Changes to the SCG Opens in 2015

[Barook]

"Hey, that Legacy GP NJ was a huge hit! You know what is a great idea is?"

Let's cut down the number of Legacy opens in the first half of 2015 down to three! (http://www.starcitygames.com/article/29783_2015-Open-Series-Announcement.html)

Sure, they're still running 5k Premier IQs for Legacy, but less prices and no coverage for Legacy sucks.

And according to Twitter, they also fired Chapin and Oysp since Hunt, Cedric and Patrick Sullivan are the only commentators left.

[thecrav]

There's lots of negatives here so I'll leave those to everyone else. Let's look at some positives:

1. This leaves a hole where there's clearly demand for streamed legacy. I know that in the past, I've decided not to stream MTGO matches because SCG was also streaming at the same time. There will almost certainly be more people streaming legacy on weekends now.

2. This leaves a hole where there's clearly demand for big legacy events. Unfortunately, the high cost associated with these events means that only the bigger stores will be able to fill the gap. With the frequent complaints about the lack of opens in the west, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a group like Channel Fireball dip their toes in the water. Similarly, I wouldn't be at all surprised if TCGPlayer expanded their offerings to include legacy.

3. There were certainly people playing in the legacy opens only because it filled out the rest of the weekend. With Standard now a two-day event, expect to lose these individuals who would best be described as not-legacy-focused. With the reduction of these players, demand will go down slightly, hopefully causing the format to become a bit more accessible, at least monetarily.

[(nameless one)]

What I noticed that there are two Modern 20K event. Maybe they're moving in to Modern. I'm cool with that, but with that coverage, Modern staples only seem to go up in price. So much for an affordable non-rotating format.

Personally I like this move with Legacy. As what thecrav said above, more people will be streaming on Sundays. I would rather watch competent people with their specialty decks than a random SCG employee play U/x/x Delver.dec

Who knows? Maybe this will increase the number of people playing Legacy on MTGO on Sundays

[Gheizen64]

It's not as bad as i imagined. We still get a secondary legacy event almost every week, but it's effectively half of what it was before. I don't like this at all, and hope someone else get on board to give us some streaming legacy, else this format instantly die the moment SGC decides it .
However it seems really bad for them financially, unless they've already cleared all their legacy supplies and maybe the largest Legacy GP ever was a way for them to do that.

[Barook]

I would rather watch competent people with their specialty decks than a random SCG employee play U/x/x Delver.dec

Who knows? Maybe this will increase the number of people playing Legacy on MTGO on Sundays
And then you run into random scrubs playing UR Delver or Burn round after round. :rolleyes:

I'd love to see other groups pick up the remains that SCG left, but how likely is that?

[lyracian]

Reading the article I can understand why they want to change to the GP structure. The downside is 75% standard and the rest being split between two other formats means very little big Legacy events. Additionally, unless they start a backup Twitch channel, we are going to see very little coverage. There might be Top 8 or Top 4 for the backup event (depending on how much they want to do coverage). Personally I will not be tuning in on Sundays evening anymore though.

[why]

"Hey, that Legacy GP NJ was a huge hit! You know what is a great idea is?"

I mean that's actually just not true. I'm sure SCG sees GP New Jersey as a failure. They had space and judges and staff for 6,000 people; they missed their goals by a whole 2,000 people. They refunded thousands of dollars to each vendor because they didn't meet target attendance numbers. GP New Jersey might have been the third largest GP of all time, but SCG put a lot of resources into advertising and ensuring that this was the largest GP of all time (as their last few have been). They may have even lost money.

I'm almost certain that SCG made this decision before GP New Jersey; it's a big one and I can't imagine waiting until a week before. If their minds weren't made up, GP New Jersey certainly pushed them away from legacy.

I think such changes were sort of inevitable. At this point, if the three legacy opens in the first half of next year don't meet the attendance of standard opens, expect to see those gone as well. Right now the bet is that with a few opens, legacy afficianados will fly out from across the country making them large.

Personally, needing to play legacy in invitationals will keep me invested in the format. The dearth of legacy events heralds death for some, and I have friends who are getting out of legacy now.


I'd love to see other groups pick up the remains that SCG left, but how likely is that?
I think it's pretty unlikely. There's an opportunity cost in hosting large legacy events, in that you're going to likely have a smaller audience for them. I think signs point to it being an incorrect business decision. If you're ChannelFireball, why aren't you just hosting standard events? The west coast is underserved in general *anyways*.

If there's a future legacy series, I think it'll be started by format enthusiasts, not by a business.

[Barook]

I mean that's actually just not true. I'm sure SCG sees GP New Jersey as a failure. They had space and judges and staff for 6,000 people; they missed their goals by a whole 2,000 people. They refunded thousands of dollars to each vendor because they didn't meet target attendance numbers. GP New Jersey might have been the third largest GP of all time, but SCG put a lot of resources into advertising and ensuring that this was the largest GP of all time (as their last few have been). They may have even lost money.

I'm almost certain that SCG made this decision before GP New Jersey; it's a big one and I can't imagine waiting until a week before. If their minds weren't made up, GP New Jersey certainly pushed them away from legacy.
I wouldn't be suprised if that change was planned long ago and they used GP NJ to unload their inventory because prices are likely to drop now.

In the end, it's a business decision and people vote with their wallet - if people stop supporting SCG by buying cards since they don't support Legacy that much anymore, changes might occur.

[Mr.C]

I wouldn't be suprised if that change was planned long ago and they used GP NJ to unload their inventory because prices are likely to drop now.

In the end, it's a business decision and people vote with their wallet - if people stop supporting SCG by buying cards since they don't support Legacy that much anymore, changes might occur.

You don't actually believe that will happen, right?

[Barook]

Reading the article I can understand why they want to change to the GP structure. The downside is 75% standard and the rest being split between two other formats means very little big Legacy events. Additionally, unless they start a backup Twitch channel, we are going to see very little coverage. There might be Top 8 or Top 4 for the backup event (depending on how much they want to do coverage). Personally I will not be tuning in on Sundays evening anymore though.
Where would they get a backup stream when they actually cut down the coverage team to three people?

[Barook]

You don't actually believe that will happen, right?
I don't, but they also moved away from the double Standard disaster two years ago towards more Legacy in 2014.

[Teluin]

I understand complaining on here, but why not complain to them directly? They have a contact button. Tell them you won't be watching and you won't be buying from them because of this. I just did.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

3. There were certainly people playing in the legacy opens only because it filled out the rest of the weekend. With Standard now a two-day event, expect to lose these individuals who would best be described as not-legacy-focused. With the reduction of these players, demand will go down slightly, hopefully causing the format to become a bit more accessible, at least monetarily.
Definetely not, namely not the high part. Very few ppl will sell for cheaper than they bought. Why do this, unles they're in a serious need for money?

[lyracian]

Where would they get a backup stream when they actually cut down the coverage team to three people?
If you want to be pedantic about they can have one person on each channel and one person hopping around where needed. :laugh:

As a business streaming is a marketing technique to promote events and sell cards/increase attendance. SCG have announced what they are doing for the first half of next year. If this somehow effects profits they will reconsider; for the time being though it looks like goodbye Legacy coverage from them.

[Chatto]

If you want to be pedantic about they can have one person on each channel and one person hopping around where needed. :laugh:

As a business streaming is a marketing technique to promote events and sell cards/increase attendance. SCG have announced what they are doing for the first half of next year. If this somehow effects profits they will reconsider; for the time being though it looks like goodbye Legacy coverage from them.

Just a question: do you guys think a decrease of coverage will have an effect on the pricetag of Legacy-staples or do you recon 'Legacy will be Legacy', so no?

[Barook]

Just a question: do you guys think a decrease of coverage will have an effect on the pricetag of Legacy-staples or do you recon 'Legacy will be Legacy', so no?
I doubt the prices are going to drop much since price memory is a bitch.

[HSCK]

This also gives another big TO to step in try to make larger legacy tournaments. Eternal Weekend and Eternal Extravaganza were both well attended.

[Lord Seth]

I wonder how the fact they're 2-day events rather than 1-day events now will affect attendance.

I'm also disappointed by the lack of Opens near where I live. :(

[sdematt]

I'm not excited about the new changes, mostly because the West Coast, once again, gets totally screwed. Living on the East Coast, however, the changes are good news. 3 mini Legacy GP's and softer IQ's on Sundays are technically good news for the hardened grinder, but not great news for the general player. The West Coast loses a lot by not having any major events, and prize support going back to the 5k from 10k.

