The future of Legacy?

[Barook]

I'm not saying the sky is falling yet, but the changes in the recent past are pretty worrying.

- SCG only half-heartly supports Legacy now, so their card stock doesn't crash
- Wizards is currently hellbent on killing the Eternal events on MTGO (aka "the future of Legacy due to the Reserve List"

GP numbers are still decent, but who knows if they don't cut Legacy GPs for the next years?

[twndomn]

I'm not saying the sky is falling yet, but the changes in the recent past are pretty worrying.

- Wizards is currently hellbent on killing the Eternal events on MTGO (aka "the future of Legacy due to the Reserve List"

GP numbers are still decent, but who knows if they don't cut Legacy GPs for the next years?

You need to be more specific and provide more context. Like which recent change, and what the specific recent change was on MTGO to lead you to believe that Wizards is hellbent on killing Legacy. Not everyone here follows MTGO Legacy Daily.

[sjmcc13]

You need to be more specific and provide more context. Like which recent change, and what the specific recent change was on MTGO to lead you to believe that Wizards is hellbent on killing Legacy. Not everyone here follows MTGO Legacy Daily. Go read the play points announcement.... 6 Tix to play in a daily, and if you go 2-1 you get 60 play points which are worth less then 6 tix to anyone who understands basic economics. (assuming a pack is at 3 tix, then you can get in a draft for 11 tix, but it is 140 PP placing 1 play point at .07857 tix, they only equal if a pack is at store price which will not happen)
There is other things, but that is the most recent.

[Barook]

You need to be more specific and provide more context. Like which recent change, and what the specific recent change was on MTGO to lead you to believe that Wizards is hellbent on killing Legacy. Not everyone here follows MTGO Legacy Daily.
They regularly cut events in the past few months, including the always available 8-man queue.

Last week they announced a major revamp of the prize structure (hint: it sucks ass), so tons of people sold out. In reaction to this, they made the Daily Events (the only event type that didn't rip you off, at least before they changed it last week) for Eternal formats and Pauper basically glorified 8-mans where you have to go at least 2-1 to break even. And you can only win packs to sell if you go 3-0. Did I mention that you have to wait the full time until everybody is finished? So you're probably wasting 3 hours for nothing as end result while you could jammed tons of games without interruption for free in the Tournament Practice room.

Legacy DE attention is down by at least 30% even before the changes come into effect on August 12th because so many people sold out in reaction to the changes. Quite a few DEs don't fire anymore while they all fired before the announcement. Once the changes happen, Legacy WILL be dead for good. Then they'll cut it due to "lack of interest", as seen before with other events.

[Lysandros]

It certainly seems like Legacy is "down" ever since SCG shifted away from Sunday Opens. I know they still have premier IQs or whatever, but they're not streamed, and they hardly cover any Legacy anymore on their site. It's a shame, it felt like Legacy was taking off before that. Now their IQ numbers are switching from Legacy to Modern being the bigger draw. I suppose that was always destined to be the case...but before they pulled the Legacy support, every Modern player I knew was trying to build a Legacy deck. Now most of the people around here are selling off Legacy (grudgingly) to buy into Modern (grudgingly).

I'm a crusty "old" player who would play nothing but Vintage, Legacy and 93/94 if I could, so I'm probably biased...but I'll never understand the draw to Modern. It's the Communist Soviet Union of MtG formats.

[GrimoirePath]

Playing online seems weird and boring to me. Hint, im also a crusty old guy. The key to keeping it alive, is to just keep playing it. Shit, if people sell out their collections, build a second or third legacy deck. Lend it to friends for LGS and SCG events. Actually playing legacy will hook players.

Modern? Ugghhhh......

[Michael Keller]

They regularly cut events in the past few months, including the always available 8-man queue.

Last week they announced a major revamp of the prize structure (hint: it sucks ass), so tons of people sold out. In reaction to this, they made the Daily Events (the only event type that didn't rip you off, at least before they changed it last week) for Eternal formats and Pauper basically glorified 8-mans where you have to go at least 2-1 to break even. And you can only win packs to sell if you go 3-0. Did I mention that you have to wait the full time until everybody is finished? So you're probably wasting 3 hours for nothing as end result while you could jammed tons of games without interruption for free in the Tournament Practice room.

Legacy DE attention is down by at least 30% even before the changes come into effect on August 12th because so many people sold out in reaction to the changes. Quite a few DEs don't fire anymore while they all fired before the announcement. Once the changes happen, Legacy WILL be dead for good. Then they'll cut it due to "lack of interest", as seen before with other events.

Right, so when Legacy "dies," what happens then to every Magic card pre-dating 8th Edition? Why would Wizards be stupid to essentially competitively invalidate thousands of cards spanning over a decade to cater to what would be its "replacement" in Modern?

Vintage is virtually impossible to break into seriously with maybe a handful of sanctioned events a year. I honestly believe that if Wizards somehow, someway wanted to shake things up, they'll evolve it again into something else (which seems completely unnecessary).

Legacy is a free for all format. It encompasses everything from the beginning to now. That freedom to play whatever you want essentially seems obvious from a gamer's freedom standpoint. In a competitive card game with multiple sanctioned formats, it just seems odd that the one format where you can play anything and almost everything is always the format spoken of being shut down for good. It's just mind boggling with that creativity and deep card pool Legacy always gets shafted or spoken of in a negative light.

