The downfall of Legacy

[Einherjer]

As we do not have any hot-topic to be discussed right now let me bring this one up.

We all know how lively the Vintage-format is. More or less nonextistent. Why? We all know the whiner's arguments - high entrace-prices, few tournaments, nothing for beginners. We've all accepted it.

Some claim that this will happen to Legacy too! And that Modern is the new Legacy. Prices for Legacy-staples have been rising throughout the last years, not many new player do take Legacy as their first format.


Do we have to fear the same tragic end of Vintage? Are there arguments that it will not happen like this? Why / Why not? When will this happen?

Discuss!

Greetings

[Koby]

IDK where you're getting these populist ideas from, but they aren't backed by fact. Examine Eternal attendance at BOM year over year. Examine Eternal attendance at GenCon champs, year over year. Examine Legacy attendance at SCG Opens, week over week. If anything, Legacy is going to start to feel pressure from card scarcity than from it stagnating.

With regards to card scarcity, yes increasing costs to buy duals / reserve list is worrisome. However, reserve list cards is about the only segment of the Legacy staples pool that is at risk. Fortunately, the marketplace has a mechanism to provide negative feedback to upward pressure. As scarcity and supply dwindle, and prices start to climb higher, more people with liquid-able copies push them into the market to get their rake. This increases supply and buffers the inflation. Furthermore, supply is not an issue at this point - I can within 1 minute find at least 30 copies of any given card legal in Legacy.

Legacy has never been the "beginner's" format. Many people, myself included, became disenchanted with Standard's quick turnover and decided that some of the cards that are rotating are more fun to play with than to buy into the new Standard. Hence, Legacy is adopted fairly easily. More to the point, the cards that are good in Legacy have less fluctuations in pricing than Standard staples.

Even at the local level, a group of Legacy players have successfully converted "Standard Only" players to dropping the always-changing Standard format to Legacy where they can build and play more interesting and fun decks. The support for Legacy at the local level is oftentimes more friendly and "deeper pockets" with lending out complete decks than Standard.

Legacy is fine, and growing at a healthy rate. Concern about price of staples is in line with concern about the cost of Mythics in Standard (Bonfire of the Damned). No one likes it, but it's part of the game. Not everyone will be able to afford the latest and greatest.

[Mr Miagi]

Honestly? As far as legacy is concerned it will be "saved" (not really sure if the term is right) by the appearance of really high quality fakes. And I do mean omg you need to have a jewlers loop and still hard to see, fakes. Afterall MtG is a cardboard game.
After this massflooding, well, it's kind of hard to predict what way will the MtG take.

edit: the end is nigh! /end of drama

[nedleeds]

I'd be more concerned with the format being a repetitive piece of monotonous shit before I'd consider card cost and scarcity to be a problem. I don't even follow the SCGs week to week anymore because the matches, decks and play is just the same shit

RUG
RUG
Griselbrand
UW
Mav
RUG
Mav

There's nothing particularly interesting happening. Even at the local level the Wednesday weekly had stagnated from 25-30 to 15-20. Losing the die roll, having your opponent plop a Delver, natty flip him and then counter everything relevant is about as exciting as getting AIDS from a rhino. I think some people are just fatigued.

[csy]

Just because (format) doesn't have a large event in (your location) as often as it does in (other location) doesnt meant (format) is declining. And just because (dollar amount) is a lot of money to some people doesnt mean (dollar amount) is a lot to others.

scarcity is FARRRRRR From an issue as I see it. Costs aside I can personally travel to any given number of local stores and get any copy of any card I want. Im talking about staples. Not some random crimped foreign foil. And I've heard that on the internet there is a large amount of people selling things in public areas. It sounded crazy to me too.