The mini-GP's seem like SCG is trying to move and be a pseudo-Wizards - if you noticed, they'll be having other vendors at their events. AKA they're selling space to sell cards at their events. They know they're popular.

As for GP NJ, saying it wasn't a success is bullshoi. Sure, they had staff for 6000 people, meaning 200 judges. The cost of paying those extra judges for the 2,000 people they didn't get is peanuts. Judges usually work for a box a day, and it's not like SCG pays much on boxes, especially when Wizards gives you product to support the event. They took in a cold hard $200,000 in cash (actually more, but rounding down) just in entrance fees, nevermind vendor table fees (where bidding starting at $6,000 each...STARTED) and they had over twenty tables there. The venue itself does cost money, but it is not an enormous fee.

Legacy SCG's, the 10k, need about 250 people to break even on prize support, cash to cash. Most of the time, we were getting near there but they made money on buying up staples from people at pennies on the dollar.

Point is, they're not a company losing money, they're a company that has lots of pull on what gets supported and what doesn't. They're a company with financial interests. If you have a well reasoned complaint, send it to them. Tell them how you want them to come here and host this tournament, and you've got money to spend. We all do.

Legacy in North America isn't going to die, don't you worry. Will prices cool for a few weeks while randoms unload? Sure, it'll happen, and I'll gladly pick it all up on the cheap. But Legacy just isn't dying, it's mostly that the West Coast is going back to the old structure, and the East is getting good things again.

Form an articulate statement about how you want the 10k for Legacy back more often, and send it to Pete Hoefling (sp?). Send it to Ben Bleiweiss. I'm going to contact them. Let them know you'd prefer the old way :)


-Matt

[Lord Seth]

I don't, but they also moved away from the double Standard disaster two years ago towards more Legacy in 2014.It is worth pointing out that complaints from players did make Wizards of the Coast rescind their plan to make every Pro Tour a Standard format.

[nedleeds]

Isn't the reward for an IQ the right to play standard? I'd rather get rickets.

[Ziveeman]

This was a change that inevitably had to happen. I don't think it's about Legacy, it's about getting rid of 10-11 rounds of Magic on Saturday that is a miserable experience for everyone. Sacrifices had to be made. Can you imagine if these would get large enough for 12 Swiss rounds? At least the 2014 structure accommodates the growth and possible scale of the Open Series.

I hope they increase the number of Legacy main event weekends though. The insane thing about this is that first place pays more than first place at a Grand Prix. Wow.

[The_Dingo]

I hope they increase the number of Legacy main event weekends though.

That would be nice. Maybe they will run simultaneous opens like they did the last week of September, with one being Legacy and one being Standard.

[Jon]

Lack of SE events is pretty terrible. Guess I am driving to Indy.

[MGB]

Will the switch to the Grand Prix format for the Open affect decks that are higher variance?

In the old format, a Legacy Open would be played out with 10+ rounds of swiss and then cut to top8. In the Grand Prix format, there are more overall rounds of swiss (played out over two days) before the top 8 is played, which would probably reward the more consistent decks with lots of cantrips and filtering over the "mulligan hard" decks like MUD that need to go on a fortunate streak of pairings and die rolls to top 8 a big event.

[btm10]

I hope they increase the number of Legacy main event weekends though. The insane thing about this is that first place pays more than first place at a Grand Prix. Wow.

This is basically my only complaint other than the fact that it's a little harder for those of us who aren't dedicated SCG grinders or who have other obligations (work, families, etc.). Having a maybe-one-day, maybe-two-day event is problematic, especially if significant travel (like flying) is involved.

I will definitely be contacting them.

[Megadeus]

Will the switch to the Grand Prix format for the Open affect decks that are higher variance?

In the old format, a Legacy Open would be played out with 10+ rounds of swiss and then cut to top8. In the Grand Prix format, there are more overall rounds of swiss (played out over two days) before the top 8 is played, which would probably reward the more consistent decks with lots of cantrips and filtering over the "mulligan hard" decks like MUD that need to go on a fortunate streak of pairings and die rolls to top 8 a big event.

This was my thought as well. If you didn't think the consistency of the blue shell was a problem before... Be prepared to never see a non blue "fair" deck in the top 8 ever again

[JBlaze]

This really sucks hopefully if we raise enough of a ruckus they will reconsider. This isn't Wizards, Star City is pretty business savvy I have to imagine that they knew there was going to be backlash and decided to do it anyway.

Seems like there is a big push in organized play to get us to play standard. WOTC and SCG are both making it much more difficult to be a Legacy/Modern grinder Eternal players tend to be long time players with large collections, networks of people to borrow from and a lot experience with magic finance. The sad fact is non rotating formats just don't move singles the way standard does.

[TheArchitect]

Dropping this much legacy support sucks a lot of balls and completely overshadows the other terrible change they made: bring back byes to the opens. It seems incredibly wrong to me to give byes to your employees (grinders that writer) to increase their chance of winning and thus increase their image to help sell their articles. Although I have only played at GPs I have byes at, I still think it is a terrible idea. Having free wins feels like I am cheating. I only play in MTG tournaments maybe 0-2 times a month and luckily spiked GPTs, but for most people you get byes (for SCG or GPs) by just playing a lot. It does not seem to fair that out of players of equal skill the one that just plays more gets a significantly higher chance of placing at large events that (often skilled) people come out of the woodwork to play at.

If you are better than average player (60%+ win rate) and have 2-3 byes in a 9-12 round event, odds are you will place high enough to get money. It basically encourages more of these "career" mtg players to just do nothing with their lives but travel around to open after open (like Todd Anderson or Brad Nelson) since the byes system and SCG paying them for articles pretty much guarantees that their travel expenses will be paid for. Given that they are going back to having byes, I actually don't mind so much that the legacy will be 5k IQs. If you take out the attendance factor, mtg players with actual lives who are also decent at mtg have a much higher chance of getting money at a 5k were everyone is on the same playing field vs a 20k were a bunch of SCG favorites are all basically set up to cash unless they are really terrible.

[btm10]

This was my thought as well. If you didn't think the consistency of the blue shell was a problem before... Be prepared to never see a non blue "fair" deck in the top 8 ever again

We'll probably see more nonblue decks in the probably shorter 5k events, for what that's worth.


Dropping this much legacy support sucks a lot of balls and completely overshadows the other terrible change they made: bring back byes to the opens. It seems incredibly wrong to me to give byes to your employees (grinders that writer) to increase their chance of winning and thus increase their image to help sell their articles. Although I have only played at GPs I have byes at, I still think it is a terrible idea. Having free wins feels like I am cheating. I only play in MTG tournaments maybe 0-2 times a month and luckily spiked GPTs, but for most people you get byes (for SCG or GPs) by just playing a lot. It does not seem to fair that out of players of equal skill the one that just plays more gets a significantly higher chance of placing at large events that (often skilled) people come out of the woodwork to play at.

If you are better than average player (60%+ win rate) and have 2-3 byes in a 9-12 round event, odds are you will place high enough to get money. It basically encourages more of these "career" mtg players to just do nothing with their lives but travel around to open after open (like Todd Anderson or Brad Nelson) since the byes system and SCG paying them for articles pretty much guarantees that their travel expenses will be paid for. Given that they are going back to having byes, I actually don't mind so much that the legacy will be 5k IQs. If you take out the attendance factor, mtg players with actual lives who are also decent at mtg have a much higher chance of getting money at a 5k were everyone is on the same playing field vs a 20k were a bunch of SCG favorites are all basically set up to cash unless they are really terrible.

I hadn't considered this before, but it actually compounds Megadeus' point above as I suspect a lot of the losing the hardcore pro/grinder set does happens at the hands of obscure decks that have few pilots and that frequently end up X-1 early in the day only to get knocked off by something more consistent, powerful, or lucky. Winning your first two rounds at an open is obviously very important if you're hoping for a deep run, and byes are going to put the grinders squarely in the Delver bracket where the decks you face are much more predictable. It will be interesting to see what their sideboards look like when covering every possible matchup isn't nearly as important as shoring up the matchups that you expect to run into at 2-0 and 3-0.

