Assuming that $1500 average deck costs are unsustainable...

[Lemnear]

Ah, sorry I got ya wrong. You suggest alternatives aside from being fetchable that are good enough to dismiss the basic landtypes that makes them fetchable.

[kiblast]

The lands you are asking could be:

-a) better than Duals or City of Brass / Gemstone Mine (and therefore not possible).

-b) worse than Duals or City of Brass / Gemstone Mine ( and therefore subpar and useless in most cases).

Any card design which doesn't fit in the first category, necessarily fits in the second,as in MTG there are two choices possible: the subpar and the optimal one. Alternatives to duals can be either sub par ( in which case they're not worth discussing, like Shocklands or Painlands: you can play them, but you know that it's not the optimal choice) or better ( in which case they're very unlikely-close to impossible- to be printed.)

[dragonwisdom]

dual land -

1) Add white or blue

counts as a plains or island

can't have any other non-basic island or plains in the deck other than the name of this dual

Is it worse than a dual yes, but it's a close second.

Look legacy will survive even with the reserve list. Why, Wizards will just keep printing good cards. Eventually, Newbies will play 10 or so years and have all the cards. New Archetypes will emerge. just a thought but mono-black and mono-white decks are getting a huge boost with New Phyrexia.

[Justin]

[QUOTE=kiblast;538458]I can't understand how you would apply power creep to lands. A better Sea? And what should it do better than the old one?QUOTE]

Better Underground Sea

Land-Island Swamp

Better Underground Sea has shroud

[kiblast]

I can't understand how you would apply power creep to lands. A better Sea? And what should it do better than the old one?

Better Underground Sea

Land-Island Swamp

Better Underground Sea has shroud

Built-in AI for best randomized self shuffling seems better.

[sdematt]

When Better Underground Sea comes into play, put 4 copies of itself into play as well.

Done and done.

-Matt

[cosme]

Great idea as if the original dual weren't good enough lol.

And snow duals are an dangerous idea, you realise people could play 8 duals if those existed right? (although that would probably just apply to 2 colour decks...)

same nice idea would be to create duals with a drawback only relevant in T2, something like infect lands with basic types (sown lands would fit to if they printed a LOT of sownwalk), or something that would be very terrible with the current set, but also print good duals for T2 without the basic types (like the ones from m11 or scars)

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Fixed.

Better Underground Sea
Land - Island Swamp
(Tap: Add U or B to your mana pool.)
You may pitch this card to Force of Will.

[Lemnear]

A dual that is destroyed if it's controller also controls any one enemy basic?

[Bardo]

This thread has taken a turn for the stupid.

[kiblast]

Fixed.

Better Underground Sea
Land - Island Swamp
(Tap: Add U or B to your mana pool.)
You may pitch this card to Force of Will.

Sig'ed.

[sdematt]

Let's get back on topic now, gents.

Point being, would you enter the format now if you owned zero Legacy cards with your current financial state? What if you were on a $100 a month Magic budget (which is significantly higher than the majority of players out there)?

-Matt

[edgarps22]

I can say, as someone with actually a smaller budget than that, that it has not deterred me in the slightest to pursue viable Legacy decks. I started with Zoo, eventually traded most of it built up towards Meandeck MUD, then I built Dredge, and now I have Zoo again and Goblins. I have had bad versions of a few combo decks and for the most part have just avoided playing blue. It can be done on the cheap. Yes I would prefer to have my staples again, ie I sold them to pay rent years ago, but I can still have fun with what I have. So I can say yes, at $100/month you can enter into the format bit by bit and become competitive pretty quickly. At that rate you can actually get the vast majority of a deck build in about 2-3 months, picking up toys like Knights of the Reliquary, Progenitus, LED's, all the toys that you could want for whatever deck you want to build, and when you have the shell, start saving bit by bit for duals, and/or if you know someone, borrow them. As long as your local meta is full of decent people, and I would like to think that we are generally decent people, that we could find some duals to loan people until they can get their own.

That being said, I don't like that I have to do things on the cheap. But I also recognize that I will never see the prices I did in 2004-2005. The suggestions we have all posted would probably fix a lot of the formats problems, and possibly create other problems. Also if you are building a combo deck like ANT/TES/Belcher don't hesitate to use the Ravnica Duals, more often than not, there is no difference in how games go because bolting yourself against a goblin deck you kill that turn is not of note.

[sporenfrosch1411]

Well, you could start out with Burn or LEDlessDredge and then slowly achieve the pool for something else.
To be honest, i personally would not want to get in this format if i didn't own any cards. It is way too expensive and somewhat unfair because it IS going to be a matter of money to be competetive, and not "some" money, but a month's salery to get a deck from the scratch.
This scares off new players, without any doubt.
But hey, Standard ain't cheap either, extended somewhat is not interesting (from my and many others point of view) and well Vintage.....is dead.

Magic has become a monster with ppl speculating and holding cards back for profit. It still is fun, but spending 400 bucks so your pool "can morph" to another deck... kinda sux.

[kiblast]

Let's get back on topic now, gents.

Point being, would you enter the format now if you owned zero Legacy cards with your current financial state? What if you were on a $100 a month Magic budget (which is significantly higher than the majority of players out there)?

-Matt

I would. I'd not build Team America or Jace Landeed as my first deck for sure, but I would start collecting cards for cheaper decks. Then with time and ebay, and tournaments prizes, I'd slowly move to the pricey staples. 3 weeks ago I sold my Ledless Dredge for 160 Eur shipped, and in the last 50ppl tournament I attended there were 2 Dredge in top8. You know what I mean.

(I think that this topic has been discussed to the point that it's more interesting to invent better duals. / sarcasm.)

[Bardo]

Let's get back on topic now, gents.

Point being, would you enter the format now if you owned zero Legacy cards with your current financial state? What if you were on a $100 a month Magic budget (which is significantly higher than the majority of players out there)?

-Matt

If you're coming into the format now and you're on a $100/month allowance, your options are like Burn, Dredge, and bad aggro. That wouldn't be able to hold my interest for long. I guess there's Affinity, but there are no investment you'd make in that deck that you could transfer to something else competitive.

Seems like the most miserable time to start playing T1.5 since like 2002 (and definitely the worst since the T1/1.5 split in 2004).

[Amon Amarth]

Let's get back on topic now, gents.

Point being, would you enter the format now if you owned zero Legacy cards with your current financial state? What if you were on a $100 a month Magic budget (which is significantly higher than the majority of players out there)?

-Matt

Probably. Well, IDK. If I only had 100$ a month then well there isn't anyway I could break into Legacy. If I had significantly more money? Yeah, I'd start with some cheap Aggro deck.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

On $100 a month, I'd still do it the same way.