[Sloshthedark]

What killed legacy was in majority SCG - pricespikes connected to their market(ing) behaviour (to put things into perspective playable deck costs 2 months average paycheck where I live now), include demographics of typical legacy player and you have it... you have less time - work/wife/kids, your play and relation to the game gets worse (also the game evolves to something "worse" - new prints, mechanics, netdecking), when cards cost 5-15x more than you bought them it's hard not to sell... while this happens there is noone to replace you (pricetag, other less complicated games/hobbies alternatives), If you keep in eventually the situation gets real bad and you're bound to see the same faces in each tournament in diminishing numbers, then your relation gets more loose and end...on this spiral the only way is downwards, costs to break it are too steep - for those who are still tempted we have modern, even though more debilitated a cheaper way to play and now mass adopted highlander variants... this is slow degenerative process and may not apply for North America at first sight where the legacy circiut aspirations may have driven more people to enter the format/circiut, but in overall the trend is very negative imo... legacy is to exist in strong communities and major events only in few years unless something breaks the equation (counterfeits, reserved list, something really crazy)

Wotc has shown continuous incompetence to manage the game, not to speak about legacy, everytime i read about Modo I'm so glad I resisted :laugh: I have no idea how such things could ever happen to an online game or how can it still exist in this form, looks more like a bad economy experiment:eyebrow:

[nevilshute]

I doubt legacy will ever truly die, but I could be wrong. I mean if the format loses even more support (as in, no more GPs for instance) and everybody panics and tries to sell out, and that in turn causes prices to fall, then those prices will eventually get so low that I would expect other people would start to buy in. People that maybe always wanted to buy in, perhaps, but couldn't due to prices being too high. We might not get the 3 yearly GPs but I'd imagine there'd still be select tournaments around the world albeit sporadically (but that is basically already the case). Maybe a single SCG-open, maybe Eternal Weekend, maybe Bazaar of Moxen, maybe something else.

While it sucks that the format is being overtaken in popularity, and therefore also coverage, by Modern (and that seems an unstoppable trend now) because it means there will be less content for us to access I guess as long as it's possible for me to play Legacy every week at my LGS (and yes, even that could be threatened, but I'm not too worried) then I'm happy to keep my cards and keep playing. As I only really have the opportunity to travel once a year to play magic anyway it doesn't really matter that much to me if that trip is to a 1500-person GP or a 700-person BoM.

[bruizar]

What killed legacy was in majority SCG - pricespikes connected to their market(ing) behaviour (to put things into perspective playable deck costs 2 months average paycheck where I live now), include demographics of typical legacy player and you have it... you have less time - work/wife/kids, your play and relation to the game gets worse (also the game evolves to something "worse" - new prints, mechanics, netdecking), when cards cost 5-15x more than you bought them it's hard not to sell... while this happens there is noone to replace you (pricetag, other less complicated games/hobbies alternatives), If you keep in eventually the situation gets real bad and you're bound to see the same faces in each tournament in diminishing numbers, then your relation gets more loose and end...on this spiral the only way is downwards, costs to break it are too steep - for those who are still tempted we have modern, even though more debilitated a cheaper way to play and now mass adopted highlander variants... this is slow degenerative process and may not apply for North America at first sight where the legacy circiut aspirations may have driven more people to enter the format/circiut, but in overall the trend is very negative imo... legacy is to exist in strong communities and major events only in few years unless something breaks the equation (counterfeits, reserved list, something really crazy)

Wotc has shown continuous incompetence to manage the game, not to speak about legacy, everytime i read about Modo I'm so glad I resisted :laugh: I have no idea how such things could ever happen to an online game or how can it still exist in this form, looks more like a bad economy experiment:eyebrow:

excellent post

[dzhu4500]

What I think will keep legacy going is having local, low level, proxy events. If people can afford to try a couple of decks and learn the format they will be far more willing to buy in. Legacy is a damn intimidating format, even to watch, for people new to the format. Having an accessible, low cost way to try the format will increase interest. In fact, that's how I got to pretty much quit playing modern.

[Ace/Homebrew]

Wizards is currently hellbent on killing the Eternal events
Meh...

I look forward to watching my grandkids from hell as they go on Antiques Roadshow and are told they should be able to auction off my collection to pay for their college education. :tongue:

[Mr Miagi]

Well, the future of legacy doesn't seem so birght, for various reasons. First and foremost the cost is prohibitive, support is vanishing from either SCG or WOTC's MODO, people rather buy into modern because it has cheaper entry level and bigger player base (or at least on local leve). Modern is also more new player friendly. People are slowly but surely selling out from legacy (not only MODO), this is especially true for smaller communities. People with smaller incomes can't justify to have at least one deck worth around 2.000$ just for one single monthly event and then even if they afford one deck for that one singel motnhly event then they are not getting the broad experience of legacy by playing themselves different decks, they are almost enprisoned to that deck and that is not good from longterm point of view for that player as well as for local communities.

Where I do see possible resurgence or at least keeping the same baseline of players for legacy is locally. Yes we lost SCGs momentum of big and streamed tournaments but hey, legacy was alive and well (maybe even moreso?) before SCG has had their eye on it. We need to take care of local player base and especially local tournaments. Make sure these events are frequent so that you will retain player base, make sure your events are "marketed" well in advance so people are aware of them, create some "hype" around them, grab/spark people's attention. I don't think this is an issue with legacy player base as we are on a more mature end but create a positive and healthy playing atmosphere. Especially locally you can try and play with diferent decks even if they are not exactly tier 1/1,5, this will create some more dynamic games rather than to have a constant stale or entoxicating meta.
With a lot of effort (some pointers above) you may just be able to retain or very slowly grow local playerbase. From that local playerbase you can than plan for bigger events. USA still has SCG and there are some other vendors that I also think are hosting larger events. In Europe we need some more bigger events but still have some in Italy, Spain, France and nowaday also Czech Repulic (Prague). Maybe I'm not all that familiar with German/Austrian legacy scene but I know there are quite few legacy players from there (at least Germany). Don't you guys have any bigger events?

All in all it's not that grim, but we are close to the tipping point where legacy is literally in our hands and if we don't keep it alive we will lose the "momentum" and legacy will slowly but surely fade away.

Also @ Sloshthedark: really excellent post!

[GrimoirePath]

Legacy is just the best and most fun format, as you have access to such a huge pool of cards. And honestly, is playing Magic all about sanctioned events? I hope not. Big SCG events are fun, but so is playing with three other people at an LGS.

