B.C.
05-10-2011, 01:28 AM
We are just a few weeks away from Grand Prix Providence, which will undoubtedly be the biggest Eternal MTG event on US soil in 2011, so I feel like this is a good enough time to discuss what SHOULD be the biggest yearly Eternal MTG event on US soil… or even… the WOOOORLD. Of course I am talking about the Magic: The Gathering Vintage Championship and Magic: The Gathering Legacy Championship that occur on consecutive days every year (or almost every year) at Gencon Indianapolis (August 4-7, 2011). I’m not sure how long these tournaments have been taking place, and frankly I don’t have the energy to find out. I DO know that 2011 will be the year that the 9th of the Power 9 paintings is given away as the first prize for the Vintage Champs (Time Walk!), so let’s say it’s been at least 9 years.
The fact that these events are called “Championships” is really only because that’s what Wizards decided to call them. In truth, they aren’t really considered championships by most people, primarily because they are not very well attended at all. The Vintage tournament usually draws around 120 people, while Legacy draws 160 or so. Compare this to Legacy Grand Prix events, which regularly draw over 1000 participants. The Vintage and Legacy Champs tournaments draw most of the established Eternal players from the Midwest, because that’s where the tournaments occur. Some people make the trip from the East Coast, but very few players from the West Coast make the trip, and even fewer international players attend. Why don’t people attend these tournaments? More importantly, what can Wizards of the Coast do to make these tournaments more important and better attended?
First let me discuss what Vintage/Legacy Champs is doing right. I remember the first time I went to Gencon. It was August 2005, I was living in St. Louis, I had just started playing competitive Vintage a few months prior, and I had never actually played Legacy before. In fact, not many people had. The format was introduced less than a year before (September 1, 2004). Gencon was just about the coolest thing I had ever seen. So many fellow nerds, so so so many things to do. I won’t get into the details of what Gencon is like, but I highly recommend going at least once. I doubt that you will be disappointed. Anyway, I was there to play Vintage, and as long as I was there I thought I would go ahead and try this thing they were calling “Legacy”. That brings up the first thing that I think they are doing right. The Vintage and Legacy formats are the Eternal formats. They are intimately entwined. The Championships should never be uncoupled. The one time they were (2008), Vintage Champs was moved from Gencon to Worlds in Chicago. I think this probably hurt both events, if not with attendance, than with the missing crossover between diehard Legacy and Vintage players.
Some people may disagree with the second thing I think they’re doing right, which is sanctioned, 0 proxy events. This is, of course, less of a big deal for Legacy, in which the cards are (supposed to be) cheaper than Vintage cards. But I love sanctioned Vintage. If you live in the US, you undoubtedly have very few chances to play it. My first few Gencons I had to beg and borrow and beg some more in order to find enough Power cards to field a respectable deck, but I did it. I got to throw around real Moxen against other people throwing around real Moxen. It was awesome. It was real. And frankly, since this is the Magic: The Gathering Vintage Championship, there’s really no other way to do it.
But back to what I think they could improve. In no particular order, here are 3 suggestions that I think would make the Champs events huge:
1. Give out prizes that people actually want.
This is the first and most important step that has to happen in order to draw players to the Champs. As I previously mentioned, Vintage Champs gives away original paintings of Power 9 cards to the winner. It’s hard to tell how much these paintings are worth, since they are original and unique, but it’s probably a few thousand bucks. Legacy Champs usually gives away a full set of 40x Revised dual lands. Based on current SCG prices, this is worth around $3,000. Not so bad. But what about the non-winners? Getting 2nd place in one of these tournaments is a respectable finish. What does that guy get? What about 3-32? Well, they usually get some combination of booster packs. I think last year they were giving away some combination of Italian Legends, Revised, and Portal 3 Kingdoms packs, maybe with some Zendikar or some other bullshit thrown in. Frankly, that’s a little disappointing. Obviously, this makes both tournaments extremely top heavy, which is unique among Magic Premier Events. Grand Prix and Pro Tour payouts are much better, first of all, and much much more distributed.
So if they aren’t going to give away the paintings or the dual lands, what should they give away? Well, that’s a good question. In one way, I really like the uniqueness of the Vintage painting, and in another way I really like the playability of the dual lands. Couldn’t those two be combined in some way? Couldn’t they find a way to do that? I think you see where I’m going with this. In my opinion, it would be really awesome if they gave away tournament legal promotional (foil probably) versions of Vintage and Legacy staples to the top 8 or 16. How awesome would that be? Let’s say, for example, that this year they give away foil promo Mana Drains to the top 16 of the Vintage Champs in addition to the other pack prizes. How many people would show up for those? Probably quite a few. What would it cost Wizards to print these promo cards? I don’t know anything about the card printing process, but it can’t be that much. What would they be worth to players? Potentially thousands. I see no downside. They could even make an extra special foil promo card for the winner, just so he feels like he got something special. And please, don’t feed me some bullshit about the Reserved List. They make the policy, they can change it. Wizards could also easily give out Pro Points for the two tournaments. That would definitely help attract some people. I’m not sure how those things work, having never earned one, but I don’t think they’re a limited commodity.