I'd build LEDless Dredge. Then I'd upgrade from there.

1.) LEDless Dredge
2.) LED Dredge
3.) TES
4.) ANT
5.) DDFT
6.) Rev614
7.) Other masterbatory toys

Basically it's slowly adding more money to the same deck (obviously the leap from LED Dredge to TES took a while).

[sdematt]

I'm assuming most youngster's budgets aren't more than $100 a month. I know my Magic budget up until a few years ago was under this amount, so I figured it a decent figure, especially in these economic times.

I think I'd most definitely try to get into the format, but I definitely wouldn't be playing Rock or anything requiring many duals, that's for damn sure.

-Matt

[Bardo]

I'm assuming most youngster's budgets aren't more than $100 a month. I know my Magic budget up until a few years ago was under this amount, so I figured it a decent figure, especially in these economic times.

I think I'd most definitely try to get into the format, but I definitely wouldn't be playing Rock or anything requiring many duals, that's for damn sure.

-Matt

Me too. There are exceptions (High Tide, Goblins, Dredge), but the foundation of the format is based around Revised duals (and earlier editions' duals to a lesser extent).

And building a format around a set of rares from a set with a modest print run 17 years ago is not a recipe for a healthy, long-term format. You know what I mean?

[Mr.C]

Let's get back on topic now, gents.

Point being, would you enter the format now if you owned zero Legacy cards with your current financial state? What if you were on a $100 a month Magic budget (which is significantly higher than the majority of players out there)?

-Matt

I would draft.

In my case, I suck at Legacy even though I have everything (Matt can attest to that), and I can't afford T2. I could also play EDH.

You know, I think a restricted list would help Legacy. Throw duals on there. Hasn't Wizards said they were a mistake? Then fucking fix it. Don't ban them, restrict them. Yay, availability problems solved!

[TsumiBand]

For a newb looking to enter the game on $100/month, I don't honestly know if they can play Legacy OR Standard. If you are totally new to the game, the quickest way to assemble a reasonable deck if you don't have a generous benefactor giving you money or cards is to acquire multiple pre-made decks, or to buy singles.

I guess you could try luck-sacking on a box of Magic cards, but that seems like you're pretty much relegated to Standard at that point. Same with preconstructed decks, unless you guys are all shopping at amazing stores that have a wealth of precons from, like, Masques Block. And that would *still* manage to only give you access to Legacy staples that were printed after like 6th Edition, meaning no good duals, no Forces or StPs*.

I mean, if you're the patient type who's also playing with the intent of Using Good Cards to try and win once in a while, and the cost of a viable deck is $600 - $1500, then you're at best only going to be able to play the way you want to after six months, minimally. But what's that guy doing then over that first six months? If he's learning the game somehow then outside resources are in play - people are lending the new kid some decks or whatever cards she's missing in order to build her deck - and so that becomes a question that can't be tangibly answered, except to say that the community is still largely responsible for recruiting into itself.

It just seems like when you weigh the cost of getting into the game against the cost of certain cards, the availability of those cards to a new player, the trade off of paying a couple hundred bucks for a playset of Legacy cards versus dropping that same couple hundred on a box of what's relevant in Standard and some pre-cons, and then remembering that the majority of players sort of phase out of the game after a little under 2 years of 'active' play, then yeah I find it hard to accept that any new kid would come into Legacy entirely under his or her own power. There's got to be an assist there.

*Okay derf there was a Coldsnap precon that had StP in it. I just remembered. I think the list of Legacy staples that came out before such-and-such a date is pretty well understood though. StP was a bad example. Force of Will notsomuch

[mcfarland]

Let's get back on topic now, gents.

Point being, would you enter the format now if you owned zero Legacy cards with your current financial state? What if you were on a $100 a month Magic budget (which is significantly higher than the majority of players out there)?

-Matt

This is a really interesting question, and one that directly applies to me now.

I started Magic just as Antiquities was released, and played until I sold my collection about two years ago. It paid off a lot of student loans, although I'm kicking myself for not waiting 24 more months to unload it.

Recently, I've started to miss playing Magic with real cards (I play on MWS quite a bit, now.) A few weeks ago, I decided to pick up Legacy again, but I'm not too interested in investing heavily in the game. I gave myself a small budget to work with, and have been having a lot of fun trying to come up with viable, affordable decks (4eak has a really good thread going in the budget forum). I've settled on building Dredge, and I'm looking forward to seeing how far I can take it before (and if) I get bored with piloting it.

My goal isn't exactly to build up another collection, but to have fun competitively at a low(ish) cost. If I collect some winnings and cards to explore other archetypes, that's just going to be icing on the cake.

-Mike

[4eak]

This thread inspired me to make a new budget deck thread here (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?20587-%5BBudget-Decks%5D-My-Attempts&p=538575#post538572). After running and constructing lists for the budget tournament we had here on the Source, I had accumulated a lot of budget decklists. In addition, I tend to buy budget versions of a deck first and then work my way up to complete non-budget versions. I've got a good amount of testing and interest in the subject, so I hope it might be useful to others.


peace,
4eak

[TUMBLES]

Let's get back on topic now, gents.

Point being, would you enter the format now if you owned zero Legacy cards with your current financial state? What if you were on a $100 a month Magic budget (which is significantly higher than the majority of players out there)?

-Matt

I more or less did this; had a few old cards but had given most away when I quit years and years earlier. $100/month... I'd sooner invest that into Legacy staples than Standard staples! I'd probably play Fire & Lightning Burn.dec and spend a lot of time on MWS with more interesting things.

[cosme]

Let's get back on topic now, gents.

Point being, would you enter the format now if you owned zero Legacy cards with your current financial state? What if you were on a $100 a month Magic budget (which is significantly higher than the majority of players out there)?

-Matt

Yes I would.

The problem is not the cost of the format the. The cost of the format is merely a consequence of the scarcity of cards which will cause that at a certain point no one will be able to enter the format, no matter how much money they can spend (ok ok I'm exaggerating but you get the point...).

[Malchar]

Let's get back on topic now, gents.

Point being, would you enter the format now if you owned zero Legacy cards with your current financial state? What if you were on a $100 a month Magic budget (which is significantly higher than the majority of players out there)?

-Matt

Take out a loan for $2000 at 5% apr. Now you can buy any deck in the format. If you pay $100 per month, you'll pay off the loan in 21 months.