[csy]

I'd be more concerned with the format being a repetitive piece of monotonous shit before I'd consider card cost and scarcity to be a problem. I don't even follow the SCGs week to week anymore because the matches, decks and play is just the same shit

RUG
RUG
Griselbrand
UW
Mav
RUG
Mav

There's nothing particularly interesting happening. Even at the local level the Wednesday weekly had stagnated from 25-30 to 15-20. Losing the die roll, having your opponent plop a Delver, natty flip him and then counter everything relevant is about as exciting as getting AIDS from a rhino. I think some people are just fatigued.


yeah I know Id much rather watch delver in standard, or delver in modern any day.

[Koby]

yeah I know Id much rather watch delver in standard, or delver in modern any day.

Or Delver in Vintage. Delver in every format in fact. Including Limited.

[Linqed]

Losing the die roll, having your opponent plop a Delver, natty flip him and then counter everything relevant is about as exciting as getting AIDS from a rhino. I think some people are just fatigued.

Delver has a way of making every format it's played in more boring... Standard is more boring than I ever experienced it (CawBlade was (a lot) more fun, no jokes). Modern, a super awesome format, is getting ruined by the UWR Delver decks and I would trade a kidney or 2 to see RUG Delver gone from Legacy. Every deck Delver is played in, is an annoying deck to be on the other side of. And, I think, every format would be better without it.

[nedleeds]

Scarcity definitely isn't the issue in Atlanta. There's a free $100 weekly that used to draw north of 30 pretty consistently ... there are people sitting at home with all the cards to play and just don't feel like making it out for whatever reason. But the reason isn't card availability.

[Koby]

Scarcity definitely isn't the issue in Atlanta. There's a free $100 weekly that used to draw north of 30 pretty consistently ... there are people sitting at home with all the cards to play and just don't feel like making it out for whatever reason. But the reason isn't card availability.

Is this a seasonal phenomenon? Are people normally not playing MTG during the summer months?
Is this a metagame phenomenon? Are people not playing right now due to the format being "solved"?
Is this a card availability concern? Are people locked into their decks with not much room to change?
Is there an external factor (like a shitty economy), that is forcing people to re-prioritize their expenditures?

I even doubt its a singular issue at that.

[nedleeds]

Is this a seasonal phenomenon? Are people normally not playing MTG during the summer months?
Is this a metagame phenomenon? Are people not playing right now due to the format being "solved"?
Is this a card availability concern? Are people locked into their decks with not much room to change?
Is there an external factor (like a shitty economy), that is forcing people to re-prioritize their expenditures?

I even doubt its a singular issue at that.

It could be one or all of the above. Summer is usually offset by people being home for summer break and pre-college age turds being able to come out on school nights with the people leaving the area to go home for summer break.

The format is just stale. A few people bring interactive interesting decks then it's just a pile of U/r delver, RUG delver, Maverick, U/W miracle. The xeroxed decks are just so tuned the pilot can just drive the fucking deck right into the ground and still win.

I had a Mox Diamond Force of Willed last week .... pitching the one card I had no hope of beating - Jace, the Mind Sculpter. He Brainstormed at awkward times and just stumbled and miracled his way to victory. It's miserable at times but whatever, it's cyclical; I'll try to stop being a vagina and continue showing up with decks filled with cards that either interest me or that have value if I lose then meh if I win then more power to me for Firestorming with Land Tax.

[Machahiko]

I got to say that I'm as well disappointed that Delver was printed. Not only are flip cards stupid as shit, what was the logic behind printing a flying wild nacatl with evasion. Really - what were they thinking? Even with the boring as hell Delver battles, legacy is still the most interesting format to watch and getting to see a huge variety of decks being played is really fun. I believe legacy will keep on rocking and living as long as I enjoy playing it. If I enjoy playing legacy, I believe all the friends that I've made during these years will continue to enjoy playing and keep on doing so.

I'm still pissed off that Wizards is treating legacy players like dogshit in the ditch - or their customers in general. But don't worry, there's a plenty of planeswalker points and ACHIEVEMENTS to go around!

[JDK]

It seems like you are starting such threads to becalm yourself...