2. Make the Championships the main attraction.
One of the great things about Gencon is that there is always something to do. The bad thing about this, is that there are usually several events that conflict with the Legacy and Vintage Champs. For example, last year the Midwest Master’s Series tournament was on Saturday, the same day as the Legacy Champs. I know of several established Legacy players that skipped the Champs event for the Master’s Event. This year, Gencon will host the 2011 US National Championship, which will also likely leach away a few players (although it’s possible it might bring in some players too, we’ll see). This is why I believe the Champs events absolutely have to be the main event, with no other major tournaments happening in parallel. Currently, there are two weekends a year in which Legacy is the main event (GP Providence and GP Amsterdam this year), and no weekends in which Vintage is the main event. I don’t think this is too much to ask.
Unfortunately, making Vintage/Legacy Champs the main event most likely involves moving them away from Gencon. As I mentioned before, I love Gencon, and it would truly make me sad if the Champs events were separated, but it might have to happen, just to isolate them from the other tournaments that happen at Gencon. This would also have the added benefit of lowering the entry fee to the tournaments. A pass to Gencon is something like $75, plus another $20 or so for each of the tournaments. Much more than other tournaments, even if they do include all the other cool Gencon shit. Instead, if they created the Legacy and Vintage Championship Weekend, where I could potentially win a playable foil promo Bazaar of Baghdad if I made top 8, that would just be the awesomest. This would also be a good opportunity to move the tournament around the country, which would also get local player bases interested other than those in and around Indianapolis.
3. Create a series of Grand Prix-style trials, and award byes based on Composite and/or Eternal rating.
There’s currently not much of a system of prelims or qualifiers or trials leading up to the Vintage/Legacy Champs. There’s a prelim at Gencon the day before each tournament, in which the winner wins 2 rounds of byes for the tournament the next day. As far as I know, that’s it. In contrast to this, every Grand Prix features dozens of trials around the country in the months leading up to the tournament. If Vintage and Legacy Champs had a similar trials system leading up to the tournament, it might get people interested, and maybe get a few people to go to the tournament who otherwise wouldn’t have.
Wizards could also offer byes to the Champs events based on rating. This could either be Composite rating, which would get pro players interested, and/or it could be based on the previously useless Eternal Rating, which would reward those of us who have been playing Eternal for a while and done well.
In conclusion, I think the Legacy and Vintage Championships should be huge. They should be important to everyone who cares anything about either format, and they should bring in hundreds or even thousands of participants. There is no excuse for the “Championships” of these formats that Wizards cares so much about to languish in mediocrity and obscurity. They should do better.
The fact that these events are called “Championships” is really only because that’s what Wizards decided to call them. In truth, they aren’t really considered championships by most people, primarily because they are not very well attended at all. The Vintage tournament usually draws around 120 people, while Legacy draws 160 or so. Compare this to Legacy Grand Prix events, which regularly draw over 1000 participants. The Vintage and Legacy Champs tournaments draw most of the established Eternal players from the Midwest, because that’s where the tournaments occur. Some people make the trip from the East Coast, but very few players from the West Coast make the trip, and even fewer international players attend. Why don’t people attend these tournaments? More importantly, what can Wizards of the Coast do to make these tournaments more important and better attended?
First let me discuss what Vintage/Legacy Champs is doing right. I remember the first time I went to Gencon. It was August 2005, I was living in St. Louis, I had just started playing competitive Vintage a few months prior, and I had never actually played Legacy before. In fact, not many people had. The format was introduced less than a year before (September 1, 2004). Gencon was just about the coolest thing I had ever seen. So many fellow nerds, so so so many things to do. I won’t get into the details of what Gencon is like, but I highly recommend going at least once. I doubt that you will be disappointed. Anyway, I was there to play Vintage, and as long as I was there I thought I would go ahead and try this thing they were calling “Legacy”. That brings up the first thing that I think they are doing right. The Vintage and Legacy formats are the Eternal formats. They are intimately entwined. The Championships should never be uncoupled. The one time they were (2008), Vintage Champs was moved from Gencon to Worlds in Chicago. I think this probably hurt both events, if not with attendance, than with the missing crossover between diehard Legacy and Vintage players.
Some people may disagree with the second thing I think they’re doing right, which is sanctioned, 0 proxy events. This is, of course, less of a big deal for Legacy, in which the cards are (supposed to be) cheaper than Vintage cards. But I love sanctioned Vintage. If you live in the US, you undoubtedly have very few chances to play it. My first few Gencons I had to beg and borrow and beg some more in order to find enough Power cards to field a respectable deck, but I did it. I got to throw around real Moxen against other people throwing around real Moxen. It was awesome. It was real. And frankly, since this is the Magic: The Gathering Vintage Championship, there’s really no other way to do it.