[edgarps22]

Actually it would take just over 19 months with that interest rate, but that is beside the point. The fact that you can take a $2000 loan out, and pay it off over the course of nearly 2 years to pay for 1-2 decks worth of cards, is a bad sign for a barrier of entry. If you are talking about a collectible card game and taking out a loan, there is a problem (and if I were that banker, I would laugh at you for asking). The barrier is getting too high, and soon enough it will be a real problem. I am hoping some of our ideas that would prevent a reformation of the format, ie banning the high cost cards, will not happen.

[Arsenal]

I'm pretty sure Malchar was just kidding and only suggested taking out a loan to point out the absurdity of entering into competitive Legacy.

[lordofthepit]

Actually it would take just over 19 months with that interest rate, but that is beside the point.

I might be missing something because I'm not familiar with financial terms, but I would like to know how I can borrow $2000 and pay that off in 19 payments of $100 over the next 19 months.

[sdematt]

Wait, you've never taken out a loan to buy cards?

-Matt

[edgarps22]

Whether it was a joke or not, it does demonstrate that the price is reaching that point. When the price of a deck reaches the point where you can make a joke about taking a loan out, yeah not a good situation.

[JACO]

On $100 a month, I'd still do it the same way.

I'd build LEDless Dredge. Then I'd upgrade from there.

1.) LEDless Dredge
2.) LED Dredge
3.) TES
4.) ANT
5.) DDFT
6.) Rev614
7.) Other masterbatory toys

Basically it's slowly adding more money to the same deck (obviously the leap from LED Dredge to TES took a while).This is a great way to go about it, and I've recommended a similar approach to many people in the past. Not everyone needs to own every Legacy "staple." You will usually only be focusing on a couple of decks at a time anyway, and if you can't afford it there's not really any reason to have more than a couple of decks. When you use the branch/tenticle approach like above you have a specific group of cards that are similar with which you can build a handful of very competitive decks.

My first article on the subject of deck costs with the full spreadsheet is now up on Eternal Central, and the link to the discussion on TheSource can be found here:
A Real Look at Legacy Deck Costs 2011Q2 (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?20599-[Article]-A-Real-Look-at-Legacy-Deck-Costs-2011Q2&p=538712)

In there I review 30+ commonly played Legacy decks and the costs of them in both paper Magic and Magic Online (MTGO). Check it out!

[Malchar]

Actually it would take just over 19 months with that interest rate, but that is beside the point. The fact that you can take a $2000 loan out, and pay it off over the course of nearly 2 years to pay for 1-2 decks worth of cards, is a bad sign for a barrier of entry. If you are talking about a collectible card game and taking out a loan, there is a problem (and if I were that banker, I would laugh at you for asking). The barrier is getting too high, and soon enough it will be a real problem. I am hoping some of our ideas that would prevent a reformation of the format, ie banning the high cost cards, will not happen.

If one of our posts is a joke, it must be this one and not mine, since at least my math works out. :P


I'm pretty sure Malchar was just kidding and only suggested taking out a loan to point out the absurdity of entering into competitive Legacy.

There's nothing absurd about taking out a loan if you have $100 a month dedicated to mtg already. You'll easily be able to pay it off. The absurdity lies in the premise. My point was mostly to point out that flaw.

Anyway, I think that everyone in this thread agrees that Legacy prices are higher than we'd like, and that Wizards could remedy that if they wanted to, but they probably won't unless things get even worse.

[Bardo]

Anyway, I think that everyone in this thread agrees that Legacy prices are higher than we'd like, and that Wizards could remedy that if they wanted to, but they probably won't unless things get even worse.

I'm certain that it can (and will) get worse and Wizards still won't do anything about it.

It's not like they ever printed a From the Vault: Really Expensive Jewelry to contain the price of Black Lotus and moxen.

They'd at least make money on that and I don't think unsanctioned proxy tournaments are their desired plan for Vintage.

[edgarps22]

That is what happens when I do math at ridiculous hours sadly, lols. Fixed my interest compounding, and yeah about 21 months at 5%. This is a valid option if and only if you are out of your teens, have a job, and enough disposable income to probably just buy what you want anyways, otherwise taking a loan out really won't be possible. I say this is absurd for that reason. Sure if you want to do it that way go for it, but it is not a good idea. The fact that the prices have reached that point (for a hobby) is not good. But I am in general agreement with most people, the price has become a barrier of entry, we will plateau, and then it will drop off in the long term. I would love for them to allow the format continuous growth by giving more support.

[SMR0079]

Thread needs a "None of the above" option as the first responce is leading.

Even if nothing is changed the prices will eventually plateau and stabilize enough to support a small PtQ style circuit as we have now. Dual lands on the reserve list are problematic for long term growth and sustainability, with current levels pushing the limit of what the format can support.

If they did a large enough print run of Force and Waste in duel decks or from the Vault that would help tremendously, leaving only the price of dual lands as the only real threat.

That being said, there are 3-4 competitive budget decks that exist currently which gives new players access to the format. Win a few events with Dredge or Affinity and you can "level up" to something more expensive. Of course this means you actually need to win some events, but there is a route availble. I let my friend borrow my Merfolk deck last year when he got back into Merfok. He stuck with it and won enough events to own the deck himself. Now he's the best Fish player in our local metagame. That's something that only Legacy can really provide.

Unfortunatly, new players without substanital funds or theability to network with grandfathered players, will have to accept the reality that their deck choiced will be limited if they want to play Legacy. While there is a a definit economic heirachy involved, it does not follow that the this heirarchy mirrors success in the format. You can win REAL tournaments with Dredge, Affinity, ELVES, and maybe Burn.

[Malchar]

Wizards could also remedy the situation by printing cards that bolster monocolored decks. Frankly, it's kind of surprising that people are able to get away with some of the manabases that they do. If Blood Moon had been in any color other than red, it would easily be a perennial deck-to-beat. It's only hampered by the fact that red sucks except for burn and goblins.

[Lemnear]

I'm certain that it can (and will) get worse and Wizards still won't do anything about it.

It's not like they ever printed a From the Vault: Really Expensive Jewelry to contain the price of Black Lotus and moxen.

They'd at least make money on that and I don't think unsanctioned proxy tournaments are their desired plan for Vintage.

Lol ... on TheManaDrain some people argued for this a while ago, with the idea that this would open the door for more sanctioned Vintage in the US

[Final Fortune]

The lands you are asking could be:

-a) better than Duals or City of Brass / Gemstone Mine (and therefore not possible).

-b) worse than Duals or City of Brass / Gemstone Mine ( and therefore subpar and useless in most cases).

Any card design which doesn't fit in the first category, necessarily fits in the second,as in MTG there are two choices possible: the subpar and the optimal one. Alternatives to duals can be either sub par ( in which case they're not worth discussing, like Shocklands or Painlands: you can play them, but you know that it's not the optimal choice) or better ( in which case they're very unlikely-close to impossible- to be printed.)