[rockout]

I remember someone tried to bring this up a few years ago before the starcitygames of the world said, "Hey we can make a shitload of money here!" What happened to the person who said legacy was doomed? He sold his collection and is now trolling this site looking at prices being 2-3 times what they were when he quit and crying himself to sleep over how much more money he could have made if he stuck it out that much longer.

[Tormod]

Hello,

A little background, I live in Toronto, Ontario. The GTA (Greater Toronto Area) has a respectable Legacy scene. I go to Wednesday night Legacy once a week. We get about 12 players each week, the numbers have gone as high as 20. That may not seem like much but by comparison in the winter, Legacy was non-existant.

On the weekends there are 4-6 events over the course of a month. These weekend tournaments draw 24+ numbers as high as 40+ players. Prizes usually usually power or store credit.

At my local store I see new Legacy players often. The meta-game of my store is varied, there is am strong combo presence and some dedicated combo players (painter's servant, cheerios, helm of obedience, storm) . There are a couple of prison deck players. There is some RUG threshold but it tends not to do well at the store because of counter balance and chalice of the void. Anyone who follows Legacy knows the bad guys of the format (Maverick, RUG, Stoneblade, and now Miracles) we have those too, but we have a number of rogue decks that each have done well on a given day.

I follow SCG on Sundays, but I can say that in my opinion the meta has never been solved, there have always been popular decks. With the number of new players to the format its far easier to pick up a deck than to have an encyclopaedia of the 12,000+ Legacy legal cards and brew one yourself. I would even argue that one would need to experience Legacy for a good year before having the skill set to brew a decent deck for the format.

Legacy is getting more popular in my area, than diminishing

[lordofthepit]

Two separate issues in this thread are 1) popularity of Legacy and 2) diversity/balance/health of the format.

Popularity

Legacy has never been more popular overall. It has never been easier to play Legacy on the largest scales, as evidenced by four GPs in 2012, almost weekly Star City Games Opens, and four SCG Invitationals. Moreover, Star City Games has re-upped its commitment to Legacy by not only announcing it for the remainder of 2012, by increasing the prize pool to $10k per Open and $75k per Invitational (which are unfortunately half-Standard). Other large stores across the United States such as Jupiter Games and Knightware are holding frequent events as well. Locally, at least in the Pacific Northwest, there have never been more options for Legacy events. Unfortunately, I have no idea how frequent events are in other places such as Europe, but I imagine support is at least as strong since Legacy attendance at GPs is even higher in Europe than in the United States.

Legacy is also doing extremely well from an attendance perspective. Legacy GPs continue to be the most well-attended of any type (with the exception of a disappointing showing in GP Atlanta). The most recent Bazaar of Moxen Legacy event had the highest tournament attendance of any non-Wizards sponsored event. The most attended Wizards GPs were Legacy format. And the most recent SCG Legacy Open in DC was the most popular Legacy event in SCG history.

Unfortunately, as a result of the popularity, prices have gotten very high and the barrier to entry into the format for the top-tier decks is significantly higher than it once was. People are conflating high prices with the death of the format, but rather, it is indicative of the popularity of the format.

Those who predict that the format may die often point to Modern, saying that as a cheaper format better supported by Wizards, it will detract from Legacy's popularity much as Legacy did to Vintage many years ago. However, there were many factors in the gradual decline of Vintage, most of which don't apply to Legacy. Moreover, one could easily make a similar statement that Legacy will outlast Modern, which will become a dead format, much as Legacy rendered Extended obsolete, despite the fact that Extended received more support from Wizards than did Legacy. However, more likely, both formats will likely flourish on their own merits, catering to different playerbases. (Personally, since I have no desire to compete in PTQs or whatever and the existing cardpool in Modern is very limited and weak, it does not appeal to me at all, but others certainly may feel differently.)