Once you have a Legacy deck, you have it. Sure, you could sell it and recoup money, but you could theoretically sit on it for a decade and play when and where you can without major new buys, unlike modern.

I dont know, I guess I like the anarchistic, outlaw format that allows everything and can thrive with or without the papal blessing.

[nevilshute]

Legacy is just the best and most fun format, as you have access to such a huge pool of cards. And honestly, is playing Magic all about sanctioned events? I hope not. Big SCG events are fun, but so is playing with three other people at an LGS.

Once you have a Legacy deck, you have it. Sure, you could sell it and recoup money, but you could theoretically sit on it for a decade and play when and where you can without major new buys, unlike modern.

I dont know, I guess I like the anarchistic, outlaw format that allows everything and can thrive with or without the papal blessing.

Well said.

[Dragonslayer_90]

This thread brings tears to my eyes, thought mostly in a positive way. So much so I'm sigging a couple of gems from this thread. I love Legacy not only because this is the best format imo, but also the sense of community that comes with it. To those who play on regardless of negative trends due to love of the format, I salute you.

[ironclad8690]

There certainly isn't any money to be made in legacy anymore. You can come up and win a dual land every now and again, or maybe even a few hundred dollars if you spike an iq. I think the die hards will make up he bulk of the player base from now on unless someone else picks up where SCG left off.

I love the people you meet playing legacy though, and they will often be friends for life.

[LeoCop 90]

What I think will keep legacy going is having local, low level, proxy events.

Well, in my area (italy) legacy events with ten proxies created a big and fun legacy community.
But you know what wizards did? Basically they sent emails to all local game stores stating that proxies will be now considered the same as counterfeit cards, and any store that would run events with proxies could lose the ability to run prereleases/fnm's and so on. This happened some months ago, they tried to run events with zero proxies but due to low attendance now most stores gave up on legacy.
They are really doing their best to kill legacy, unfortunately, and this is not a thing we can stop in any way.

[btm10]

Worst case scenario we go the Vintage route and run more community-supported proxy tournaments. I wouldn't mind that at all.

[sjmcc13]

Well, in my area (italy) legacy events with ten proxies created a big and fun legacy community.
But you know what wizards did? Basically they sent emails to all local game stores stating that proxies will be now considered the same as counterfeit cards, and any store that would run events with proxies could lose the ability to run prereleases/fnm's and so on. This happened some months ago, they tried to run events with zero proxies but due to low attendance now most stores gave up on legacy.Were these sanctioned or unsanctioned proxy events?

If sanctioned, then wizards has a point, if unsanctioned, then there have none.

[Pulp_Fiction]

A lot of good points and, here in the Atlanta area the scene is still alive but, the BIG cardshop Super Games cancelled all Legacy events and ran them once a month and even then, could barely get them to fire. Now they have brought them back and I will attend one in the near future but I have no hope for them. The attendance is just abysmal for the most part. Now I have largely cashed out of legacy but 2 of my buddies still play ever or every other saturday and they say they get ... 10-12 average showing up and then 15-20 on a really good day.

Now comparing that to Modern, I play every other thursday (they run once a week) and the attendance is 32-38 people in that range, I have never seen less than 30 show up.

That being said I have made the switch to Modern and here is why, variety (and the ability to build a deck without selling my motorcycle). This is one of the reasons I believe legacy is dying, people get burned out. When my buddies come back they play against the same crap everytime, Miracles, Stoneblade, Delver Variants, all running the same 40-45 cards main and while some of those players do have the ability to play other decks, they basically know which people are running what at almost any given time.

Sorry, long point but this is just my perspective, when I play Modern I run into a variety of decks and literally never play the same deck twice in a 4 round tournament, the control decks run different cards, as do aggro, burn, etc. You don't run into the decks running the same 40-45 cards unless its Affinity, UR Storm, Scapeshift, and a few others that have a mainboard pretty set in stone, but even then, there might be 0-3 of those decks in a field of 30ish people. Anything can win in Modern, Homebrews can do well if tuned for the meta, IMOP the format allows for a lot more creativity, hell, last 2 weeks I went 3-1 and 3-0-1 with a decks running cascade spells and 16x suspend creatures!

[solidbass]

Since I've started playing Legacy a couple of years ago there are now 3 sanctioned weekly legacy events that I can drive to in under 45 minutes. Before it was 1, so people can say what they will about Legacy dying, but for me, it's never been more active. Also the average turnouts for these are around 20 players.

Modern sucks.

[The_Dingo]

I still have a lot of faith in the future of legacy. But that might be due to the thriving legacy community in central MA that always seems to be growing. The popularity of legacy here isn't because of SCG opens, or Grand prix. I think SCG could drop legacy entirely and people would still continue to play because the local player base is enthusiastic about Magic in general and Legacy in particular.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Since I've started playing Legacy a couple of years ago there are now 3 sanctioned weekly legacy events that I can drive to in under 45 minutes. Before it was 1, so people can say what they will about Legacy dying, but for me, it's never been more active. Also the average turnouts for these are around 20 players.

Modern sucks.

I have one event weekly, down from several not too long ago. Our weekly event was getting 20-25 people as late as this spring and is now down to 8-10 (12 if we're lucky). There are now 2 consistent weekly Modern events with that turnout or better on my side of town, plus all kinds of IQs, PPTQs, and GPTs for it in the greater metro area.

I will always prefer Legacy because I like to play fast combo, prison, and old cards in general that aren't available in the Modern. However, to dismiss the format because it's not Legacy is incredibly short-sighted. It is a MUCH healthier and more diverse format than Legacy is (or has been in years) and seems much more open to new brews breaking in. I play both, and enjoy both. I would enjoy Modern more if less things were banned, and I would enjoy Legacy more if the format was less stale.