That's overly simplistic, a 3 color pain land is worse than a City of Brass but better than a Dual Land for some decks, TES would probably replace its Fetch Lands and Dual Lands for 3 a U/b/r pain land etc. Even a card like Horizon Canopies has design potential, add X: sacrifice, spell effect onto pain lands and you've got a color fixing vs. utility trad off. Even something as simple as a G/W pain land that sacrifices to destroy target enchantment probably gets played. Lands have a lot of design space, I don't see any reason you can't design lands that actually warrant consideration over Fetch/Dual.

[Vaxe]

I don't know if this has occurred to anyone, but have we considered the notion that Wizards simply doesn't want to support eternal formats?

As stated numerous times within this thread, the average Magic player does not have a high amount of disposable income to spend on paper cards. With this said, Magic players will inherently spend money (the maximum dollar they can) on some form of Magic.

Not advocating eternal reprints means that players will resort to Standard, Sealed, or casual play (Commander, Dual-decks, Booster-cracking, etc). There is a peak on how much any one person is willing to/can spend at any given time, and diversifying formats will not equate to more profit - merely dilute sanctioned play and move players from one base to another. To retain player interest, new sets are constantly being printed (New Phyrexia has gotten everyone excited).

In addition, the goal for Wizards has always been to direct new players to Standard. After all, who buys the most cards directly from Wizards? Surely not the Legacy player who buys singles from the secondary market, or even the collector. It is those just getting into the game - and Standard has always been and will remain the most easily accessible and regulated format, and the cash-cow for the company.

[Malchar]

I don't think that Mark Rosewater supports the idea of the reserve list. Also, they have started reprinting a lot of old cards lately in from the vaults or duel decks. They haven't really been enough to saturate the market, but I think that they're legitimately trying to do as much as possible without breaking the list or going out of business. They still have to spend a lot of their capital on making cards for standard and limited, since that's where they get most of their revenue. It also makes sense that they would start with limited print runs for from the vault in case it didn't have the desired effect on the market. Overall I think they were successful, but more can and will be done in the future. I can't expect them to reprint every legacy staple all at once.

[Gui]

I find the argument "Legacy doesn't give them money" and also "secondary market" to be untrue. We use cards they print from every edition. It's really rare when we don't use any, and sometimes we can even buy more of some cards than Standard players do. That said, we rise the search for cards, rising the profit from stores that open packs and sell singles, which means rising the amount of packs stores want to buy from, guess who, WotC.

If the arguement was that they sell every pack they produce without Eternal's help, then even this was a bad arguement, because they are now, due to us, able to produce more packs than they would if there was only standard.

I am not able to admit they don't care about Legacy. They printed non T2 legal cards already, what does that mean?

I think they do care about their promess on reserve list, and are pretty bad at finding a fast-n-good solution, but there's a huge gap between this and not caring.


All that, and I didn't even mentioned that Legacy is a huge and free advertisement for the game.

[Arsenal]

The 0-2 cards per set that makes it into the competitive Legacy cardpool is a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of product that Limited and Standard players open. I don't think that Legacy players, for sole Legacy purposes, are opening up 3-6 packs per week like Limited players do.

[into_play]

Ideally going from cold start to a Tier 1/1.5 deck should be $100. To reach that would require new cards to be printed that can compete with the original power level before the price spike.

Really, what justifies an entry cost to a CCG in excess of $100?

I disagree with this. A top tier deck should be no more than $60, the price of a new video game.

[Bardo]

I don't know if this has occurred to anyone, but have we considered the notion that Wizards simply doesn't want to support eternal formats?

This is my new theory about the Reserve List.

That Wizards wants to support Legacy and Vintage, but only insofar as people know that all of their cards can be played somewhere / somehow and that they'll still have value even when they rotate from Extended.

It's when the Eternal formats begin to steal players from their money-making formats (primarily, Limited, Block, and Standard) that's a problem -- that's why they'll keep the Reserve List as it is and won't be reprinting Underground Sea anytime soon: because Legacy threatens card sales and profitability, since most new cards are shit for Eternal-purposes (creating little demand for new product relative to other formats). So, I think, it's important (to Wizards) that the format remain something of a niche interest.


I disagree with this. A top tier deck should be no more than $60, the price of a new video game.

A top tier deck has collectable cards and retains residual value even when that deck is no longer top tier. Work with my analogy here, but buying a new deck of Magic cards is like investing in a painting. (Admittedly, and depending on the deck and format, a really shitty painting.)

Video games are more like cars, in that as soon as you drive off the lot, it loses an extreme amount of its value, like buying Halo new or something. Video games don't hold their value the same way and you'll come nowhere close to recouping its original value when you sell off the pieces.

[cdr]

And video/PC games are moving towards having zero resale value - that is, not being resalable. That's the way publishers would like it, and they have the power to do it by making every game reliant on an online account.

[Aggro_zombies]

It's when the Eternal formats begin to steal players from their money-making formats (primarily, Limited, Block, and Standard) that's a problem -- that's why they'll keep the Reserve List as it is and won't be reprinting Underground Sea anytime soon: because Legacy threatens card sales and profitability, since most new cards are shit for Eternal-purposes (creating little demand for new product relative to other formats). So, I think, it's important (to Wizards) that the format remain something of a niche interest.
The problem with this theory is that Legacy isn't stealing players from money-making formats. The model that Wizards uses (and you can see this in the article where they justified cutting Extended down to Big Standard) is that players burn out on Standard after a couple of years and switch to formats where it's not so expensive or time consuming to keep up with the constant - even weekly or daily - fluctuations in the format. Wizards wants that format to be Extended because the barrier to entry is much lower than it is for the Eternal formats, but Extended sucks for a very large number of reasons, so players skip straight to Legacy. Paring down Extended to four years was supposed to fix this, but now Extended doesn't really feel significantly different than Standard in terms of power and is dominated by the most obnoxious Standard decks from the last several years while also lacking the depth of strategic interactions that it had as a bigger format.

In truth, the possible fixes for Legacy aren't ideal, as all of them will piss some segment of players off. Getting rid of the Reserved List is off the table completely, so Wizards can:

1) Ban the dual lands and other high-priced cards (which will piss off everyone who owns dual lands and other high-priced cards),

2) Reprint what they can and ban what they can't (which will piss off the people who own the cards as well as those who bought them at inflated prices as well as those opposed to reprints of anything),

3) Reprint what they can and make very mildly tweaked versions of what they can't (which will piss off those opposed to reprints as well as those who bought cards at inflated prices, as having snow duals will cut into the value of Revised duals, but not FBB or A/B versions),

4) Do nothing (which will piss of people trying to buy into the format as well as players who are already in but are trying to expand their capabilities).