Diversity

Legacy allows for more diversity of decks and archetypes than any other format in history. Moreover, since I started following Legacy in 2009, this is as healthy as it has ever been, with the exception of the period after the banning of Survival of the Fittest and before the printing of Mental Misstep. Contrast that with 2009, when Legacy was essentially dominated by Countertop strategies; or in late 2010, when Survival strategies ran amok; or in late 2011, when Mental Misstep rendered the format a NO RUG vs. Stoneblade one, with a brief blip from Hive Mind.

Here are a list of decks that have finished in the Top 2 of a large (150+ participants) Legacy event since Innistrad was released:
- Merfolk
- Canadian Threshold
- Blade Control (including several different splashes)
- Maverick
- Ad Nauseam-based combo (several types)
- Combo Elves
- Miracle Control
- Dredge
- Belcher
- Lands
- Goblins
- Reanimator
- MUD
- Sneak Attack
- The Rock
- Aggro Loam
- Nic Fit
- High Tide
- Team America
- Infect
- Bant
- Burn
- Past in Flames combo
- Zoo
- U/R Delver
- RUG Countertop with Punishing Fires
- BUG Control
- Stiflenought
- NO Bant
- Not to mention Trolls.dec winning SCG Sacramento since that fell short of the 150 player cutoff.

What format can claim fucking 30 different archetypes, let alone 30 that have won or finished in the finals of large tournaments, since Innistrad was released? A random pile like Sam Black's Zombie Bombardment top 8'ing a GP? And this excludes quite a few other decks such as U/R Painter, Landstill, NO RUG, Hive Mind, Imperial Painter, etc. that barely miss the date cutoff. There are at least a dozen decks that I would consider Tier 1 or 1.5 in this format. I don't know how anyone can claim that the format isn't healthy.

[Chikenbok]

So after my huge post regarding what was just covered (mostly) by Lordofthepit was deleted by a 'database error', I'd just like to also add that it seems, popularity wise, Legacy has not only been growing nation-wide, but also locally in many places - at my LGS, the legacy community has become and is continuing to become more and more popular and diverse. People are moving into legacy from standard and advocating more and more legacy events at stores throughout NY.

Friggen internet... my last post was a lot better than this one..

[Pippin]

Certainly interesting topic.

I'd say that Legacy popularity being tied to financial concerns is more valid in a less wealthy area than lets say something like USA.
I'll give you an example of my country - Croatia, which is placed between central and southeastern Europe - for those that don't know.

Anyway, during the Legacy height and the time SCG announced their Open series we had quite a few small regional Legacy hotspots and a bi-monthly national tournament that brought in between 40 and 55 players. This was quite good for a country of 4.5 million people.
Fast forward few years to this point in time and the result is the following:
- prices of staples exploded
- no more regional small Legacy tournaments, most of people cashed out and only few enthusiasts remain.
- that bi-monthly tournament got a bit more rare (meaning irregular) and now draws between 25 and 30 people.

I find this normal however. The cards didn't get lost, they just exchanged hands - from a low income non-EU country to western ones. It does suck for us locals, but in the grand scheme it doesn't mean legacy is getting unpopular. Quite the contrary.

[Fenrus]

Scarcity definitely isn't the issue in Atlanta. There's a free $100 weekly that used to draw north of 30 pretty consistently ... there are people sitting at home with all the cards to play and just don't feel like making it out for whatever reason. But the reason isn't card availability.

Have a friend trying to get into legacy that is moving about half an hour south of Atlanta, Georgia. What shop does this take place at so I can let him know?

[socialite]

Vintage is dead, long live Vintage.

[Arianrhod]

Vintage is dead, long live Vintage.

Vintage lies dead dreaming. Vintage f'taghn.

Also, everyone knows that someday the reserve list is going to implode on itself one way or the other...we know it, Wizards knows it. The only question is what they're going to do about it. I think we've got a while, though -- one of the nice things about the rise of the Standard Mythic is that dealers buy them for fairly serious $. As a result, standard players (and legacy players who derp with standard because standard players are largely durdles -> free packs) can trade in those mythics are fairly reasonable rates as a means to break into legacy. I'm not sure that the price of standard mythics is keeping up with the inflation rate in legacy staples (something tells me no), but it's not increasing at such a wild rate comparatively speaking.