But back to what I think they could improve. In no particular order, here are 3 suggestions that I think would make the Champs events huge:
1. Give out prizes that people actually want.
This is the first and most important step that has to happen in order to draw players to the Champs. As I previously mentioned, Vintage Champs gives away original paintings of Power 9 cards to the winner. It’s hard to tell how much these paintings are worth, since they are original and unique, but it’s probably a few thousand bucks. Legacy Champs usually gives away a full set of 40x Revised dual lands. Based on current SCG prices, this is worth around $3,000. Not so bad. But what about the non-winners? Getting 2nd place in one of these tournaments is a respectable finish. What does that guy get? What about 3-32? Well, they usually get some combination of booster packs. I think last year they were giving away some combination of Italian Legends, Revised, and Portal 3 Kingdoms packs, maybe with some Zendikar or some other bullshit thrown in. Frankly, that’s a little disappointing. Obviously, this makes both tournaments extremely top heavy, which is unique among Magic Premier Events. Grand Prix and Pro Tour payouts are much better, first of all, and much much more distributed.
So if they aren’t going to give away the paintings or the dual lands, what should they give away? Well, that’s a good question. In one way, I really like the uniqueness of the Vintage painting, and in another way I really like the playability of the dual lands. Couldn’t those two be combined in some way? Couldn’t they find a way to do that? I think you see where I’m going with this. In my opinion, it would be really awesome if they gave away tournament legal promotional (foil probably) versions of Vintage and Legacy staples to the top 8 or 16. How awesome would that be? Let’s say, for example, that this year they give away foil promo Mana Drains to the top 16 of the Vintage Champs in addition to the other pack prizes. How many people would show up for those? Probably quite a few. What would it cost Wizards to print these promo cards? I don’t know anything about the card printing process, but it can’t be that much. What would they be worth to players? Potentially thousands. I see no downside. They could even make an extra special foil promo card for the winner, just so he feels like he got something special. And please, don’t feed me some bullshit about the Reserved List. They make the policy, they can change it. Wizards could also easily give out Pro Points for the two tournaments. That would definitely help attract some people. I’m not sure how those things work, having never earned one, but I don’t think they’re a limited commodity.
2. Make the Championships the main attraction.
One of the great things about Gencon is that there is always something to do. The bad thing about this, is that there are usually several events that conflict with the Legacy and Vintage Champs. For example, last year the Midwest Master’s Series tournament was on Saturday, the same day as the Legacy Champs. I know of several established Legacy players that skipped the Champs event for the Master’s Event. This year, Gencon will host the 2011 US National Championship, which will also likely leach away a few players (although it’s possible it might bring in some players too, we’ll see). This is why I believe the Champs events absolutely have to be the main event, with no other major tournaments happening in parallel. Currently, there are two weekends a year in which Legacy is the main event (GP Providence and GP Amsterdam this year), and no weekends in which Vintage is the main event. I don’t think this is too much to ask.
Unfortunately, making Vintage/Legacy Champs the main event most likely involves moving them away from Gencon. As I mentioned before, I love Gencon, and it would truly make me sad if the Champs events were separated, but it might have to happen, just to isolate them from the other tournaments that happen at Gencon. This would also have the added benefit of lowering the entry fee to the tournaments. A pass to Gencon is something like $75, plus another $20 or so for each of the tournaments. Much more than other tournaments, even if they do include all the other cool Gencon shit. Instead, if they created the Legacy and Vintage Championship Weekend, where I could potentially win a playable foil promo Bazaar of Baghdad if I made top 8, that would just be the awesomest. This would also be a good opportunity to move the tournament around the country, which would also get local player bases interested other than those in and around Indianapolis.
3. Create a series of Grand Prix-style trials, and award byes based on Composite and/or Eternal rating.
There’s currently not much of a system of prelims or qualifiers or trials leading up to the Vintage/Legacy Champs. There’s a prelim at Gencon the day before each tournament, in which the winner wins 2 rounds of byes for the tournament the next day. As far as I know, that’s it. In contrast to this, every Grand Prix features dozens of trials around the country in the months leading up to the tournament. If Vintage and Legacy Champs had a similar trials system leading up to the tournament, it might get people interested, and maybe get a few people to go to the tournament who otherwise wouldn’t have.
Wizards could also offer byes to the Champs events based on rating. This could either be Composite rating, which would get pro players interested, and/or it could be based on the previously useless Eternal Rating, which would reward those of us who have been playing Eternal for a while and done well.
In conclusion, I think the Legacy and Vintage Championships should be huge. They should be important to everyone who cares anything about either format, and they should bring in hundreds or even thousands of participants. There is no excuse for the “Championships” of these formats that Wizards cares so much about to languish in mediocrity and obscurity. They should do better.