There's a possibility it will also piss off dealers, depending on what they do.

Wizards clearly doesn't have the "fuck 'em" mentality that some people in this thread have, since otherwise they would have banned/reprinted/whatever cards already. As it stands, they could just be trying to come up with a solution that minimizes the rage while also keeping the format generally affordable and which doesn't violate the Reserved List.

[Flan R-E]

Personally, I'm glad this card is not on the reserve list

Force of Will

Though Force of will is not on the reserve list, If any one legacy money card gets reprinted I think it should be this guy.

This card keeps belcher and other glass-cannon type decks in check.

I think FoW is far more important to the format than dual lands or any reserve list item simply because it would be relatively easy for local metagames to go Combo Winter if people can't afford it.

at least that's how it seems to me

[LostButSeeking]

Personally, I'm glad this card is not on the reserve list

Force of Will

Though Force of will is not on the reserve list, If any one legacy money card gets reprinted I think it should be this guy.

This card keeps belcher and other glass-cannon type decks in check.

I think FoW is far more important to the format than dual lands or any reserve list item simply because it would be relatively easy for local metagames to go Combo Winter if people can't afford it.

at least that's how it seems to me

No, that happened at our local card shop. Only one guy had forces, and he used them pretty badly. Once someone had the idea to build belcher or some variant of Iggy-pop (this was a while ago), he dominated the scene pretty handily for a while.

[MDB]

I voted 3, but that's not gonna happen, so I'll make a case for banning the duals, because duals are UNFUN!

1. Duals are UGLY.
I know, not a very convincing argument, but as it is never mentioned in any of the gazillion comparable troll-threads...
Do you guys really want to play with them godawful looking lands forever? Part of the appeal of the game is the fantasy-aspect, the flavor, the art, themes etc. There's so much beautiful artwork out there, especially lands.

2. Duals are too GOOD.
Well, we're playing Legacy so only the best will do. Yet, it is obvious that the duals break the design rules, and will (probably) never be matched in power level by newly printed lands again. Not even having to bother to look at multi-lands from new sets EVER again, is a seriously unfun prospect.

3. Duals are BROKEN.
This is the only conclusion I can arrive at when I factor in the fetchlands. Getting a black dual of a non-black fetchland is just a bit too rich for me. Besides if Wizards would print a non-fetchable dual with no drawbacks (already a designrule-breaker), that would STILL not be good enough for play. Given the power-level of the duals, a good case can be made that they belong in Vintage only.

4. Duals are EXPENSIVE.
Costly is inherently unfun. Not being able to play the deck you want to play, because you can't afford it, is seriously unfun. Not to mention playing inferior cards to make up for it. The argument that there are budget decks available, without duals, that can be succesful is inherently flawed. The reason being that there are more decks out there, WITH duals, to be succesful. A major part of the fun-aspect is being able to play different decks and experiment. More often than not, you need duals for that.

In short, duals are too ugly, too broken, and in too short supply to play for eternity.

I won't deny that you usually need expensive staples like FoW and Wasteland, but they are the cost of playing a certain strategy. Duals are the cost of playing Legacy. In my view, they are the stand-alone culprits that make Legacy less fun and prohibitive. The restrictions of a have-not deckbuilder are already severe as they are now, and the duals are nigh impossible to crack with powercreep, as other card-types, like creatures, have. With the duals gone, Wizards will have the design space needed to finally give us viable alternatives to shocklands etc. In the end, this design space would probably make them a lot of money as well, so be warned. Imho it would make Legacy much more appealing if we would actually have to put some real thought into our mana bases, could actually afford them, and play with *pretty* lands.

[Fatal]

After looking at NPH Spoiler i can tell that Wizards choose 5th option:

Print new cards to balance olders.

This is simple:
Tarmogoyf/CB was broken so, after few time we get Spell Snare, then Spell Pierce.

Spiral and Combo was broken so we get Mental Misstep - its rather little impact on prizes but format changing.

About duals:

-They're good - they should be, but so many cards interact with them - Wasteland, Fetchalands, Moon effects, B2B, sometimes Choke - I can't imagine Legacy without those old lands.

[Shawn]

Tarmogoyf/CB was broken so, after few time we get Spell Snare, then Spell Pierce.

Ravinca block came before Coldsnap and Time Spiral block.

[Lemnear]

I voted 3, but that's not gonna happen, so I'll make a case for banning the duals, because duals are UNFUN!

1. Duals are UGLY.
I know, not a very convincing argument, but as it is never mentioned in any of the gazillion comparable troll-threads...
Do you guys really want to play with them godawful looking lands forever? Part of the appeal of the game is the fantasy-aspect, the flavor, the art, themes etc. There's so much beautiful artwork out there, especially lands.

2. Duals are too GOOD.
Well, we're playing Legacy so only the best will do. Yet, it is obvious that the duals break the design rules, and will (probably) never be matched in power level by newly printed lands again. Not even having to bother to look at multi-lands from new sets EVER again, is a seriously unfun prospect.

3. Duals are BROKEN.
This is the only conclusion I can arrive at when I factor in the fetchlands. Getting a black dual of a non-black fetchland is just a bit too rich for me. Besides if Wizards would print a non-fetchable dual with no drawbacks (already a designrule-breaker), that would STILL not be good enough for play. Given the power-level of the duals, a good case can be made that they belong in Vintage only.

4. Duals are EXPENSIVE.
Costly is inherently unfun. Not being able to play the deck you want to play, because you can't afford it, is seriously unfun. Not to mention playing inferior cards to make up for it. The argument that there are budget decks available, without duals, that can be succesful is inherently flawed. The reason being that there are more decks out there, WITH duals, to be succesful. A major part of the fun-aspect is being able to play different decks and experiment. More often than not, you need duals for that.

In short, duals are too ugly, too broken, and in too short supply to play for eternity.

I won't deny that you usually need expensive staples like FoW and Wasteland, but they are the cost of playing a certain strategy. Duals are the cost of playing Legacy. In my view, they are the stand-alone culprits that make Legacy less fun and prohibitive. The restrictions of a have-not deckbuilder are already severe as they are now, and the duals are nigh impossible to crack with powercreep, as other card-types, like creatures, have. With the duals gone, Wizards will have the design space needed to finally give us viable alternatives to shocklands etc. In the end, this design space would probably make them a lot of money as well, so be warned. Imho it would make Legacy much more appealing if we would actually have to put some real thought into our mana bases, could actually afford them, and play with *pretty* lands.