[Lt. Quattro]

Honestly? As far as legacy is concerned it will be "saved" (not really sure if the term is right) by the appearance of really high quality fakes. And I do mean omg you need to have a jewlers loop and still hard to see, fakes. Afterall MtG is a cardboard game.
After this massflooding, well, it's kind of hard to predict what way will the MtG take.

edit: the end is nigh! /end of drama

I agree that certain cards prices and printer technology will increase to a point where high quality fakes will become a nice revenue stream for who ever is printing them.

I also hope that wizards/hasbro will others making money off their IP and print the reserved list cards themselves.

[Rainbow Maker]

In my experience a big part of people being uninterested in legacy is that people believe you just die on turn 1. I have argued, talked and even shown people that is can be a slow format, but they already have their mind made up believing that Legacy is strictly made up on broken turn 1 combo decks that win on turn 1 all the time.

[SaberTooth]

In my experience a big part of people being uninterested in legacy is that people believe you just die on turn 1. I have argued, talked and even shown people that is can be a slow format, but they already have their mind made up believing that Legacy is strictly made up on broken turn 1 combo decks that win on turn 1 all the time.

vintage what? XD

[Esper3k]

In my experience a big part of people being uninterested in legacy is that people believe you just die on turn 1. I have argued, talked and even shown people that is can be a slow format, but they already have their mind made up believing that Legacy is strictly made up on broken turn 1 combo decks that win on turn 1 all the time.

I've run into this as well. A large part I think is educating those people. Explain to them that while yes, we have very powerful fast cards, disruption (Force of Will, Thoughtseize, etc.) is also extremely powerful.

I also point out that the most popular decks in the American meta are not combo at all (RUG, Maverick, Stoneblade, Merfolk on the uptick).

[dahcmai]

I guess I'm fairly alone at the other side of the spectrum. I don't think Legacy is dying, far from it, but I do think it is balancing on a tightrope.


Modern is the sleeping elephant in the room. If that format actually ever becomes fun, Legacy might finally start hurting.

Legacy feels like Vintage to me back when Vintage was the best thing to play period. Before Legacy was really Legacy and more of a banned list consisting of all the restricted stuff. It was an ok format back then, but Vintage was awesome.

Legacy is starting to feel like that when the moxes started getting kind of silly prices. When they broke that $100 mark, it started getting tricky. When they hit $200, people started getting out. The duals are the lynchpin of Legacy and no one will dispute that. They are the moxes of Legacy. The fact that they are gaining ground so quickly is annoying.

Luckily, there are far more duals than moxes. You have to admit, that if you played vintage back before the fall, Legacy feels a lot like that now. It will hold up much better than Vintage did for a few reasons, but it sure feels like it. The duals are much easier to use a substitute for than a mox if anything. Fetchlands saw to that.

I figure Legacy has a long time to go before we'd see anything drastic happen like Vintage's downfall, but I am convinced it will eventually happen. That stupid reserve list is a serious stranglehold. So barring anything like an amazing print of "snow duals" or something like that, I figure we'll see it eventually.

Modern finally catching on is what people should be worried about. It feels too much like Extended still and people have never liked that format much aside from a distinct few. Modern being adapted by stores or worse yet, SCG would be a killer. I doubt they will, legacy is a much better way to sell older cards than modern, but the scare is there.

[DLifshitz]

Modern finally catching on is what people should be worried about. It feels too much like Extended still and people have never liked that format much aside from a distinct few. Modern being adapted by stores or worse yet, SCG would be a killer. I doubt they will, legacy is a much better way to sell older cards than modern, but the scare is there.

Modern has been around for a while now, and it didn't get the snowball rolling. I personally think that people have gotten used to the current high Legacy prices, and after Jace and SFM were banned, Standard has been a better format, and much less expensive too, so there's less need for a third competitive Magic format.

