isn't giving me much free time (twin girls in first grade, my relationship (had our 10-year anniversary a few months ago), the dogs, this fucking house and a real job (where I do a ton of writing) will do that). Anyway, life being life =/= not much time for Magic (let alone writing about it).


Hey now, I'd like to think I've garnered at least some amount of respect from the legacy community.

You're classy, Andy, and I'm happy SCG picked you up. I've always enjoyed your articles.

@ OP - SCG began to lose their edge in the writing department and they need to change things up or lose further relevance.

I haven't had premium since 2007 or so and haven't missed it. Every few months or so I'll go on a PChapin or Smenny-bender after their articles go free and that's worked for me. But honestly, the only MtG writing I regularly follow is the Monday design article (Rosewater) and Friday development article (LaPille) on mtg.com. Recently, I enjoyed the article The Ferret wrote recently, Geordie Tait's new articles and new articles by Knutson. They all have a lot of talent.

[Meekrab]

Menendian's articles would probably be more popular if they weren't each as long as your average novel.

[Julian23]

No Steve = no premium. Easy as that. Are you hearing me, SCG?

Does anyone know if/where Steve is going to continue writing?

[Mark Sun]

No Steve = no premium. Easy as that. Are you hearing me, SCG?

Does anyone know if/where Steve is going to continue writing?

He writes for Quiet Speculation now.

[xfrt]

I feel robbed. I bought premium (for a year!) just a few weeks ago. Then a few days later i find out that steve is leaving scg (which was the only reason i had premium).

[ummon]

As a non-premium viewer, I always looked forward to Steve's articles becoming available for me. No chance of me getting premium anymore. :/

[The Wolf]

I didn't renew my membership for this year. When the site articles start being to boring for me to even read at work, I know its time to scoop it up. This happened at channelfireball as well. At this point I find 1-2 interesting articles a week between the two sites.

[Tacosnape]

Personally, it doesn't matter to me a whole lot.

For me to get an SCG subscription, they'd have to have at least two, probably three, weekly writers who I thought were A - better at Legacy than me, and B - could consistently write a complete article so well that it would teach me ways of looking at things I hadn't before.

I can come up with maybe four or five people in the universe who fit both parts of this description. Maybe seven or eight if I included people who I thought -could- write said articles, but for whatever reason, don't. SCG's a ways away from getting three of them.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I only ever bought two month-long memberships at SCG. Both times it was specifically to read one of Smennen's articles. Not sure if this decision was on Starcity's part, but if so it was a poor one.

[Picc]

Well Im out, then again the only one I was reading with any regularity anymore was Medina anyway.

[Koby]

I have never gotten Premium subscription.

Luckily, most of the Legacy articles are Freebies, so there's not really a need to get it either.

[dschalter]

Knutson's "upgrade" hasn't excited me at all. Some good writers have come in, some good writers went out and I'm not buying the idea that bringing back the best writers of 2004 is any kind of upgrade. I had Premium for a year and was planning to resubscribe, but chose not to after the shakeup.

[Blitzbold]

After a 2 year hiatus from premium I renewed it when the DCI announced the unrestriction of Gush in 2007 and prolongated it since then. But since the most recent changes the only premium article that arose my interest was the one about Snake City Vault by Brian. I scanned through some of the more recent ones, but as I am not interested in Standard anymore, there wasn't much to see for me. It's a pity my subscription lasts for a whole year... with the current quality / content, my subscription will definitely end the next time it's up for prolongation.

edit: typo

[cdr]

Check out "City of Brass" today if you have premium.