Wow! -snip- I have nothing against a heated, serious discussion of opposing point of views. But if anyone want to argue for serious actions in a format, and bannings are such a thing, should at least offer arguments on an acceptable niveau we can discuss. To say a Card should be banned because "I" simply WANT it (like you did) is far under the niveau people argued to this point.

First you want them banned because you feel the artwork is ugly? Personal taste, anyone? I ... wow ... seriously? This point ALONE ... I'm lost for words.

Your second argument contains the design rules of today and Cards printed in 1993. WotC is aware of that issue and tries to rebalance that by pushing the historical weak parts of magic (especially creatures) so they match the powerlevel of the older powerhouses (see the evolution of Zoo, Bant and Meerfolk as examples). The "Ban cards that don't fit todays design rules" would kill 60% of Legacy's viable cardpool in an instant. I can't either see, why the basic landtype of duals (fetchability) make them "broken" especially facing the banned cards in Legacy.

Bannings because of the price were already discussed here but you extend the argument that paying money is "unfun" and "unfun" is a reason to take outside actions. Maybe WotC should distribute booster for free etc. so cards don't cost a thing. Loosing is "unfun" too ... maybe we should eliminate the loose-conditions in the rules lol. Some people got mad about Jace, FoW, Power and even Go for the Throat's online prices. WotC can't ban cards because life's a bitch and some people can buy a CAW-Blade in a Single online order and others trade for months for a single Jace. This indeed sucks but this results in very subjective and emotional statements that are not a relyable base for discussion this thread already shows

@4eak: You are right ... this doesn't increase the niveau either. Sorry bothering ya

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

The point of a banning is to increase the amount of fun in a game, so to criticize the complaint of "it's unfun" seems nonsensical.

Any card should, to optimize enjoyment, be banned when the cost of doing so is less than the cost of keeping it around. However, there are significant costs to banning.

1) There's an emotional and mental toll on the player base. People bitch about any card being banned; it obsoletes testing and makes it obvious that its Wizards' and not the players' game. Hell, people bitched when Flash was banned, and that was the most obvious call since Tolarian Academy.

2) There's the financial cost; it destabilizes the market and hurts the value of collections. They've said they're reluctant to ban Jace in Standard in part because it represents a huge financial investment for every player that picked up a playset. With duals you'd be banning ten highly expensive cards all at once.

#1 is a larger factor here because no one in particular seems to actually feel that the duals are unfair, or at least that they ruin games. Honestly, I feel that if anything has to take the blame, I'd put it on fetchlands. For one life you get a dual-, tri-, quatro- or even pentaland that is often un-Wasteable when you want it to be, grows your Goyfs and Knights, shuffles your library after Tops and B-Storms, feeds Lavamancer and makes Nacatl stable, all while letting you build a three or four color deck capable of surviving Blood Moon. A ridiculous amount of the format is warped by the gravity of these cards, to the point where Stifle is one of the best LD spells.

Duals themselves are fairly tame by comparison. The problem with banning fetchlands would be that the number of duals and Wastelands played would go up.

#2 I think isn't as much of a factor as it might be. Duals won't drop to the floor if they're banned in Legacy; they're still widely played in EDH and Vintage, and this would be as good a sign as any that they're never being reprinted. I'd expect the value to drop to maybe half. Which, being honest, means that 95% of duals currently owned would still be worth more than the owners paid for them originally, unlike the case with Jace in Standard; Standard players also generally not having the depth of options due to their collection size to go play other formats. But it's still ten cards at once, so a significant hit.

The costs of banning duals are high then. So the cost of keeping them around has to be very high, but without reprints, I think that cost is the format entirely. Overextended doesn't have this particular problem.

[SpikeyMikey]

So Lemnear, if prices were 10 times what they currently were, you feel that would be acceptable? Because you're implying that price is a non-issue no matter what.

[Lemnear]

So Lemnear, if prices were 10 times what they currently were, you feel that would be acceptable? Because you're implying that price is a non-issue no matter what.

Who am I to judge the market? A card's only worth the money people are willing to pay for. I doubt a 1000$ Jace (your 10-times example) could (ever) exist unless there's some hyper-inflation. I'm not willing to defend my point on the base of your "that if" scenario ...

I wrote it already in this thread: Limited reprints (quantity) are ok with me as long as they adress the vanishing number of copies (got burned, thrown away, etc.) and the growing format, which will soften/negate the rising price of format staples. A banning because of the price would be the proof that WotC (especially development section) is unable to do their work. Moreover does your argument not only affect Legacy but all formats because being a major shift in format management terms.

The addition of the mythic rarity is therefore a clear statement from WotC for this topic.



P.S. Isn't a price increase a market indicator for formats growth?

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Who am I to judge the market? A card's only worth the money people are willing to pay for. I doubt a 1000$ Jace (your 10-times example) could (ever) exist unless there's some hyper-inflation. I'm not willing to defend my point on the base of your "that if" scenario ...

Then you concede the point. Reductio ad absurdum is a perfectly valid line of argument.


I wrote it already in this thread: Limited reprints (quantity) are ok with me as long as they adress the vanishing number of copies (got burned, thrown away, etc.) and the growing format, which will soften/negate the rising price of format staples. A banning because of the price would be the proof that WotC (especially development section) is unable to do their work. Moreover does your argument not only affect Legacy but all formats because being a major shift in format management terms.

Then we agree. I think the cost of reprints of staples is far less than the cost of banning or doing nothing.


The addition of the mythic rarity is therefore a clear statement from WotC for this topic.



P.S. Isn't a price increase a market indicator for formats growth?

It's nothing like so simple as that. Rising costs can also just indicate a bubble or simply vanishing supply. If supply is unavailable, this may have a long term effect on demand even after supply returns. Lots of new CCGs have this problem; they die because they're unable to meet an initial demand for more product or quality expansions, and then no one's interested anymore.

[Lemnear]

Using r.a.a. here is wrong to prove something. It won't change my point of view if Jace is too expensive or by far too expensive then we argue if this is a reason for a ban in general. Agree here?

P.S. Sure we agree; I had only argued (pages before) against the claim that everyone "deserves" their reprinted foil Duals for a buck or two.

[perm]

Economics graduate here, in the real world free market, there is no such thing as *too expensive* or *too cheap* outside of tastes or opinions that requires government action. But this is not the real world, it's a closed system that exists for the enjoyment of players. This means it is completely makes sense for wizards to ban cards for a pet group of people. That is, the people who play the game/format

And reductio ad absurdum makes complete sense here. Where do you draw the line of "too expensive?"'