Modern is actually pretty fun, for myself at least, but it does have a few problems of its own that are unrelated to the gameplay itself. While at present, the average Legacy deck is probably about twice as expensive as the average Modern deck, sellers during the Modern PTQ season used to jack up prices very rapidly, and if Modern ever really catches on, it will certainly become more expensive to play. As of today, we can hope that shocklands will be reprinted in the RTR block, keeping their prices reasonably low, but that's it. And it has stigmas attached to it. It's perceived as a "PTQ format," as a "MTGO format," as unsafe to invest into because many cards were banned within a short period of time. And worst of all, as just another in a long line of unsuccessful "last X blocks" formats that were created, neglected, and killed off by WotC.

Anyway, in order for Legacy to keep getting support from stores, just vote with your feet and go to tournaments. :smile:

[Lord Seth]

Legacy is starting to feel like that when the moxes started getting kind of silly prices. When they broke that $100 mark, it started getting tricky. When they hit $200, people started getting out. The duals are the lynchpin of Legacy and no one will dispute that. They are the moxes of Legacy. The fact that they are gaining ground so quickly is annoying.

Luckily, there are far more duals than moxes. You have to admit, that if you played vintage back before the fall, Legacy feels a lot like that now. It will hold up much better than Vintage did for a few reasons, but it sure feels like it. The duals are much easier to use a substitute for than a mox if anything. Fetchlands saw to that.Well I think one critical difference is that you don't need the dual lands to make a Legacy deck. Now if you want to make the best competitive deck you possibly can that's more than one color, you'll want them (unless it's something like Dredge, which just goes straight to the rainbow lands), but there are competitive mono-colored decks that, due to being mono-colored, don't require them. Elves is making a comeback and that requires zero dual lands. Heck, its price tag is comparable to some Standard decks.

Now I'm not that familiar with Vintage's deck types, but based on my admittedly limited knowledge, the only strong deck I can think of that doesn't really require any of the Power 9 is Dredge, which is still going to run you for a lot thanks to Bazaar of Baghdad. Meaning the cheapest Vintage deck seems to be about the same amount as the average Legacy deck...


I figure Legacy has a long time to go before we'd see anything drastic happen like Vintage's downfall, but I am convinced it will eventually happen. That stupid reserve list is a serious stranglehold. So barring anything like an amazing print of "snow duals" or something like that, I figure we'll see it eventually.Well there are still a number of ways to get around the Reserve List that Wizards can attempt. Snow-covered dual lands, as you said (assuming, of course, that the rules said they count as dual lands for the purposes of deck building--otherwise you suddenly let people play them as an 8-of).

This sort of thing could be done for other cards, by making very similar cards. The problem is that, again, this can just make it possible to play an 8-of for the cards, so this strategy would have to be restricted to cards that are unlikely to see more than a 4-of for the cards. For example, from my understanding of the deck, High Tide probably isn't going to be playing more than 4 Candelabras even if it could (most only play 3 anyway), so if they printed something just like Candelabra but it could only untap basic lands, it could make it easier to make a Candelabra build without actually altering strategy of other decks.

Some cards are obviously off for things like that, though. I can't think of any way to do a pseudo-reprint of The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale that doesn't allow people to suddenly have two of them in play.

Another possibility is for them to say "well we can't reprint reserve list cards, but look at these cards we can reprint!" Tarmogoyf, Grim Tutor, Karakas, Sinkhole, Maze of Ith, Force of Will and Wasteland are not reserved and can be reprinted in some form or another. Maybe not in a Standard set, but there are other options.