[Zombie]

Dropping this much legacy support sucks a lot of balls and completely overshadows the other terrible change they made: bring back byes to the opens. It seems incredibly wrong to me to give byes to your employees (grinders that writer) to increase their chance of winning and thus increase their image to help sell their articles. Although I have only played at GPs I have byes at, I still think it is a terrible idea. Having free wins feels like I am cheating. I only play in MTG tournaments maybe 0-2 times a month and luckily spiked GPTs, but for most people you get byes (for SCG or GPs) by just playing a lot. It does not seem to fair that out of players of equal skill the one that just plays more gets a significantly higher chance of placing at large events that (often skilled) people come out of the woodwork to play at.

If you are better than average player (60%+ win rate) and have 2-3 byes in a 9-12 round event, odds are you will place high enough to get money. It basically encourages more of these "career" mtg players to just do nothing with their lives but travel around to open after open (like Todd Anderson or Brad Nelson) since the byes system and SCG paying them for articles pretty much guarantees that their travel expenses will be paid for. Given that they are going back to having byes, I actually don't mind so much that the legacy will be 5k IQs. If you take out the attendance factor, mtg players with actual lives who are also decent at mtg have a much higher chance of getting money at a 5k were everyone is on the same playing field vs a 20k were a bunch of SCG favorites are all basically set up to cash unless they are really terrible.

Even aside the free wins, getting the byes means you don't have to get past as random a field as people starting from 0 do. You enter when then field has refined itself somewhat already, and can metagame against the more structured metagame with less regard to whatever random stuff under the Sun people might bring.

EDIT: Ninja'd.

[LOLWut]

Was there a military coup at SCG or something? Between the Grand Prix that my mom's dogs could have organized better, the hilarious renaming of decks, the worse article content, and now this, I'm no longer very sympathetic to SCG. For the time being, I'll be switching my purchases elsewhere, and looking forward to other stores--like Tales of Adventure--starting their own Legacy series.

[Barook]

The insane thing about this is that first place pays more than first place at a Grand Prix. Wow.
That's not hard, GP price support wasn't that great to begin with, considering the player numbers.

[Scott]

From the comments section of the article: "Questions about our recent 2015 OP announcements? Please send them to directly to me at president@starcitygames.com & I'll answer them in a follow up article."

[sdematt]

But, this also means Everyday Eternal will move to a live-streaming session on Sundays and possibly live-casting. Would y'all watch that? :P

-Matt

[btm10]

Yeah, I'd be down for watching that.

[JUNI0R]

But, this also means Everyday Eternal will move to a live-streaming session on Sundays and possibly live-casting. Would y'all watch that? :P

-Matt

Good idea, I'd watch.

[Whippoorwill]

But, this also means Everyday Eternal will move to a live-streaming session on Sundays and possibly live-casting. Would y'all watch that? :P

-Matt

http://usatftw.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/daniel-bryan-yes-cheer.gif?w=300

[Varal]

This was a change that inevitably had to happen. I don't think it's about Legacy, it's about getting rid of 10-11 rounds of Magic on Saturday that is a miserable experience for everyone. Sacrifices had to be made. Can you imagine if these would get large enough for 12 Swiss rounds? At least the 2014 structure accommodates the growth and possible scale of the Open Series.

I hope they increase the number of Legacy main event weekends though. The insane thing about this is that first place pays more than first place at a Grand Prix. Wow.

Only the first place gets more, all the other places get less. It just looks like better prizes but it isn't.

[lordofthepit]

Obviously, this change by SCG is a net negative to the Legacy community, but while reading the article, I was thinking they made a mistake even before I got to their schedule (until then, I thought Standard and Legacy would be equally represented at the $20K Opens).

The Standard $20K Opens are a pretty exciting change if you're a hardcore Standard player, and it might induce Standard grinders to travel slightly longer distances to attend events they otherwise wouldn't. But any increased attendance SCG might get at these new Opens would be offset by plenty of other factors including:

- Casual Standard players who are unable or unwilling to commit to two days
- Casual Standard players who are hardcore Legacy or Modern players who would no longer play in the Saturday event if you have to play Day 2 to even have a shot of prizing
- Grinders who are competitive in Standard, but strongly prefer playing Legacy (or Modern), and would consider skipping the former despite the increased prestige SCG is trying to manufacture

The vast majority of players at the current Standard Opens are casual players who think it's pretty cool that the SCG is in town, and while I imagine many of them would still play in the $20K Open, some of them will have schedule conflicts. In addition, keep in mind that SCG had already experimented with "Double Standard" events in 2012, and they were an unmitigated disaster, with the Sunday Standard Open having 38-52% fewer players than the Saturday one (in other words, comparable to what the attendance would have been with a Legacy format). It is unsure whether this can be attributed to scheduling conflicts (Sundays are generally more inconvenient) or player fatigue (a lot of players are probably put off by playing Standard for two straight days), but in any case, both these problems will plague the new proposed setup.

In addition, you have players like myself who absolutely love Legacy and don't find Standard very appealing, but might have otherwise considered playing in Standard on Saturday to get some practice for the Invitational or to just hang out with friends. But to pay $50 to play a format that I don't even like, with the understanding that I have to play (and probably do reasonably well) on Day 2 to even min cash?! I would snap-drop from Standard to play Legacy on Sunday regardless of how I was doing, so there's simply no reason for me to register for the Saturday event anymore, since the practice simply isn't worth $50. I know I am far from the only player in my circle of friends who feels this way, and I imagine the sentiment is shared at least by some Modern players as well.

Keep in mind that while the player base of Legacy and Modern players is significantly smaller than that of Standard players, the proportion of hardcore players in those formats (especially in Legacy) is significantly higher than the corresponding proportion among Standard players, and as a result, the total number of dedicated players in each format is more comparable than one might think. This is a large reason why attendance numbers for Legacy and Modern GPs (http://i.imgur.com/msBWNnm.png) are consistently higher than those for Standard GPs, so I don't think SCG's effort to emulate the Grand Prix model with their new Open series will be as successful as they would hope. There are a ton of Standard GPs within driving distance even in the often-neglected West Coast, and none of them have ever been appealing beyond the possibility of having a sweet Legacy side event.

I must admit that I would be enthusiastic about these changes if the new Open Series schedule included a majority of Legacy Opens, rather than Standard, but that is only from my perspective as a hardcore Legacy fan. I still stand by the points I made that the entire concept of a two-day Open is a mistake for SCG, regardless of the choice of format for these Opens.

Furthermore, changes have also been made to the Invitational format. I'm not a player who can justify traveling great distances to play Magic, even at a well-supported event like the Invitational. I am absolutely dismayed to find that the only Invitational I can reasonably attend next year (Seattle 2015) will be Standard/Modern. I find Standard absolutely unbearable, and while Modern is a considerable improvement, I consider it only tolerable. I would have been much more excited if it were a Modern/Legacy split with a Legacy Top 8, and I suspect many other players would have preferred it for the merits of those respective formats over Standard. For an Invitational event, it's not like attendance numbers or cost of entry into a format are significant concerns (as they would be in the Opens which draw more casual players), so it would have been much better to see SCG choose the more interesting and skill-testing formats. I've been qualified for Invitationals for almost three consecutive years now, and I have declined to participate in any (until likely the upcoming Seattle Invitational) because they just weren't appealing to me. The new changes are so much worse, and as a result, I have lost any incentive to ever play in local Super or Elite IQs, since the prize support on their own isn't very appealing and the Invitational bid has become pretty much useless to me.

That being said, I don't think the sky is falling, and even with the significantly diminished exposure and prize support, SCG still does much more to help the Legacy community with its $5000 Premier IQs than most stores, and I intend to continue to attend these just as I would attend their Legacy Opens when possible. I do worry that the decreased exposure would cause innovation in the format to stagnate, although at the same time, I find that SCG's insistence on featuring their grinders at these Legacy Opens resulted in a significant "hive mind" mentality that may have been partially responsible for the decreased format diversity we've seen in recent years, so it's probably a push in that front.

I am not at all concerned about loss of other Legacy events. I think the entire concept of SCG singlehandedly supporting the Legacy community is vastly overblown. Some of you may be aware that I've been maintaining a thread full of stores that support Legacy (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?28379-List-of-Stores-that-Support-Legacy), so I am more in tune with regular weeklies and large events in North America than most. There are still large Legacy tournaments all throughout the United States, and SCG's decision has essentially no impact on tournament support anywhere else. I may be seeing things with rose-colored glasses because I'm fortunate enough to be in Seattle where we have one of the best Legacy scenes in the world, and the situation is much less optimistic in Podunk, Buttfucksville; but the Card Kingdom weeklies, let alone their weekend dual land events or those of other stores, represent in aggregate more exciting events to me than the occasional SCG Seattle Legacy Open. And now we're fortunate enough to have a second Card Kingdom "branch" (Mox Boarding House) opening up in Bellevue, with likely even more frequent dual land/high staple events.