[Phoenix Ignition]

Sorry, long point but this is just my perspective, when I play Modern I run into a variety of decks and literally never play the same deck twice in a 4 round tournament, the control decks run different cards, as do aggro, burn, etc. You don't run into the decks running the same 40-45 cards unless its Affinity, UR Storm, Scapeshift, and a few others that have a mainboard pretty set in stone, but even then, there might be 0-3 of those decks in a field of 30ish people. Anything can win in Modern, Homebrews can do well if tuned for the meta, IMOP the format allows for a lot more creativity, hell, last 2 weeks I went 3-1 and 3-0-1 with a decks running cascade spells and 16x suspend creatures!

Yep, I've basically switched from Legacy to Modern as well. Legacy allows you to play different decks, but unless you're going a super linear strategy you need to play the same blue cards in every deck. My favorite part of magic is the creativity from deckbuilding, and Legacy has pretty much completely lost that. I used to keep track of every legacy tournament result that came out from any size tournament because there was so much variance in decks. The next biggest deck could be a pile of 30 new cards that no one had ever played with before.

And then... that all stopped. You look at any SCG result, any other local tournament result, and all you see are the same decks +/-5 cards and have been that way for years. It takes 30 seconds to go over what happened this week in legacy, because every deck is immediately recognizable. Every once in a while people put 2 Monastery Mentors in an existing deck and it's the new biggest thing, but that's not at all what I got into Legacy for.

I played in the days where the power level of cards in the format allowed all sorts of decks to be played. Sneak Attack was a bad card because the best thing you could do was Bogardan Hellkite, but I played the crap out of my Survival + Sneak Attack deck (featuring 1x Academy Rector + 1x Form of the Dragon). There was no ultra-consistent win that killed off fringe-playable decks and was the optimal choice. Optimal choices didn't come because of netdecking, they came because of power creep to huge fatties (emrakul, grizzlebrand) and variance killing (millions of better blue cantrips). We used to have threads here on the Source that argued over the minimum number of blue cards you needed to fit in if you wanted to play FoW. Does anyone else remember that?? There was a time where you didn't have a million blue cards in every deck, mainly because the cantrips were terrible (Has everyone forgotten about using stuff like Predict?).

To me Legacy is already dead. I know all of the decks, all of the playstyles, and none of them interest me at all. Modern is right now the same creative space that Legacy used to be, I've just gotten over the fact that it's called something else (which a hilarious number of people on here haven't). Back in the days of Goblins vs UW Standstill in Legacy, there were opportunities abound to play fun decks like Survival of the Fittest or UBG midrange. I went something like 7-3 with BG deathcloud at GP Cleveland, starting with 0 byes. Remember when everyone flipped out over UG Next level thresh? Well that type of environment does live on in Modern. Yeah, you don't get to play Force of Will, but back in Legacy days long past, not even 50% of decks did, and most of the time they were scrounging up blue cards to fill in for cards to pitch which actually lowered the power of their deck(!). I used to be an exclusive Legacy player just like many on here, looking down my nose at other, lesser formats, but that was a dumb viewpoint to cling to since Legacy now is not at all what it used to be.

Modern isn't 100% what I'd want it to be, but it sure as hell fits what I want out of magic more than Legacy does now. If you can build a solid deck out of left field and know how to play, you can go at least 2-2 at a weekly tournament. Heck, I 3-1ed with a UR deck that maindecked Leyline of Sanctity, Blood Moon, and Simian Spirit Guides, and had way more fun playing it than any deck I've played with in Legacy in the past 3 years. It hurts not getting to use some older cards... I'd love Armageddon or Cabal Therapy, but that's a price I'm easily willing to pay if that means we'll have a format that isn't completely trashed by the best card.

Some people really like the hyper competitive environment of Legacy right now where you only have to memorize a list of decks and anything else being played against you is probably terrible, but that's not why I ever played magic. It'll probably live on but I know many people are as bored of the current state of it as I am, so numbers will likely continue to drop for a while as people realize that.

[bruizar]

Feels like groundhog day. The narrative about the current state of legacy mirrors that of vintage in its decline on themanadrain.com, and the narrative on modern mirrors the narrative of legacy during its boom on mtgthesource.com

[TsumiBand]

Yeahhh, my Eternal access is pretty much limited to EDH and Commander these days, so.

I'd love to play Legacy again, I think. I say "I think" because I'm really really rusty. My decks are budget as fuck OR they are ancient lists. I freaked out once because I inherited a collection that had 1x Time Spiral which I promptly put in my SPRING TIDE LIST, k? Besides that and my 8-year old Goblin list, I'm like... Elvis Presley in a meta full of Justin Timberlake.

Like, really, between this and having daughters that are 14 years apart, and realizing that there are hobbies and interests in my life that if I just had some fucking focus I could really get out more than I put in (coding, resuming my guitar study) or like... fuck, just playing Hearthstone and even with that and getting salty about BMing shitshrimp that try to friend me after we play just to talk shit... like, I just think about my Magic cards and lose my appetite.

I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I've had to settle, or maybe I choose to settle because I'm unwilling to travel just to play Legacy Magic. I dunno. It doesn't matter; I still think about resolving SFMs in a meaningful way and feeling like that would be fun and good. I just know that it's really unlikely that I'll ever have opportunity to do that. I feel kind of like the good cards I do have are just sitting and I'm hoping they appreciate in value until they hit some "good enough" value -- and man do I hate it when people do that, so I'm rather ambivalent with regard to my current situation.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Yep, I've basically switched from Legacy to Modern as well. Legacy allows you to play different decks, but unless you're going a super linear strategy you need to play the same blue cards in every deck. My favorite part of magic is the creativity from deckbuilding, and Legacy has pretty much completely lost that. I used to keep track of every legacy tournament result that came out from any size tournament because there was so much variance in decks. The next biggest deck could be a pile of 30 new cards that no one had ever played with before.

And then... that all stopped. You look at any SCG result, any other local tournament result, and all you see are the same decks +/-5 cards and have been that way for years. It takes 30 seconds to go over what happened this week in legacy, because every deck is immediately recognizable. Every once in a while people put 2 Monastery Mentors in an existing deck and it's the new biggest thing, but that's not at all what I got into Legacy for.