It's like the question of people who consider a vanilla beater never bannable. Is a 20/20 for 1 too bannable if it were printed? Say wizards actually printed it because R&D was full of these geniuses that claim a vanilla beater cannot be game-breakingly overpowered.

So, it's the same question of price. If somehow duals became 300 dollars a piece, is that just too much, since duals can't be properly replace in a decklist? how about 3000? What is too much?

[Lemnear]

@perm

I don't believe the secondary market via eBay and pro traders could be called a closed system of WotC. WotC can influence the secondary market but the effect is still questionable. Wasteland was reprinted twice in mentionable numbers and it's still not a card I feel comfortable about selling it to 13year olds ... feels like a robbery.

Anyway, what is "too expensive"? If you have read this thread up to this point you'll aware that people claim to know that cards SHOULD cost this and that. That's not my point in any statement so far, so why do you ask me? You underlined my statement: "Who am I to make judgements about buyers and sellers?"

I don't think your 20/20 for 1 is a useful example; It would be a complete failure in design first; second, it violates design rules to be called "broke". I guess it would dominate all the formats and ended up being banned at whatever rarity it might be printed just being "broke" not being "expensive".

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

What if they gave it a drawback.

http://i.imgur.com/VjjVl.jpg

I mean Phyrexian Dreadnought's close to the same size and it has trample.

[perm]

MTG is of course a closed system, a secondary market doesn't make it less closed. What I mean by closed is that it is a system that follows its own set of rules, not the rules of the market. It is closed by WotC's god-power over it.

If it wasn't a closed system, if jace became too expensive, rival printers would print jaces to make a profit and bring the price of jace 2 down. Of course this is silly, because this is a trading card game that doesn't follow rules of an open system like that. It's a... closed system.

[perm]

MTG is of course a closed system, a secondary market doesn't make it less closed. What I mean by closed is that it is a system that follows its own set of rules, not the rules of the market. It is closed by WotC's god-power over it.

If it wasn't a closed system, if jace became too expensive, rival printers would print jaces to make a profit and bring the price of jace 2 down. Of course this is silly, because this is a trading card game that doesn't follow rules of an open system like that. It's a... closed system.

[Lemnear]

What if they gave it a drawback.

http://i.imgur.com/VjjVl.jpg

I mean Phyrexian Dreadnought's close to the same size and it has trample.

I would ban it because of the intimidating artwork XD

[Cthuloo]

I didn't follow the whole thread (I read a good part of it, though), so I'm sorry if the question has already been asked. Does anyone have a rough estimation of the number of Standard players in the world and of their trend of growth? I feel that the question of "what to do" it's a bit up in the air without some more concrete numbers. My idea was to use Standard as a maximum cap for Legacy: despite the growth of the format, I doubt it will ever surpass Type 2, and, in an "enough cards for everybody" scenario, the derivative of the #players/time should plateau roughly at the value it has for Standard. This can be used to make some estimations, like how many copies of Duals/FoW/Waste/Tabernacle have to be around to satisfy everybody who wants to play Legacy.
Remembering that this would be a sort of "worst case scenario" (or best, since there will be an enormous crowd playing legacy then), one could discuss with a more solid basis the various options (how many reprints and of which cards will be needed? how many cards should be banned? will an Overextended format of the same size still suffer price/availability problems?). If anybody has an idea how to provide some numbers, that would be great.

[RexFTW]

Uhhhh what about keep it a big boy format and keep the screaming children that cant afford a real deck at FNM?

[TheDarkshineKnight]

Uhhhh what about keep it a big boy format and keep the screaming children that cant afford a real deck at FNM?

Because then the format will die like Vintage did and that's a great thing, right?

[TheSleeper]

5th option: Keep printing new, well-designed cards that are Legacy playable and push out the need for 'older extreme-price staples'.

[dontbiteitholmes]

6th option...
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?20825-A-Sensible-Approach-To-Breaking-the-Reserved-List

[GexxX]

I personally think Legacy is the most fun Format I've ever seen and played in. I've had a little experience with vintage and I feel the power level of most Decks is too broken. Winning games off of topdecks makes you feel it's random (even though it often isn't). Legacy does not have many of those cards and they are not combined the way they are in Vintage. Many cards that are restricted in vintage are extremely powerful due to other restricted cards. For example mystical tutor is. Mystical can fetch up will, anc, demonic, tinker to name the most broken ones, BUT it can also find solutions, such as hurkyl's recall, chain of vapor, ancient grudge or many others.
Even though mystical is banned it does not find such broken cards! It's not played or was played in every Deck that runs legal targets as it's the case in Vintage.
What I am trying to say is that a card in Legacy can do extremely different than in Legacy. And that is mostly due to the power level. Legacy is slower, but I think it's more interactive and I guess that's what most of us enjoy(I personally like Storm and will allways have at least one combo deck). Newcomers to the format should have the opportunity to recognize how complex this format is and still have the option to play a viable deck!

I voted for #3!
My candidates of choice are: Force of Will, Wasteland, and Grim Tutor.

Wasteland and Force of Will:
They are freaking uncommon and cost $50!??! That's just ridiculous! (I've got a playset of both, but I still think it's insane!)

Grim Tutor:
I personally don't think this card is played as much as it should be. It's not even a part of testing for most people due to it's price and unavailability. I'd like to see it in a "A vs. B" Deck, just as demonic, because demonic is fancy, but to be honest useless unless you play at your kitchen table. The reason Grim Tutor goes for ~$150 is because it's not available. Is it played often? Is it too broken?! NO! - Is it safe to reprint, but not legalize in Standart? I think it sure is!

We need a healthy format and that means we need fresh blood from time to time. Having access to lets say 4 Duals(just for a start) and 4FoW and 4 Wasteland lets you play a variety of Decks to explore the format with(sometimes they are not even a must!). You should have some T2 cards though.

Merfolk, CounterbalanceTopTopter, Dredge, StifleNought/Dreadstill, ANT, TES, Goblins, Zoo, BWConfiControl and maybe Lands.

That makes a bunch of really cool control, combo and Aggro Decks.

You can not play all of them with the same four duals, but you can pick one and go find out how much you like or dislike Legacy.
Duals should never be reprinted, simply because I think we need something to still be a quite "exclusive" format.

Unless we do something against the prices of our beloved cards we'll be seeing the same people each tournament and they'll become less and less... Just as Vintage!

[TooCloseToTheSun]

I voted for #3!
My candidates of choice are: Force of Will, Wasteland, and Grim Tutor.


None of those cards are on the reserved list. Official Reserved List (http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=magic/products/reprintpolicy)

[DTC]

The price of legacy is getting crazy due to the few year old cards, but we have to evaluate the supply vs. demand.