Just off the top of my head, I know there are similar awesome ones in Knightware, MTGDeals, the AZChamps.com Series, the Vancouver Classic, Jupiter Games, TOGIT, The Meadery, Tales of Adventure, Mythic Games, Bazaar of Moxen, Ovino, Prague Eternal, LCL, and many others. It is these local events that have always made up the vast majority of the Legacy experience, even as the SCG Open Series has taken up a disproportionate amount of the exposure (and justifiably so, as they have done an excellent job up until now!).

[Michael Keller]

Obviously, this change by SCG is a net negative to the Legacy community, but while reading the article, I was thinking they made a mistake even before I got to their schedule (until then, I thought Standard and Legacy would be equally represented at the $20K Opens).

The Standard $20K Opens are a pretty exciting change if you're a hardcore Standard player, and it might induce Standard grinders to travel slightly longer distances to attend events they otherwise wouldn't. But any increased attendance SCG might get at these new Opens would be offset by plenty of other factors including:

- Casual Standard players who are unable or unwilling to commit to two days
- Casual Standard players who are hardcore Legacy or Modern players who would no longer play in the Saturday event if you have to play Day 2 to even have a shot of prizing
- Grinders who are competitive in Standard, but strongly prefer playing Legacy (or Modern), and would consider skipping the former despite the increased prestige SCG is trying to manufacture

The vast majority of players at the current Standard Opens are casual players who think it's pretty cool that the SCG is in town, and while I imagine many of them would still play in the $20K Open, some of them will have schedule conflicts. In addition, keep in mind that SCG had already experimented with "Double Standard" events in 2012, and they were an unmitigated disaster, with the Sunday Standard Open having 38-52% fewer players than the Saturday one (in other words, comparable to what the attendance would have been with a Legacy format). It is unsure whether this can be attributed to scheduling conflicts (Sundays are generally more inconvenient) or player fatigue (a lot of players are probably put off by playing Standard for two straight days), but in any case, both these problems will plague the new proposed setup.

In addition, you have players like myself who absolutely love Legacy and don't find Standard very appealing, but might have otherwise considered playing in Standard on Saturday to get some practice for the Invitational or to just hang out with friends. But to pay $50 to play a format that I don't even like, with the understanding that I have to play (and probably do reasonably well) on Day 2 to even min cash?! I would snap-drop from Standard to play Legacy on Sunday regardless of how I was doing, so there's simply no reason for me to register for the Saturday event anymore, since the practice simply isn't worth $50. I know I am far from the only player in my circle of friends who feels this way, and I imagine the sentiment is shared at least by some Modern players as well.

Keep in mind that while the player base of Legacy and Modern players is significantly smaller than that of Standard players, the proportion of hardcore players in those formats (especially in Legacy) is significantly higher than the corresponding proportion among Standard players, and as a result, the total number of dedicated players in each format is more comparable than one might think. This is a large reason why attendance numbers for Legacy and Modern GPs (http://i.imgur.com/msBWNnm.png) are consistently higher than those for Standard GPs, so I don't think SCG's effort to emulate the Grand Prix model with their new Open series will be as successful as they would hope. There are a ton of Standard GPs within driving distance even in the often-neglected West Coast, and none of them have ever been appealing beyond the possibility of having a sweet Legacy side event.

I must admit that I would be enthusiastic about these changes if the new Open Series schedule included a majority of Legacy Opens, rather than Standard, but that is only from my perspective as a hardcore Legacy fan. I still stand by the points I made that the entire concept of a two-day Open is a mistake for SCG, regardless of the choice of format for these Opens.

Furthermore, changes have also been made to the Invitational format. I'm not a player who can justify traveling great distances to play Magic, even at a well-supported event like the Invitational. I am absolutely dismayed to find that the only Invitational I can reasonably attend next year (Seattle 2015) will be Standard/Modern. I find Standard absolutely unbearable, and while Modern is a considerable improvement, I consider it only tolerable. I would have been much more excited if it were a Modern/Legacy split with a Legacy Top 8, and I suspect many other players would have preferred it for the merits of those respective formats over Standard. For an Invitational event, it's not like attendance numbers or cost of entry into a format are significant concerns (as they would be in the Opens which draw more casual players), so it would have been much better to see SCG choose the more interesting and skill-testing formats. I've been qualified for Invitationals for almost three consecutive years now, and I have declined to participate in any (until likely the upcoming Seattle Invitational) because they just weren't appealing to me. The new changes are so much worse, and as a result, I have lost any incentive to ever play in local Super or Elite IQs, since the prize support on their own isn't very appealing and the Invitational bid has become pretty much useless to me.

That being said, I don't think the sky is falling, and even with the significantly diminished exposure and prize support, SCG still does much more to help the Legacy community with its $5000 Premier IQs than most stores, and I intend to continue to attend these just as I would attend their Legacy Opens when possible. I do worry that the decreased exposure would cause innovation in the format to stagnate, although at the same time, I find that SCG's insistence on featuring their grinders at these Legacy Opens resulted in a significant "hive mind" mentality that may have been partially responsible for the decreased format diversity we've seen in recent years, so it's probably a push in that front.

I am not at all concerned about loss of other Legacy events. I think the entire concept of SCG singlehandedly supporting the Legacy community is vastly overblown. Some of you may be aware that I've been maintaining a thread full of stores that support Legacy (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?28379-List-of-Stores-that-Support-Legacy), so I am more in tune with regular weeklies and large events in North America than most. There are still large Legacy tournaments all throughout the United States, and SCG's decision has essentially no impact on tournament support anywhere else. I may be seeing things with rose-colored glasses because I'm fortunate enough to be in Seattle where we have one of the best Legacy scenes in the world, and the situation is much less optimistic in Podunk, Buttfucksville; but the Card Kingdom weeklies, let alone their weekend dual land events or those of other stores, represent in aggregate more exciting events to me than the occasional SCG Seattle Legacy Open. And now we're fortunate enough to have a second Card Kingdom "branch" (Mox Boarding House) opening up in Bellevue, with likely even more frequent dual land/high staple events.

Just off the top of my head, I know there are similar awesome ones in Knightware, MTGDeals, the AZChamps.com Series, the Vancouver Classic, Jupiter Games, TOGIT, The Meadery, Tales of Adventure, Mythic Games, Bazaar of Moxen, Ovino, Prague Eternal, LCL, and many others. It is these local events that have always made up the vast majority of the Legacy experience, even as the SCG Open Series has taken up a disproportionate amount of the exposure (and justifiably so, as they have done an excellent job up until now!).

Huge fuckin' thumbs up.

[Lord Seth]

Furthermore, changes have also been made to the Invitational format. I'm not a player who can justify traveling great distances to play Magic, even at a well-supported event like the Invitational. I am absolutely dismayed to find that the only Invitational I can reasonably attend next year (Seattle 2015) will be Standard/Modern. I find Standard absolutely unbearable, and while Modern is a considerable improvement, I consider it only tolerable. I would have been much more excited if it were a Modern/Legacy split with a Legacy Top 8, and I suspect many other players would have preferred it for the merits of those respective formats over Standard. For an Invitational event, it's not like attendance numbers or cost of entry into a format are significant concerns (as they would be in the Opens which draw more casual players), so it would have been much better to see SCG choose the more interesting and skill-testing formats.Modern/Legacy for an Invitational would be cool. Even just one Invitational doing that would be nice.

[GoblinSettler]

I'm disappointed that I won't be able to play my new drinking game in 2015.

The P-Chapin SCG Endurance Special
(don't shoot the puppy edition)

Rules:
1) At the beginning of each televised match, pour a shot. Don't drink it.
2) When Chapin says, "Daddy's home. And he's angry." drink all the shots.

[btm10]

I am not at all concerned about loss of other Legacy events. I think the entire concept of SCG singlehandedly supporting the Legacy community is vastly overblown. Some of you may be aware that I've been maintaining a thread full of stores that support Legacy (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?28379-List-of-Stores-that-Support-Legacy), so I am more in tune with regular weeklies and large events in North America than most. There are still large Legacy tournaments all throughout the United States, and SCG's decision has essentially no impact on tournament support anywhere else. I may be seeing things with rose-colored glasses because I'm fortunate enough to be in Seattle where we have one of the best Legacy scenes in the world, and the situation is much less optimistic in Podunk, Buttfucksville; but the Card Kingdom weeklies, let alone their weekend dual land events or those of other stores, represent in aggregate more exciting events to me than the occasional SCG Seattle Legacy Open. And now we're fortunate enough to have a second Card Kingdom "branch" (Mox Boarding House) opening up in Bellevue, with likely even more frequent dual land/high staple events.