I played in the days where the power level of cards in the format allowed all sorts of decks to be played. Sneak Attack was a bad card because the best thing you could do was Bogardan Hellkite, but I played the crap out of my Survival + Sneak Attack deck (featuring 1x Academy Rector + 1x Form of the Dragon). There was no ultra-consistent win that killed off fringe-playable decks and was the optimal choice. Optimal choices didn't come because of netdecking, they came because of power creep to huge fatties (emrakul, grizzlebrand) and variance killing (millions of better blue cantrips). We used to have threads here on the Source that argued over the minimum number of blue cards you needed to fit in if you wanted to play FoW. Does anyone else remember that?? There was a time where you didn't have a million blue cards in every deck, mainly because the cantrips were terrible (Has everyone forgotten about using stuff like Predict?).

To me Legacy is already dead. I know all of the decks, all of the playstyles, and none of them interest me at all. Modern is right now the same creative space that Legacy used to be, I've just gotten over the fact that it's called something else (which a hilarious number of people on here haven't). Back in the days of Goblins vs UW Standstill in Legacy, there were opportunities abound to play fun decks like Survival of the Fittest or UBG midrange. I went something like 7-3 with BG deathcloud at GP Cleveland, starting with 0 byes. Remember when everyone flipped out over UG Next level thresh? Well that type of environment does live on in Modern. Yeah, you don't get to play Force of Will, but back in Legacy days long past, not even 50% of decks did, and most of the time they were scrounging up blue cards to fill in for cards to pitch which actually lowered the power of their deck(!). I used to be an exclusive Legacy player just like many on here, looking down my nose at other, lesser formats, but that was a dumb viewpoint to cling to since Legacy now is not at all what it used to be.

Modern isn't 100% what I'd want it to be, but it sure as hell fits what I want out of magic more than Legacy does now. If you can build a solid deck out of left field and know how to play, you can go at least 2-2 at a weekly tournament. Heck, I 3-1ed with a UR deck that maindecked Leyline of Sanctity, Blood Moon, and Simian Spirit Guides, and had way more fun playing it than any deck I've played with in Legacy in the past 3 years. It hurts not getting to use some older cards... I'd love Armageddon or Cabal Therapy, but that's a price I'm easily willing to pay if that means we'll have a format that isn't completely trashed by the best card.

Some people really like the hyper competitive environment of Legacy right now where you only have to memorize a list of decks and anything else being played against you is probably terrible, but that's not why I ever played magic. It'll probably live on but I know many people are as bored of the current state of it as I am, so numbers will likely continue to drop for a while as people realize that.

I couldn't quite find the words to say what you said here, but you really summed up how I'm starting to feel about both formats. I've kept my own interest in Legacy alive by playing a lot of off-the-wall stuff, but your potential for winning with decks that don't follow a very narrow set of specifications is low even if you are a good player. I do remember the debates about how few blue cards were playable with FOW, hadn't thought about that one in a long time. Legacy has become boring, and if you had asked me 4-5 years ago if that was possible I would have emphatically answered "no." Heck, if you'd asked me a couple years ago if Modern would be a healthier and more diverse format I would have asked you to share whatever drugs you were on.

[Phoenix Ignition]

I couldn't quite find the words to say what you said here, but you really summed up how I'm starting to feel about both formats. I've kept my own interest in Legacy alive by playing a lot of off-the-wall stuff, but your potential for winning with decks that don't follow a very narrow set of specifications is low even if you are a good player. I do remember the debates about how few blue cards were playable with FOW, hadn't thought about that one in a long time. Legacy has become boring, and if you had asked me 4-5 years ago if that was possible I would have emphatically answered "no." Heck, if you'd asked me a couple years ago if Modern would be a healthier and more diverse format I would have asked you to share whatever drugs you were on.

I think the biggest thing to note here is that the Modern format, at least in my eyes, was garbage for a long time. Then they banned Birthing Pod and I think right now is the most fun it's ever been. BP killed so much design space that I actually just didn't play for over a year. Since it's been banned the format has been really fun for me.

[Stinky-Dinkins]

I look forward to watching my grandkids from hell as they go on Antiques Roadshow
At least you acknowledge you have grandkids from hell. Little turds, everyone knows it!

[Admiral_Arzar]

I think the biggest thing to note here is that the Modern format, at least in my eyes, was garbage for a long time. Then they banned Birthing Pod and I think right now is the most fun it's ever been. BP killed so much design space that I actually just didn't play for over a year. Since it's been banned the format has been really fun for me.

I'll have to take your word for it on that one due to lack of experience. The Modern scene where I used to play completely died after the second round of bannings (Cloudpost et al) so I played an incredibly small amount of Modern up until GP Denver early this year when I got back into the format. I do remember it sucking quite a bit back in the day though.

[Ace/Homebrew]

At least you acknowledge you have grandkids from hell. Little turds, everyone knows it!
Hah! :laugh: In that scenario, I was in hell watching them (like Sting).
But yeah, I'm sure the little turds will help send me there early, just so they can sell my cards.

[Richard Cheese]

I couldn't quite find the words to say what you said here, but you really summed up how I'm starting to feel about both formats. I've kept my own interest in Legacy alive by playing a lot of off-the-wall stuff, but your potential for winning with decks that don't follow a very narrow set of specifications is low even if you are a good player. I do remember the debates about how few blue cards were playable with FOW, hadn't thought about that one in a long time. Legacy has become boring, and if you had asked me 4-5 years ago if that was possible I would have emphatically answered "no." Heck, if you'd asked me a couple years ago if Modern would be a healthier and more diverse format I would have asked you to share whatever drugs you were on.

Same boat here. I think Legacy is just seeing death by 1000 cuts over the last couple years. New printings narrowing the design space for decks, constant SCG results shaping the meta, huge price increase, the introduction of Modern drawing off some players. I don't think proxy events are really going to help, because a bunch of people are just walking away from the format.