Though there is one potential side effect to this sort of thing. Let's suppose Tarmogoyf, Force of Will, and Wasteland somehow got reprinted enough to bring their prices way, way, way down to maybe like $5 (hard to see how that could ever happen unless they printed them as Commons in a Standard set or something, but let's go to the extreme for this example). That means that people who wanted to play RUG Delver but previously couldn't because the deck costs so much--even not counting the dual land-- might check it out (sure, you gotta get the dual lands, but you don't have to spend so much on the other cards). However, this could increase the price of the other cards in the deck, bringing up the price of the Volcanic/Tropical Islands, as more people would be interested in the deck and thus more people would want those cards. Unless they did go with that whole snow-covered dual lands idea to compensate...

[BenBleiweiss]

I'd also point out that we had an Open-Record 350 players at our Legacy Open in DC this past weekend. Standard was around 650, so that wasn't in the Top 3 of Standard attendances for our Open Series.

Legacy attendance used to clock in at 30-35% of our Standard attendance. The number is closer to 50% now. Standard attendance has not gone down in the past 2 years, aside from the 3 months Caw-Blade was really dominating.

[Esper3k]

I'd also point out that we had an Open-Record 350 players at our Legacy Open in DC this past weekend. Standard was around 650, so that wasn't in the Top 3 of Standard attendances for our Open Series.

Legacy attendance used to clock in at 30-35% of our Standard attendance. The number is closer to 50% now. Standard attendance has not gone down in the past 2 years, aside from the 3 months Caw-Blade was really dominating.

Yeah that's actually really good news to hear that even though the cost of cards has increased, attendance has also been increasing for the SCG Opens as well.

[dahcmai]

Enlightening to know. Glad to hear it's picking up for you guys. I do like those quite a bit.

As most of us have said, if there's a downfall, it's a ways off to be sure.

[lordofthepit]

Saw this on Reddit:

I won my LGS's modern tournament today! (http://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/y3q4s/i_won_my_lgss_modern_tournament_today/) (spoiler alert: no one showed up to play modern).

[Malchar]

I feel like I've made this post numerous times in various threads over the past year. The reason that I got into legacy is because of the high cost of entry. The advantage, of course, is that the cards never rotate out, and with each new expansion, you don't have to buy as many new cards as if you were playing standard. In fact, the cards you do have to pick up are usually much cheaper than the standard chase rares, like master of the pearl trident (legacy) vs. bonfire of the damned (standard).

I don't really expect everyone to go out and casually pick up a full playset of duals in order to get into legacy. I think that the realistic way is to slowly accumulate a few cards at a time, whenever you have extra money to spare. Nowadays, people are really tempted to just look up a netdeck and then order every card for it all at once. This still works fine for standard, but I can't believe that it's realistic or even optimal for legacy. Legacy is very fun, and I'm sure that everyone would love to be able to get the cards to play it, but the price barrier is one of the important unique factors that makes a collectible card game what it is.

[Goin Aggro]

Once modern becomes a diversified format where the games are dependent more on player skill than matchups, people might actually bother playing.

Right now, it's unappealing as a format because it is

A) Almost as expensive as legacy to play some of the top decks
B) Largely matchup dependent (sometimes, you're just boned)
C) Uninteractive (Splinter Twin? Oh, damn, no good counters, oh well. Tron? Too bad I only have two ways to destroy lands, neither of which is truly that good)
D) Repetitive (Almost like standard lite?)

In a sentence, Modern is like watching a scissors golem, a rock golem, and a paper golem swing jewel encrusted foam clubs at eachother.

[DLifshitz]

Suddenly, necro! I thought I would point to this as an example of how fucking miserable Modern can be at times:

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/tpc12/moderndecks

16 players, 49 Tarmogoyfs, 30 Geists, 48 Bolts. I can't be bothered to count the other format staples. No combo or control decks. I know half of those people chose to play the same archetype, but still the different archetypes seem to share a lot of cards between them.

[lordofthepit]

Suddenly, necro! I thought I would point to this as an example of how fucking miserable Modern can be at times:

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/tpc12/moderndecks

16 players, 49 Tarmogoyfs, 30 Geists, 48 Bolts. I can't be bothered to count the other format staples. No combo or control decks. I know half of those people chose to play the same archetype, but still the different archetypes seem to share a lot of cards between them.