This is very important. I'm also lucky in having a great local scene (2 weeklies, very strong player base), but I think I'm a little more concerned than you are that the reduced exposure will result in less new blood entering the format. I'm not sure I'll mind this (fewer 15 year olds that don't understand their deck or how to be civil in general isn't the worst thing), but it isn't the best for the long term health of the format. My bigger fear is that the format moves more to MODO because people want to play but don't have access to cards or a strong enough local scene to justify investing in cards. I haven't seen a big uptick in Vintage events even though lots of folks seem to be playing on MODO, so I'm not sure if interest in electronic Legacy is going to spur more interest in paper Legacy.

As for hive mind effects, that's an interesting point. I've always found the popularity of Deathblade to be way out of proportion to how good a deck it is especially relative to UW, UWr, or UWb Blade, but the core SCG grinders really seemed to like it and I definitely saw more of it after one of them wrote an article or made a video or played a feature match with the deck. This may be the case for other decks as well, and we'll have the opportunity to see it next year, I guess.

[why]

It's weird to me that no one thinks of this as a reasonably positive thing. Of course legacy opens couldn't stay the way they were- they weren't nearly as popular as standard opens. It would be a bad decision to continue with them in their previous form. The change to two day main events makes sense; the single day events were getting too long. I've been expecting SCG to abandon legacy for a while- they're a business, not a group of enthusiasts.

People speak to decreased attendance for standard, like lordofthepit, but I think he's wildly out of touch. It's clear that standard just has a much higher number of active players, perhaps by an order of magnitude.

I know in the not-so-recent past I skipped an SCG because I could only play one day, as I didn't own a legacy deck. The SCG was a few hundred miles away and I had friends going. I think this opens the audience of SCGs to many of those people. Increased prestige for the winner helps too.

For many people here, I think this means more legacy. I know many legacy players that are slightly older, don't play another format, and don't do SCGs because there aren't local ones and it doesn't make sense to travel for one day of magic. Those players traveled to attend GP NJ and would love more legacy GPs.

Well this announcement is three more legacy GPs in the year. Those events are certainly ones people are capable and willing to travel to, at least in talking to people at my local legacy event. If you think that's not true, then you think even these few legacy events are going to be gone by the second half of the year. That's the bet that SCG is making- that people will be willing to travel to their "legacy GPs". And I don't know if those will get the thousand players they need to stay as is. SCG has shown that they'll make the decision that makes business sense.

The valid complaint is about exposure. The fact that legacy just isn't going to be on camera as much anymore in competitive events. The fact that this is just all part of the inevitable but slow moving heat death of legacy. Outside of an invitational weekend, legacy opens are half the size of standard ones; of course they aren't going to run many of them.

I was close to selling my legacy cards before I realized they had kept the invitationals as mixed format. Thought I was getting a cool paycheck. Maybe next year.

[M+1]

It would be nice if they could still stream some games from the top tables of the sunday Legacy IQs, even without commentators.

[testing32]

stuff

These are not additional legacy GPs. GPs pay out 54k and give pro tour invites which pays out 250k. These new opens pay out 20k and give you the chance to travel across the country to play standard/modern for 50k. The EV for an open that is far away is garbage when you factor in time, travel and hotel costs.

The no coverage also sucks. On a Sunday, while I'm working, I'll pop up the coverage as something in the background.

[ESG]

People speak to decreased attendance for standard, like lordofthepit, but I think he's wildly out of touch. It's clear that standard just has a much higher number of active players, perhaps by an order of magnitude.

Where are you seeing this? Did you misread or misinterpret something?

Lordofthepit is big on data, so he's likely more in touch than most people. I doubt you can provide any data, but if you can, I'm sure it would be welcome.

[why]

These are not additional legacy GPs. GPs pay out 54k and give pro tour invites which pays out 250k. These new opens pay out 20k and give you the chance to travel across the country to play standard/modern for 50k. The EV for an open that is far away is garbage when you factor in time, travel and hotel cost.

The EV for most magic tournaments is garbage. If you're right and people don't treat these as GPs, then SCG won't host any of them in the second half of the year.


Lordofthepit is big on data, so he's likely more in touch than most people. I doubt you can provide any data, but if you can, I'm sure it would be welcome.

I don't have the data, but I'm confident that it supports my conclusions because I believe SCG has investigated things and do not believe they would make intentionally poor business decisions.

I don't know anyone who knows Shawn that would describe him as "in touch".

[danyul]

I don't know anyone who knows Shawn that would describe him as "in touch".

LOLOLOLOL. Will you be at Card Kingdom tonight? I dunno who you are but I must shake your hand.

[feline]

Well I found out everything about a half an hour before the start of SCGRichmond this past weekend.

I will still be pushing Legacy but it's going to be different now on most weekends. The first time on camera I was nervous and part of me didn't want to go on. Now I'm finding myself thinking that I will miss having less chances at it. Though in my own situation I'm lucky enough that I can still probably attend each weekend that the main event is Legacy.

As for now, I'll cya in Atlanta/Portland/Seattle.

[lordofthepit]

LOLOLOLOL. Will you be at Card Kingdom tonight? I dunno who you are but I must shake your hand.

You'd shake hands with Ranjan?

I didn't even shake hands with him before agreeing to the VSL bet that I knew I'd win.

[danyul]

Ok I changed my mind. I'll shake Leremy's hand while scowling at the both of you. Cya in an hour or so.

On topic: I don't like the changes. But I'm not smart enough to vocalize my feelings in any form other than a guttural "No! Nononono!"

[Ellomdian]

It's weird to me that no one thinks of this as a reasonably positive thing.

It's way easier to be negative on everything and be right if it goes poorly and benefit if it goes well than it is to be positive about something and be disappointed if it goes badly. That pretty much drives internet commentary by itself (that, and the fact that people who are angry or upset tend to be much more vocal than those that are satisfied.)

I expect this is a positive move for SCG moving forward. This is probably the best possible solution to the logistical problems with Opens breaking 1k players, and since they tend to schedule Opens a quarter at a time, it allows them to be flexible based on demand. 2k Players at one of the Legacy events (which happens to be giving away $5k cash to the winner)? Add an Legacy open or 2 to the next scheduling. And whether Legacy players want to admit it, Standard and Modern will typically pull a much larger turn-out week to week. Having an (effectively) GP-level Legacy event once a month in the US is probably too much saturation.

It's kind of amusing that the scuttlebutt has always been that SCG was propping up Legacy to sell expensive eternal singles, but now that we have the largest Legacy GP ever, they are killing their golden goose.

[zulander]

One way to look at this is that there's 3 more GP style legacy events a year, with a side of legacy 5k's every weekend. It's still being supported but with Wizards pushing Modern it seems that SCG was the only large-scale legacy provider. Combining that with their pricing and the prohibitive costs of playing legacy it's obvious that changes had to be made. Personally I like the changes as I've gotten into standard/modern recently due to the much more open format.



ps Don't sell your staples unless you're "certain" that you can buy them cheaper later on.

[Einherjer]

Additionally: There was no way that we (Europeans) came to the U.S. just for one Sunday Legacy Open. With these Opens being bigger and 2-day-events now the chance is real!

Greetings

[Koby]

Additionally: There was no way that we (Europeans) came to the U.S. just for one Sunday Legacy Open. With these Opens being bigger and 2-day-events now the chance is real!

Greetings

Having a handful of marquee Legacy events is nice. It's rather unfortunate that they are all centered around the New England / Northeast area of the US. Indianapolis is still accessible by most of the east coast too. I'm all curmudgeony because West Coast doesn't have the same access to those events (at least for Q1+2 2015). I don't think the change has much impact on Legacy aside from slowing its growth rate, while at the same time plateauing or reducing the prices on some staples.

The main issue is the reduced Legacy coverage, which has a big impact on highlighting the format and (hopefully) advancing the metagame evolution by consequence. It means I will be watching less SCGLive, and likely start to resume Legacy streaming on MTGO. The only issue is of course MTGO being an MS DOS program, but that's another topic for another thread.