Could be that part of it isn't the format itself, but the aging player base. Seems like a lot of players have kids now, own property, or just have other life obligations in general.

[Myelectronicdays]

I'm not gonna lie.. the narrowness of decks has definately gotten to me at times. run brainstorms, digs, forces (or blue in general), or just accept losses.

[Lord Seth]

I'll have to take your word for it on that one due to lack of experience. The Modern scene where I used to play completely died after the second round of bannings (Cloudpost et al) so I played an incredibly small amount of Modern up until GP Denver early this year when I got back into the format. I do remember it sucking quite a bit back in the day though.Birthing Pod was absolutely fine in Modern up until Khans of Tarkir, when Siege Rhino got printed. However, it wasn't just Siege Rhino that made it so good; it was also Treasure Cruise. Why Treasure Cruise when Birthing Pod didn't play it? Because that card (and Monastery Swiftspear) made Delver into a crazy great deck. So a lot of the decks that normally could just crush Pod were being held down because they weren't that good against Delver.

Personally I think they could've sorted things out by unbanning cards, though.

[Richard Cheese]

I'm not gonna lie.. the narrowness of decks has definately gotten to me at times. run brainstorms, digs, forces (or blue in general), or just accept losses.

Eh, for me it's not the cantrips. I know this is just opening a tremendous can of worms but those cards are only as good as the cards they find. To me things feel stifled because of a handful of objectively excellent cards that have been printed over the past few years. It feels to me like a lot of decks now are just piles of the best cards in XYZ color combination, and a lot of those cards push you towards building a deck a certain way.

Delver, Snapcaster, Pyromancer, Mentor, and DRS all favor building a deck that's heavy on cheap spells and light on creatures and land.

The whole Miracle mechanic pushes you towards a critical mass of library manipulation.

Then you've got the huge bomby stuff like Griselbrand, Emrakul, and Omnomnomniscience that are just begging to be cheated into play.

Finally, there's a ton of excellent hate now like Thalia, Rest in Peace, Surgical, DRS(again), Canonist. So a lot of really lopsided matches got more even, which is good in some ways, but makes meta gaming seem less critical than it used to.

I think banning some amount of the "cantrip cartel" is probably the quickest and easiest way to give the format a big shake up, just sad to see something as iconic as Brainstorm on the chopping block for something as utterly boring as Delver of Secrets.

[Myelectronicdays]

Eh, for me it's not the cantrips. I know this is just opening a tremendous can of worms but those cards are only as good as the cards they find. To me things feel stifled because of a handful of objectively excellent cards that have been printed over the past few years. It feels to me like a lot of decks now are just piles of the best cards in XYZ color combination, and a lot of those cards push you towards building a deck a certain way.

Delver, Snapcaster, Pyromancer, Mentor, and DRS all favor building a deck that's heavy on cheap spells and light on creatures and land.

The whole Miracle mechanic pushes you towards a critical mass of library manipulation.

Then you've got the huge bomby stuff like Griselbrand, Emrakul, and Omnomnomniscience that are just begging to be cheated into play.

Finally, there's a ton of excellent hate now like Thalia, Rest in Peace, Surgical, DRS(again), Canonist. So a lot of really lopsided matches got more even, which is good in some ways, but makes meta gaming seem less critical than it used to.

I think banning some amount of the "cantrip cartel" is probably the quickest and easiest way to give the format a big shake up, just sad to see something as iconic as Brainstorm on the chopping block for something as utterly boring as Delver of Secrets.

you definately nailed what I couldn't really put into words.. agreed completely.

[TsumiBand]

Hah! :laugh: In that scenario, I was in hell watching them (like Sting).
But yeah, I'm sure the little turds will help send me there early, just so they can sell my cards.

Did you just reference St. Augustine In Hell? That song fucking kills. Gotta love a drummer that can play a hat in 4 on top of a tune in 7.

[maharis]

Let's be real: The only thing that will actually kill Legacy is the reserved list. Yes, there are problems with the metagame, but that can be solved with bannings, unbannings, new printings, or some other actual development of the format. Of course, that's just not going to be a priority for WoTC because they know the percentage of their player base that can even potentially play the format is capped and shrinking, because the availability of mana is restricted.

That is, even if you could evenly parcel out every dual land in existence so that the biggest number of players each has one viable legacy deck (and some people will get stuck with Plateau decks while others get Underground Sea decks, so we're using a liberal definition of "viable"), that number would still be a shrinking fraction of total Magic players given the growth of the game. If the cards were accessible, at least new players could take a shot at new angles on the format. But cards are locked in existing players' collections, LGS' cases, and ebay shops. Every time a person skips a GP or SCG for whatever reason, and doesn't lend their deck to another player, you risk a noticeable dip in attendance.

I agree with posters who are warming up to Modern. I've been playing that Death's Shadow Zoo deck and it is a blast. And it is refreshing to play four rounds and only see maybe 3-4 cards in common between two decks. (Actually, I think the only card that was in two decks that I played last time I played modern was Lightning Bolt in a Naya deck and a RUG Scapeshift deck.)

However, even Wizards' support of modern is lukewarm at best. There were 8 Modern GPs this year. There were 6 standard GPs in season 2 alone. And don't get me started on the inane focus on limited. I understand that limited appeals to some players, but there's nothing about limited that requires Magic cards -- it could be a totally different product.

So you've got a format that's locked in concrete, and a company whose current strategy is extremely hostile toward changing that fact (everything about WOTC development is about standard and limited, and removing the RL gets less likely every year). Legacy may be on a troubling trajectory, but it's not because of the game being poor or the player base getting older. The company is simply uninterested in customers who don't want to play limited or standard. It's short-term thinking, and who knows if it will be successful.

[sjmcc13]

I think banning some amount of the "cantrip cartel" is probably the quickest and easiest way to give the format a big shake up, just sad to see something as iconic as Brainstorm on the chopping block for something as utterly boring as Delver of Secrets.