If you clicked this link like me looking for Cube decklists, you will have no luck.

[CorpT]

Suddenly, necro! I thought I would point to this as an example of how fucking miserable Modern can be at times:

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/tpc12/moderndecks

16 players, 49 Tarmogoyfs, 30 Geists, 48 Bolts. I can't be bothered to count the other format staples. No combo or control decks. I know half of those people chose to play the same archetype, but still the different archetypes seem to share a lot of cards between them.

This is not an accurate representation of Modern. This is 16 people on a few teams all trying to figure out what the other people are going to be playing and meta-gaming for that.

[Koby]

This is not an accurate representation of Modern. This is 16 people on a few teams all trying to figure out what the other people are going to be playing and meta-gaming for that.

The greatest and brightest minds in Magic, all playing inbred pieces of shit.

This is why I don't follow the PT anymore. It's more Ego than brilliance.
I'm sort of glad Legacy isn't a PT format. It would be not nearly as fun.

[CorpT]

The greatest and brightest minds in Magic, all playing inbred pieces of shit.

This is why I don't follow the PT anymore. It's more Ego than brilliance.
I'm sort of glad Legacy isn't a PT format. It would be not nearly as fun.

It's not that. If you watched the videos it was all trying to guess what everyone else was playing. If this was a 300 person Modern PT, it would be more diverse. As a 16 person "PT" it is much, much different. You're also looking at 4 people on a team all playing the same deck. That's why there are so many copies of the same deck. 4/300 is a lot different than 4/16.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

The greatest and brightest minds in Magic, all playing inbred pieces of shit.

This is why I don't follow the PT anymore. It's more Ego than brilliance.
I'm sort of glad Legacy isn't a PT format. It would be not nearly as fun.

Yeah. We'd have storm decks playing main deck Mindbreak Trap to beat other storm decks.

[Malchar]

To be fair, modern is still a relatively new format. I'm still hoping that they will start to unban cards later after they realize how far the meta has degenerated. It kind of makes sense to ban all the cheesy stuff at the onset because it makes the format more appealing (and easier to play). After people get established, it makes sense to start taking stuff off the banlist, much like what they're doing in legacy (grim monolith, metalworker, land tax).

Eventually, they really could just unban everything in modern and reprint force of will and perhaps some other anti-combo cards. It would basically be a better version of legacy since the card prices would never spiral out of control. If they wanted to reintroduce certain old cards, they could just reprint them in standard or make "fixed" quasi-functional reprints like fauna shaman. Based on their massive "combo hate" in modern so far, this seems like an unlikely future for the format. However, the teams at Wizards are always changing, and if there is sufficient demand, they'll come around eventually.

[DLifshitz]

This is not an accurate representation of Modern. This is 16 people on a few teams all trying to figure out what the other people are going to be playing and meta-gaming for that.

My point is, if you want to have the best chances to do well, the choice narrows down to between aggro and midrange, and in either case you'll end up playing the same cards. These decks are all essentially "Junk" : piles of the format's best cards sorted by color and/or converted mana cost. The only exception to the rule seems to be Pod. But, yeah, Pod is on the radar and relatively easy to prepare for.

Of course in most "real-world" tournaments there's always going to be people who play budget-ish decks, or combo, or control, or whatever. Sometimes they'll even do well. But it's like playing, say, Pox in Legacy. You can potentially do very well but most of the time won't.

[CorpT]

It's true that the format is narrowing but not as bad as this 16 would appear. Combo is still relatively viable. a few tweaks to that could help but after Philadelphia i think they wanted fewer combos. They may have gone a touch too far is all.

However, before this event, i think most would have said that delver was the best aggro option. A lot of people took that idea and tried to get ahead of it by playing more one drop creatures and skipping delver. That shows that there is a big enough pool to support meta game shifts. That's a good thing.

Modern is a good format. It's just a little young.