I doubt I will event attend the Standard Open in Los Angeles. :frown:

[gibbousm]

My biggest issue with the announcement isn't that they changed it from a two 1-day events to one 2-day event, its that over a 6 month period there's 1 Legacy Open for every 5 Standard (and only 1 Modern for every 7 Standard).
I understand Standard is the most played constructed format and that SCG makes more money off of standard than legacy. Even one Legacy for every 3 Standard Opens would make me satisfied. While I'm happy that they will at least have Premier IQs of the non-Open formats, but the lack of non-Standard opens is really disappointing me.

[lordofthepit]

Does anyone have data on viewership numbers on SCGLive for Saturday and Sunday?

I notice that generally when I've observed the numbers, the Legacy Opens get better viewership numbers that Standard, but I was listening to the SCG Podcast by Cedric and Patrick Sullivan recently which suggested that the Standard Opens actually get better viewership. Is this actually the case (aside from comparing the Standard Finals to Round 4 of Legacy)?

[Michael Keller]

As long as I can play the format for nice prizes, that's all I care about. Star City is providing this service, so I'm fine with it.

[HrishiQQ]

I imagine the decision was taken a while back, but I'm curious if GPNJ didn't do anything at all? It was incredibly successful and it just seems weird to have this announcement right after. Perhaps it was just unfortunate timing.

[mini1337s]

I'm not excited about the new changes, mostly because the West Coast, once again, gets totally screwed. Living on the East Coast, however, the changes are good news. 3 mini Legacy GP's and softer IQ's on Sundays are technically good news for the hardened grinder, but not great news for the general player. The West Coast loses a lot by not having any major events, and prize support going back to the 5k from 10k.

The mini-GP's seem like SCG is trying to move and be a pseudo-Wizards - if you noticed, they'll be having other vendors at their events. AKA they're selling space to sell cards at their events. They know they're popular.

As for GP NJ, saying it wasn't a success is bullshoi. Sure, they had staff for 6000 people, meaning 200 judges. The cost of paying those extra judges for the 2,000 people they didn't get is peanuts. Judges usually work for a box a day, and it's not like SCG pays much on boxes, especially when Wizards gives you product to support the event. They took in a cold hard $200,000 in cash (actually more, but rounding down) just in entrance fees, nevermind vendor table fees (where bidding starting at $6,000 each...STARTED) and they had over twenty tables there. The venue itself does cost money, but it is not an enormous fee.

Legacy SCG's, the 10k, need about 250 people to break even on prize support, cash to cash. Most of the time, we were getting near there but they made money on buying up staples from people at pennies on the dollar.

Point is, they're not a company losing money, they're a company that has lots of pull on what gets supported and what doesn't. They're a company with financial interests. If you have a well reasoned complaint, send it to them. Tell them how you want them to come here and host this tournament, and you've got money to spend. We all do.

Legacy in North America isn't going to die, don't you worry. Will prices cool for a few weeks while randoms unload? Sure, it'll happen, and I'll gladly pick it all up on the cheap. But Legacy just isn't dying, it's mostly that the West Coast is going back to the old structure, and the East is getting good things again.

Form an articulate statement about how you want the 10k for Legacy back more often, and send it to Pete Hoefling (sp?). Send it to Ben Bleiweiss. I'm going to contact them. Let them know you'd prefer the old way :)


-Matt
While I agree on most of your points Matt, I will say that the expense of renting that space would most likely surprise you. From my hotel background, I can tell you that meeting space is not cheap, especially space for 6k people and seating. I've seen 300 person 4 day conventions break 100k in Halifax, so I can only imagine the cost for a real space near NYC. I would guesting tell SCG's rental expense at around 80-120k, then you add lodging for your staff, other expenses, etc. My gut says they did profit, but I would be surprised if was anything significant.
Anyways, I imagine this decision was made long before GP Jersey happened and I'm not convinced community input will sway their decision. They would have run the numbers and seen that Standard is much more profitable and based their decision on that. Nothing personal, just business :)
Just playing Devil's advocate. I'd love to see more eternal coverage but the reality is that it is good for business.

[Dice_Box]

As an Australian who will never get to play in any of these events, I feel unhappy this is happening. As for me, the replays offered some small entertainment for the few rounds of Legacy that was not Delver on Delver. But other than that, it really doesn't impact me.

I am personally going to be switching to watching the Vintage Super League anyway and for those of you who are seeking Eternal entertainment, I suggest you do the same. Either that or some of you get a Legacy Super League going. That that point, we simply replace SCG in streaming and move on from there.

I feel sorry for those that lose options to play, but when it comes to calling out their stream, we have a whole thread here to bitch quite deservedly about how crap it can be to watch. What are we really losing?

[wonderPreaux]

I feel sorry for those that lose options to play, but when it comes to calling out their stream, we have a whole thread here to bitch quite deservedly about how crap it can be to watch. What are we really losing?

A good portion of the complaining in that thread is just nit-picky or idiotic, imo. Moreover, bithing aside, SCG made a concerted effort to make Legacy accessible to outsiders. I got into Legacy, in part, because of their stream, I will be missing their stream and I'll likely be peeking in at their modern coverage too.

[lordofthepit]

Obviously, this change by SCG is a net negative to the Legacy community, but while reading the article, I was thinking they made a mistake even before I got to their schedule (until then, I thought Standard and Legacy would be equally represented at the $20K Opens).

The Standard $20K Opens are a pretty exciting change if you're a hardcore Standard player, and it might induce Standard grinders to travel slightly longer distances to attend events they otherwise wouldn't. But any increased attendance SCG might get at these new Opens would be offset by plenty of other factors including:

- Casual Standard players who are unable or unwilling to commit to two days
- Casual Standard players who are hardcore Legacy or Modern players who would no longer play in the Saturday event if you have to play Day 2 to even have a shot of prizing
- Grinders who are competitive in Standard, but strongly prefer playing Legacy (or Modern), and would consider skipping the former despite the increased prestige SCG is trying to manufacture

The vast majority of players at the current Standard Opens are casual players who think it's pretty cool that the SCG is in town, and while I imagine many of them would still play in the $20K Open, some of them will have schedule conflicts. In addition, keep in mind that SCG had already experimented with "Double Standard" events in 2012, and they were an unmitigated disaster, with the Sunday Standard Open having 38-52% fewer players than the Saturday one (in other words, comparable to what the attendance would have been with a Legacy format). It is unsure whether this can be attributed to scheduling conflicts (Sundays are generally more inconvenient) or player fatigue (a lot of players are probably put off by playing Standard for two straight days), but in any case, both these problems will plague the new proposed setup.

In addition, you have players like myself who absolutely love Legacy and don't find Standard very appealing, but might have otherwise considered playing in Standard on Saturday to get some practice for the Invitational or to just hang out with friends. But to pay $50 to play a format that I don't even like, with the understanding that I have to play (and probably do reasonably well) on Day 2 to even min cash?! I would snap-drop from Standard to play Legacy on Sunday regardless of how I was doing, so there's simply no reason for me to register for the Saturday event anymore, since the practice simply isn't worth $50. I know I am far from the only player in my circle of friends who feels this way, and I imagine the sentiment is shared at least by some Modern players as well.

Keep in mind that while the player base of Legacy and Modern players is significantly smaller than that of Standard players, the proportion of hardcore players in those formats (especially in Legacy) is significantly higher than the corresponding proportion among Standard players, and as a result, the total number of dedicated players in each format is more comparable than one might think. This is a large reason why attendance numbers for Legacy and Modern GPs (http://i.imgur.com/msBWNnm.png) are consistently higher than those for Standard GPs, so I don't think SCG's effort to emulate the Grand Prix model with their new Open series will be as successful as they would hope. There are a ton of Standard GPs within driving distance even in the often-neglected West Coast, and none of them have ever been appealing beyond the possibility of having a sweet Legacy side event.

I must admit that I would be enthusiastic about these changes if the new Open Series schedule included a majority of Legacy Opens, rather than Standard, but that is only from my perspective as a hardcore Legacy fan. I still stand by the points I made that the entire concept of a two-day Open is a mistake for SCG, regardless of the choice of format for these Opens.

The very first Standard "Grand Prix" Open began this Saturday in Seattle, and it featured only 449 players, compared to the previous marks of 557, 521, and 580 players in the previous three Seattle Opens in April 2013, October 2013, and March 2014. This is despite the fact that there was a concurrent Invitational, which usually brings more players to an event on the same day.