Duals are expensive only because they ended their run in revised and fell to the reserved list rules at the time. Had duals ever made it to 4th edition, they may not have hit the reserved list due to policy and would be a fraction of the price they are now. At worst we'd be paying half their price.

Ebay is good for duals as they're much cheaper than retail. I commented on my local store selling a SP trop and NM tundra both at $100. If you go to tcgplayer these are more or less what the others vendors are selling them for. If you go to ebay though you can probably pick up either dual for $75-80 give or take.

A lot of vendors are probably having a hard time buying in duals to keep in stock, so the only way to do this is to compete with the rest of the circus and buy them on ebay (buying a trop on ebay for $75, then selling it in store for $100 is better than trying to get them at a dealer price and sell them at ebay prices and not being able to keep them in stock for your playerbase) and then overinflate the prices of duals. The prices are ridiculous from vendors but duals are so hard to get off anyone these days unless they're really played and the player upgraded to better condition ones, or the player is getting other duals out of the deal. Duals are gold standard cash machines now, dealers can buy them with confidence that they will sell for a profit even if they sat on them for 6 months and the price incrementally reaches what they want in the meantime.

We also have to factor in players with multiple legacy decks. Legacy is a format played by a lot of people who have gotten these cards over years, and often over a decade ago. You see people at legacy who started when ice age was new and the big thing, and you got others who started around 2000's with invasion block or something. These players have their playsets so what they go after is finishing decks without taking the other apart. Being a new legacy player (been playing about 8 months) i'm still swapping between decks the cards i need to, but older players who have 12 force of will and 3 blue decks probably don't feel like trading their extra playsets because they're in these decks and they don't want to switch 4 cards between the three every week they play a different deck. Most players with these collections are old enough to be financially stable with their income and don't need the cash they'd get selling a set either.

What this means is the supply dries up. If we lived in a perfect world where everyone wouldn't own more than 6-8 copies of a card (playset for decks, singleton for EDH and cubes if that's their thing, 0-2 for trade) unless they're a store then there would probably be enough supply to bring these down to reasonable (i use that term loosely, i think force's current price is reasonable given what it is) prices, but with some cards, especially old uncommons like forces, wastelands, etc it's not uncommon to find the old dogs hoarding at least 20 copies among their various decks, or some might be lost in their bulk boxes at home they never go through (after all, they have enough cards/decks, and no need to bulk/sell off their collections with any rush) and this makes less supply onto the market, which will eventually cause the speculated price hits that have been dicussed ($100+ forces for example).

Part of the reason why i buy collections from non-mtg folk as often as possible is to free up these old cards. If a guy played from ice age up to urza block he might still have 2 forces or 2 wastelands sitting in his boxes after all. In 1999 they were only worth $1 and $2 respectively. I know many active players who come across a tarmogoyf or two (and even 6) in their bulk rares that they tossed away after a future sight prerelease when that card was still considered a dollar bin rare, so its far from unlikely that people who quit the game still have these sitting in boxes unaware of what they're worth. Anyone who gets back into the game after a hiatus is always in disbelief when they find out what those were worth, some kicking themselves because they sold off their collections and realize what some cards will cost to get back now.

I'm not sure what the deal is with vials and tops other than demand. I know both were higher than the average uncommons in their heydays already, but these sets seem way too recent for the cards to be worth so much, and this is what makes me worry more about what i was talking about earlier. Legacy has exploded in popularity and there are thousands of people playing it regularly, and even more semi-regular. It could potentially price itself into oblivion. Wizards doesn't want to flat out reprint everything as it will cause backlash (and eternal customers have higher loyalty to the brand as most have been playing and buying product for years now) but if they want to keep a reasonably priced eternal format to exist in the next few years they'll have to consider potential anthology sets that aren't standard legal. Times and the tcg industry has changed a lot since chronicles came out (one of the prime offenders that made them do a reserved list after all) and since they ceased to reserve cards from mercadian masques onwards, they can reprint many of those to keep some reasonable (tops, vials, for example) but not print every format staple to leave them as chase cards and keep the money rolling and legacy fairly priced.

Here's an example of a rare/mythic sheet with this approach:

Mythics (20):
Akroma, Angel of Wrath (new art, or DvD art)
Force of Will
Mana Crypt (will be as much a chase mythic as force of will)
Umezawa's Jitte
Sol Ring (not legacy legal, but due for a reprint, perhaps FTV art or alternate art)
Various legendary cards from pre-mythic days

Rares (70):
An example of 7 chase rares for the set
Aether Vial
Arcbound Ravager
Berserk
Dark Confidant
Mutavault
Pernicious Deed
Sensei's Divining Top

This could then include the 10 ravnica duals as well, and other random low end rares that are popular in legacy, or were popular during their runs in standard for the nostalgia factor (Even if they're bulk now...a set with 100% legacy staples would cripple the secondary market)


With the next set they can reprint wasteland as a rare to sell the boxes out, as well as things like fetchlands. They can make a theme and add popular nonbasics as well like urborg, tomb of yawgmoth, kor haven, tolaria west, vesuva, etc. After all, need something to use that wasteland on right? ;)

These sets would reprint some stuff we've seen a ton already like Lord of Atlantis, Goblin King, Elvish Champion and other tribal lords to bring them back.
With uncommons we can see a lot of the more utility staples that aren't worth a bunch, as well as kickback to popular standard commons uncommons.


You can open a pack like:
Mogg Fanatic (common)
Gerrard's Verdict (common)
Counterspell (common)
Frogmite (common)
Terror (common)
Flametongue Kavu (common)
Terminate (common)
Harrow (common)
Sakura Tribe-Elder (common)
Aura Shards (common)
Ebony Owl Netsuke (uncommon)
Sterling Grove (uncommon)
Hypnotic Specter (uncommon)
Horizon Canopy (rare)

It would help a lot more players get into legacy, and the cards that will get hit hardest are the incremental ones that trade for $5 or less. The downside to those is that price, as it would make trading them up to chase cards $15+ a lot more difficult.

I guess this can be helped by doing only a single print run on these similar to a small expansion or less. The cards would then dip but eventually stabilize again, and it would introduce enough supply to bring down some prices for a while. It's a slippery slope with reprints though and there's as many cons to it on the secondary market as there is pros so they would have to be very selective with reprinting and exactly how many cards worth $5+ they really want to bring into circulation. The larger the card, the bigger the fall so players who just bought a wasteland the day before it became reprinted will be more verbal than the guy who buys counterbalance for $8 and sees it drop to $4 with a reprint.