I think the format might get a better shakeup if wizards banned a couple of the mistake cards that have pushed the format in this way, while un-banning a couple cards that either were banned prematurely, o the format has progressed to the point they would no longer be too broken.
Ban Delver and tempo decks take a huge hit, possibly enabling some other aggro decks to emerge, Axe Grisslebrand and you hit Sneak and show and Reanimator probably without actually killing either decks, banning Dig would weaken Omni-tell and miracles without killing them.

Unban a couple cards that support/form non-blue primary decks and we might get some "new' archetypes emerging to shake up the meta-game, preferably something that creates a strong non-combo deck in green, and possibly something for red.

Also, IIRC port is not on the reserved list, so re-printing it to drop its price a bit would help, as almost all the current non-BS lists need 4 ports.

[btm10]

Eh, for me it's not the cantrips. I know this is just opening a tremendous can of worms but those cards are only as good as the cards they find. To me things feel stifled because of a handful of objectively excellent cards that have been printed over the past few years. It feels to me like a lot of decks now are just piles of the best cards in XYZ color combination, and a lot of those cards push you towards building a deck a certain way.

Delver, Snapcaster, Pyromancer, Mentor, and DRS all favor building a deck that's heavy on cheap spells and light on creatures and land.

The whole Miracle mechanic pushes you towards a critical mass of library manipulation.

Then you've got the huge bomby stuff like Griselbrand, Emrakul, and Omnomnomniscience that are just begging to be cheated into play.

Finally, there's a ton of excellent hate now like Thalia, Rest in Peace, Surgical, DRS(again), Canonist. So a lot of really lopsided matches got more even, which is good in some ways, but makes meta gaming seem less critical than it used to.

I think banning some amount of the "cantrip cartel" is probably the quickest and easiest way to give the format a big shake up, just sad to see something as iconic as Brainstorm on the chopping block for something as utterly boring as Delver of Secrets.

I've felt this way just since Khans came out. Pre-Khans you could either pick one of the big decks to have a unfavorable matchup against while having even-to-favorable matchups against the others and still basically build whatever deck you wanted beyond that. We still saw crazy stuff like Aluren, Mono-green 12post, and Food Chain top 8-32'ing SCG events about as often as you'd expect given that almost no one plays them. Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise are what pushed the format to the position it's currently in.

But to respond to your post - I don't think Brainstorm has to go (and I'm not going to discuss that card further) - it would be better to just hit Ponder and Preordain. You protect the "classic" card while removing the critical mass that enables the decks that just want to chain cantrips into Digs. Sure, you can chain Opts and Serum Visions with Brainstorm, but that's way worse than having real card selection.

[sjmcc13]

Let's be real: The only thing that will actually kill Legacy is the reserved list. Yes, there are problems with the metagame, but that can be solved with bannings, unbannings, new printings, or some other actual development of the format. Of course, that's just not going to be a priority for WoTC because they know the percentage of their player base that can even potentially play the format is capped and shrinking, because the availability of mana is restricted.

There are a few ways they could get around the reserved list, and even end up making money on the non-reserved cards in the process. the problem is wizards will not implement any of them.
They could just allow so many proxies at certain levels of events, "to enable players to complete their deck easier) but not at any level with prize support form WotC (still need a full deck for FNM) so as to make sure people still tried to get full decks.
One thing I can think of, and would be a huge boost to Vintage, would be to create a class of event where you can link your MTGO account to your DCI # and use a certain # or proxies in your deck, as long as you can verify that those cards are currently on your MTGO account.
They could even make a variant of set redemption where they actually make and ship you the proxies with you DCI # clearly printed on them, but only in full sets, locking the cards "redemed" to your account so they can not be traded off (maybe including a return the proxies and they will be unlocked clause) providing some security against someone stealing your digital cards in the mean time. which could make collecting sets on MTGO worth more, and increase demand there.

[lyracian]

Modern isn't 100% what I'd want it to be, but it sure as hell fits what I want out of magic more than Legacy does now. If you can build a solid deck out of left field and know how to play, you can go at least 2-2 at a weekly tournament. Heck, I 3-1ed with a UR deck that maindecked Leyline of Sanctity, Blood Moon, and Simian Spirit Guides, and had way more fun playing it than any deck I've played with in Legacy in the past 3 years. It hurts not getting to use some older cards... I'd love Armageddon or Cabal Therapy, but that's a price I'm easily willing to pay if that means we'll have a format that isn't completely trashed by the best card.
I would agree with most of this. We managed to get 40 players each for UK Nationals Vintage and Modern events and 80 for Legacy. However our weekly Legecy events got replaced with Modern due to lack of players. Another store tried FNM Legacy but that got replaced with Modern when they were unable to get 8 players each week. Due to life/kids most Legacy players can not commit to a weekly event; there is still a month event but at $50 fuel there and back again I need to find other people to share the cost in the car to make it worth the trip whereas for Modern I can just go out and play every week and there are always people wanting to go to larger events.

[Megadeus]

Legacy in ATL was dying off slowly. Then we started streaming our weekly event and it went from 8-12 every week to at least a solid 25 every week. Now instead of 2 weeklies that were getting 8-12 in the ATL area, we have like 5 weeklies, 2 of which get 20+ and the other generally fire, plus now one store is going to begin offering quarterly legacy events for Moxen and other sweet prizes. Team Tusk drummed up interest in the format and it has been a massive success no matter what anyone has to say about our stream.

[nevilshute]

Legacy in ATL was dying off slowly. Then we started streaming our weekly event and it went from 8-12 every week to at least a solid 25 every week. Now instead of 2 weeklies that were getting 8-12 in the ATL area, we have like 5 weeklies, 2 of which get 20+ and the other generally fire, plus now one store is going to begin offering quarterly legacy events for Moxen and other sweet prizes. Team Tusk drummed up interest in the format and it has been a massive success no matter what anyone has to say about our stream.