Granted, there were a number of players participating in Day 2 of the Invitational who were unable to participate in the Standard Open, but this number was relatively small (99 players), and did not include those like myself who would not have played in the Standard Open anyway and also doesn't account for a handful of players who dropped from Day 2 of the Invitational to play in the Standard Open. In any case, this is almost certainly a lower number than the old one-day $10K Opens would have garnered, and I hope this gives SCG incentive to reconsider their event structure in the future, especially since they doubled the prize support for the Saturday Open for only 25% extra entry fee.

[Cynicath]

The very first Standard "Grand Prix" Open began this Saturday in Seattle, and it featured only 449 players, compared to the previous marks of 557, 521, and 580 players in the previous three Seattle Opens in April 2013, October 2013, and March 2014. This is despite the fact that there was a concurrent Invitational, which usually brings more players to an event on the same day.

Granted, there were a number of players participating in Day 2 of the Invitational who were unable to participate in the Standard Open, but this number was relatively small (99 players), and did not include those like myself who would not have played in the Standard Open anyway and also doesn't account for a handful of players who dropped from Day 2 of the Invitational to play in the Standard Open. In any case, this is almost certainly a lower number than the old one-day $10K Opens would have garnered, and I hope this gives SCG incentive to reconsider their event structure in the future, especially since they doubled the prize support for the Saturday Open for only 25% extra entry fee.

I think it's a bit premature to be drawing conclusions. Small sample size and all that. I'd like for your analysis to be correct, but are probably other factors at play, namely university finals. I'm willing to bet a significant portion of people who would play in an SCG Standard Open are hunkered down cramming at the moment. I know I am, and if SCG were nearby I would have to skip it.

[lordofthepit]

I think it's a bit premature to be drawing conclusions. Small sample size and all that. I'd like for your analysis to be correct, but are probably other factors at play, namely university finals. I'm willing to bet a significant portion of people who would play in an SCG Standard Open are hunkered down cramming at the moment. I know I am, and if SCG were nearby I would have to skip it.

The small sample size is a reasonable point, but I'm not trying to prove that this new format will cause *decreased* attendance, just that it won't cause *increased* attendance by as much as anticipated.

I completely agree that other factors such as university finals are more important than Magic, but schools have finals every quarter/trimester. Last year, the Q4 Invitational was at Las Vegas at pretty much the same time of the year, and it drew a comparable number of players (299) to the event at Seattle (273), but had significantly more Standard players (527 vs. 449). Keep in mind that Las Vegas has traditionally had smaller turnouts in Seattle in past non-Invitational weekends, so if anything, the comparison of the Dec 2013 Las Vegas weekend to the Dec 2014 Seattle weekend understates the decreased Saturday attendance that results from the new "Grand Prix" format.

[Cynicath]

The small sample size is a reasonable point, but I'm not trying to prove that this new format will cause *decreased* attendance, just that it won't cause *increased* attendance by as much as anticipated.

I completely agree that other factors such as university finals are more important than Magic, but schools have finals every quarter/trimester. Last year, the Q4 Invitational was at Las Vegas at pretty much the same time of the year, and it drew a comparable number of players (299) to the event at Seattle (273), but had significantly more Standard players (527 vs. 449). Keep in mind that Las Vegas has traditionally had smaller turnouts in Seattle in past non-Invitational weekends, so if anything, the comparison of the Dec 2013 Las Vegas weekend to the Dec 2014 Seattle weekend understates the decreased Saturday attendance that results from the new "Grand Prix" format.

Very interesting. We'll still have to wait and see if it becomes a trend, but your Vegas comparison is definitely more compelling to me. Attendance is a difficult metric to analyze, I appreciate the work you put in to make it manageable.

[TheArchitect]

The small sample size is a reasonable point, but I'm not trying to prove that this new format will cause *decreased* attendance, just that it won't cause *increased* attendance by as much as anticipated.

I completely agree that other factors such as university finals are more important than Magic, but schools have finals every quarter/trimester. Last year, the Q4 Invitational was at Las Vegas at pretty much the same time of the year, and it drew a comparable number of players (299) to the event at Seattle (273), but had significantly more Standard players (527 vs. 449). Keep in mind that Las Vegas has traditionally had smaller turnouts in Seattle in past non-Invitational weekends, so if anything, the comparison of the Dec 2013 Las Vegas weekend to the Dec 2014 Seattle weekend understates the decreased Saturday attendance that results from the new "Grand Prix" format.

Aaaaaand there's still 220 people in attendance for the 5k legacy IQ. Like you said its the smallest of sample sizes, but at least at this event, attendances basically did not change at all. Legacy attendance is ~160% of what it should be based on the prizes/entry and standard attendance is just about where it should be based on prizes/entry. Discounting the massive operational costs, and card sales, legacy made them more money in tournament entry alone. If broadcasted, legacy would have gotten almost twice as many twitch viewers too.

Hopefully this trend continues and SCG will change things for the second half of the year.

EDIT: And theres only 144 for the Modern event, which is the same prizes as legacy but with 60% of the participants. Looking at entry/prizes alone, SCG lost money on modern (obviously selling cards/articles matters too though).

[lyracian]

EDIT: And theres only 144 for the Modern event, which is the same prizes as legacy but with 60% of the participants. Looking at entry/prizes alone, SCG lost money on modern (obviously selling cards/articles matters too though).
Taking the two 5K events together they made slightly more than the 10k they paid out. With a $30 entry fee they need to get more than 166 players for each event to cover the prize money. When you look at all three events together entry fees were $33,620 against $30,000 payed out in prizes. Now I do not know what the operation cost is for staff and venue hire but four grand sounds a reasonable amount to cover this. It does mean there profits are only coming from card/sundry sales. Perhaps that is why they are looking at selling floor space to other traders at events?

[TheArchitect]

Taking the two 5K events together they made slightly more than the 10k they paid out. With a $30 entry fee they need to get more than 166 players for each event to cover the prize money. When you look at all three events together entry fees were $33,620 against $30,000 payed out in prizes. Now I do not know what the operation cost is for staff and venue hire but four grand sounds a reasonable amount to cover this. It does mean there profits are only coming from card/sundry sales. Perhaps that is why they are looking at selling floor space to other traders at events?

Im pretty sure their operational costs were much higher than 4000$. Still after sales and what not I do not doubt that they made profit, my point was simply that based on entry, prizes and attendance alone, legacy was their most profitable event.

[lyracian]

I have never been to a SCG event so have no idea how many staff they have to pay. What basis are you using for Legacy to be more profitable than standard? They made 1.5k on Legacy and 2.5k on standard.

[Megadeus]

I have never been to a SCG event so have no idea how many staff they have to pay. What basis are you using for Legacy to be more profitable than standard? They made 1.5k on Legacy and 2.5k on standard.

You also have to look at it from the view point that they had to have the venue and judges and such for two days for the standard event, thus the operational costs for that tournament was higher.

[lordofthepit]

If SCG thought over 4000 players (which *excluded* players who dropped without playing) for GP NJ was disappointing, then they must feel that a Standard $20K Open with under 450 players is catastrophic.

I was very pleased to see the Legacy 5K had more players than the Modern one, despite the even earlier start time. It may not hold up forever and it may vary from location to location, but at least it dispels the notion that Sunday Legacy Opens had more players than Modern in the past simply because of the increased prize support.

[lyracian]

You also have to look at it from the view point that they had to have the venue and judges and such for two days for the standard event, thus the operational costs for that tournament was higher.
I do not really see it that way. In the old format they had X staff for Saturday and Y Staff for events L and M on Sunday. In the new format they have X staff on Saturday and Y + Z on Sunday for events L, M and S. S is capped at about 64 players and they were already hiring the venue for two days to run the existing Sunday events. Even if none of the players in Day two would have played the regular Sunday events you are not spending over a grand on extra staff for one event.

[ESG]

If SCG thought over 4000 players (which *excluded* players who dropped without playing) for GP NJ was disappointing, then they must feel that a Standard $20K Open with under 450 players is catastrophic.

Just to be sure, has SCG said somewhere that the GP NJ turnout was disappointing, or above or below expectations?

[nedleeds]

They made or lost money based on the amount of cards they were able to buy.

[thecrav]

Just to be sure, has SCG said somewhere that the GP NJ turnout was disappointing, or above or below expectations?

Seconded. All I saw was that they said they were ready for up to 6K players, not that they expected that many.


They made or lost money based on the amount of cards they were able to buy.

Quoted for truth. The business purpose of the opens is to:

Act as a traveling road show that buys cards
Act as marketing for those cards

[Ziveeman]

Just to be sure, has SCG said somewhere that the GP NJ turnout was disappointing, or above or below expectations?

There were posts on reddit and I think here as well that SCG had to refund vendors some amount of money due to the turnout but I have no idea if that is true.

[lordofthepit]

There were posts on reddit and I think here as well that SCG had to refund vendors some amount of money due to the turnout but I have no idea if that is true.

That's the rumor I heard as well, although if your Grand Prix gets over 4000 players for the main event alone, you overpromised if you had to refund some money to vendors.

On a side note, keep in mind that decklists are no longer provided in the elimination rounds of a Legacy Premier IQ, since there is no video coverage. I don't know if this situation will change in the future if SCG starts covering Legacy PIQs.

[ESG]

That's the rumor I heard as well, although if your Grand Prix gets over 4000 players for the main event alone, you overpromised if you had to refund some money to vendors.

That's an interesting rumor. I know in one of the CEDTalks podcasts that Patrick Sullivan was guessing a lower number for the turnout and thought there was no way there would be close to 4,000 people. Cedric felt there would be 4,000 or more. I don't know how privy to information they are. I agree that if 4,000 was a disappointment, then SCG overpromised.

Edit: I tracked it down. In the Nov. 5 podcast, "Broken in Oakland," at 30:27 Cedric and Patrick give their GP New Jersey attendance predictions. Patrick says, "I would be shocked if we got anywhere approaching Vegas numbers, just because of card availability." Cedric says he thinks turnout will break 4,500. Patrick says, "I would consider breaking 3,000, for a Legacy grand prix, to be an enormous success."

[Darkenslight]

That's an interesting rumor. I know in one of the CEDTalks podcasts that Patrick Sullivan was guessing a lower number for the turnout and thought there was no way there would be close to 4,000 people. Cedric felt there would be 4,000 or more. I don't know how privy to information they are. I agree that if 4,000 was a disappointment, then SCG overpromised.

Edit: I tracked it down. In the Nov. 5 podcast, "Broken in Oakland," at 30:27 Cedric and Patrick give their GP New Jersey attendance predictions. Patrick says, "I would be shocked if we got anywhere approaching Vegas numbers, just because of card availability." Cedric says he thinks turnout will break 4,500. Patrick says, "I would consider breaking 3,000, for a Legacy grand prix, to be an enormous success."

It seems obvious that one of the largest GPs was overpromised if that was disappointing, and someone majorly fucked-up.

[lordofthepit]

First Standard $20K Open of 2015 brings 659 players into Columbus. That's lower than all three Standard ($10K) Opens of 2014 (Jan, 688; June, 705; Nov, 757) in Columbus. Probably much lower than what SCG was hoping for, but unfortunately, not likely to be low enough to be embarrassing enough for them to go back on this new setup.

My preference is for them to go back to Saturday Standard and Sunday Legacy Opens, each with $10K, but hopefully the first Legacy $20K Open gives them enough reason to have nearly 50% Legacy Opens on schedule if they decide to maintain this new format.

[Cynicath]

First Standard $20K Open of 2015 brings 659 players into Columbus. That's lower than all three Standard ($10K) Opens of 2014 (Jan, 688; June, 705; Nov, 757). Probably much lower than what SCG was hoping for, but unfortunately, not likely to be low enough to be embarrassing enough for them to go back on this new setup.

My preference is for them to go back to Saturday Standard and Sunday Legacy Opens, each with $10K, but hopefully the first Legacy $20K Open gives them enough reason to have nearly 50% Legacy Opens on schedule if they decide to maintain this new format.


Thanks for the update! Where do you get the attendance figures from? I'd like to be able to stay up to date on this stuff but I'm not sure where to look.

[lordofthepit]

Thanks for the update! Where do you get the attendance figures from? I'd like to be able to stay up to date on this stuff but I'm not sure where to look.

I look at the SCG standings for each round. Usually, they'll wait until after R2 to post R1 standings to allow for late entries to be reflected (no late entries are allowed after R2). I'll often check standings for R1 and a later round just to confirm they are consistent, since they carry players over even after they are dropped; occasionally, a player gets disqualified, and this is reflected by that player no longer being shown for subsequent rounds.

I've gone through every single Open since Richmond in February 2009 and saved them to an Excel spreadsheet; exceptions are for the five Standard Opens between 10/10/2012 and 11/17/2012, because all of the links for those Opens are dead and I didn't think to keep track of attendance figures for non-Legacy events until later (after the website crashed).

I can probably post the actual data after I get Legacy and Modern PIQ data this weekend.

[Beatusnox]

Honestly, I know that myself and a few other legacy players at my local played predominantly legacy, and if we traveled to an event, we would play standard day 1 for something to do, and legacy day 2 was our focus. So they would gain us as players for standard simply because we were looking for something to do, and I am fairly certain that many times the opposite was true as well.

[Meekrab]

First Standard $20K Open of 2015 brings 659 players into Columbus. That's lower than all three Standard ($10K) Opens of 2014 (Jan, 688; June, 705; Nov, 757) in Columbus. Probably much lower than what SCG was hoping for, but unfortunately, not likely to be low enough to be embarrassing enough for them to go back on this new setup.

My preference is for them to go back to Saturday Standard and Sunday Legacy Opens, each with $10K, but hopefully the first Legacy $20K Open gives them enough reason to have nearly 50% Legacy Opens on schedule if they decide to maintain this new format.
I'd give it more than one week, I imagine it being a holiday hangover weekend is hurting attendance.

[lordofthepit]

Bad news: this is the first time the Modern PIQ (250) had more players than the Legacy one (162). This was going to happen at an event at some point, and it makes it extremely unlikely that SCG will ever go back to the old system, since that would require Standard $20K Opens to be a complete flop (close), but Legacy to continue to show more popularity across the board than Modern.

Still, it's not surprising that this happened at Columbus for the first time. The first Columbus Modern PIQ in November was one of the best attended one with 181, which represented 69.9% of the attendance at the corresponding Legacy Open (259). From the timeframe between Baltimore (7/19/2014) and Portland (12/6/2014) in which Modern PIQs were held simultaneously with Legacy Opens, no other city had even close to this high of a proportion of Modern players on Sunday. Columbus is evidently a hotbed of Modern.

There will certainly be other venues where Modern will have more players than Legacy in the future (of the 17 events with Modern PIQs and Legacy Opens, Syracuse, Indianapolis, Dallas, Minnesota, and Atlanta were the other sites where Modern PIQs had at least 50% of the Legacy Open attendance). Hopefully, if Modern attendance is strong in the future, SCG will at least move the godforsaken 9 am start time for the Legacy PIQs back to something more reasonable.

[vnayin]

The large Modern PIQ might also be because there is a Modern GP next weekend.

[Barook]

The large Modern PIQ might also be because there is a Modern GP next weekend.
Probably, although I can see people getting tired of the blue-infested meta overrun with Delver.

[lordofthepit]

Probably, although I can see people getting tired of the blue-infested meta overrun with Delver.

That would be a valid point if Delver didn't represent a higher proportion of top decks in Modern than it does in Legacy (MTGTop8.com data).

Hopefully, vnayin is right about the upcoming Modern GP (which I was unaware of) contributing to higher Modern numbers and lower Legacy ones for this weekend, although I suspect Modern is simply very popular in Columbus.

Next week is the first Legacy Open under the new system, so I hope the turnout is strong and we can enjoy two days of excellent coverage!

[Barook]

That would be a valid point if Delver didn't represent a higher proportion of top decks in Modern than it does in Legacy (MTGTop8.com data).
Except Modern has been shifting away from UR Delver in both paper (http://tcdecks.net/metagame.php?format=Modern&fecha=2014-12) and online (http://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/modern#online) lately, unlike Legacy.

~10% would sound alot more bearable than ~25% spread over various, exchangable Delver variants.

[lordofthepit]

First Legacy $20K Open in Philadelphia draws 566. Considerably larger than the Standard Open in Seattle (449), but smaller than the Standard Open in Columbus (659).

What's very telling is that this is the largest Open ever held in Philadelphia (previous ones were 318, 521, 467, and 402), whereas the Standard $20K Opens were not the largest ones in their respective cities. In fact, Philadelphia has tended to have smaller Opens than Seattle, so the fact that the new Legacy Open in Philadelphia was bigger than the new Standard Open in Seattle (on an Invitational weekend!) is extremely telling.