What is the name of the stream? I'd like to get in on that :smile:

[bruizar]

Streaming sounds like a really good way to get local community traction going. Well done team Tusk

[Megadeus]

Tuskvision is the current name. Stream on Thursdays at 730 and we've begun doing our Sunday events at 1:00 though I'm not sure if that will continue to be something we do weekly. We're getting kind of burned out on it.

[nevilshute]

Tuskvision is the current name. Stream on Thursdays at 730 and we've begun doing our Sunday events at 1:00 though I'm not sure if that will continue to be something we do weekly. We're getting kind of burned out on it.

Well, I say do whatever it takes to not burn out :smile: That being said, I'm a euro so 7.30 pm American time is in the middle of the night for me, so I'd personally hope for more Sundays... I'll be subscribing on Twitch just the same.

[Sloshthedark]

Eh, for me it's not the cantrips. I know this is just opening a tremendous can of worms but those cards are only as good as the cards they find. To me things feel stifled because of a handful of objectively excellent cards that have been printed over the past few years. It feels to me like a lot of decks now are just piles of the best cards in XYZ color combination, and a lot of those cards push you towards building a deck a certain way.

Delver, Snapcaster, Pyromancer, Mentor, and DRS all favor building a deck that's heavy on cheap spells and light on creatures and land.

The whole Miracle mechanic pushes you towards a critical mass of library manipulation.

Then you've got the huge bomby stuff like Griselbrand, Emrakul, and Omnomnomniscience that are just begging to be cheated into play.

Finally, there's a ton of excellent hate now like Thalia, Rest in Peace, Surgical, DRS(again), Canonist. So a lot of really lopsided matches got more even, which is good in some ways, but makes meta gaming seem less critical than it used to.

I think banning some amount of the "cantrip cartel" is probably the quickest and easiest way to give the format a big shake up, just sad to see something as iconic as Brainstorm on the chopping block for something as utterly boring as Delver of Secrets.

True, and this can't be reversed, the game evolves in several directions many find undesirable, yet it's the subjective element of "fun" is the smaller problem legacy has, if you're bored with legacy you probably have the luxury to play it which is 1 step ahead of the problem...

the whole cycle creates what the "boring" - which can be summed up by one word - netdecking - lazy people not trying to innovate or even think about the game, that kind of which plays bad and cries most, atmosphere of optimalization and lost hope self assured by hivemind of the same kind of individuals which fuels the former attitude... the designspace is not what it was in 2010 yet it's hard to compare because different cards are there to build around, blaming cantrips is not seeing the forest because of the trees, the "staleness" is stupid argument, stale compared to what? legacy in 201x - not true, other formats? you know the answer (go play...x)... is legacy it better now than it used to be? (not just gameplay itself) definitely not (at least for me) will it be better? definitely not if you played the game for years ... but if there is no more new people to find out if they like it or not there is no way of changing anything

[Higgs]

I remember reading similar threads back in the day and those would generally be people complaining about the prices and the inability to get into the format while the format aficionados defending how healthy the format is. Now seeing the pessimistic replies in this thread sort of shows me how things have changed in the last 4-5 years.

[Norm]

I hope the format doesn't die on MODO but I wasn't willing to bet the value of my collection on it so I sold out a few days ago. I know I'm not doing Legacy any favors by mentioning this but I bought in last year during a nice dip in price on cards like Force of Will and actually turned a profit by selling out now. If you bought into the format around this time last year you may consider doing the same if you no longer play frequently.

[Cartesian]

Let's be real: The only thing that will actually kill Legacy is the reserved list.
Precisely. Legacy has gotten a reputation for being too expensive, a format for rich kids and old people. Unfortunately that isn't far from the truth. Prices have gotten to a point where getting in is simply not an option for many people, even if they would love to. The reason for the high prices is rampant financial speculation on key format staples, and the reason for that speculation is the stupid promise of "safe investment" that is indirectly implied in the reserved list.

[cheerios]

Is the reserved list legally binding?

Cheers

[nevilshute]

Is the reserved list legally binding?

Cheers

Can falling over. Worms spilling everywhere.

[Quasim0ff]

Is the reserved list legally binding?

Cheers

No, but it's not getting terminated.

[Spam]

I don't know about you guys, but at my LGS we have a single legacy event per month. Sadly we're always struggling to reach eight players. Modern tournaments always bring up 20 people or more, so I'm so thankful to the owner of the shop for giving us a chance. However, here's the funny/sad part: I do own more than a deck, since I started playing a long time ago, and I'm willing to lend them to who wants to play, but nobody shows up! Modern players don't want to try legacy for reasons that are far away my comprehension, and this really shows how my local players just like to smell their own farts...
Now, about modern, I play it and play it hard, it can be fun at times and it is, but every game feels the same. You're just doing he same thing with your deck over and over, wile your opponent do he same. Sure, people play tons of different decks, but there's no variety in their plan, just goldfish. Besides, can you actually count how many funny stories you have playing modern? Not many. Legacy!? Zillions! And every legacy event brings me something new to laugh at!

[wcm8]

Possible alternative: they could create another new Eternal Format that has essentially one uniting factor -- All Mythic Rares are Banned (in addition to the usual list of dexterity/ante/misc. banned cards).

This would include cards that were later upgraded to Mythic Rarity via online and special print-runs, e.g. Power 9 and other Vintage restricted cards, (maybe stuff printed in From the Vaults), Modern Masters, etc.

Some of the cards that would notably be banned:
-Tarmogoyf
-Dark Confidant
-Sword of X+Y, Jitte, Batterskull
-Griselbrand, Emrakul, Omniscience, etc.
-ALL Planeswalkers

This might be a fairly interesting format that would allow access to Magic cards from its entire history while still reducing the power level back towards a more acceptable level. I'm sure there are some cards that I'm forgetting about that would still need to be banned for power reasons, but at the very least this would be arguably less arbitrary than the Modern banlist.

WotC reneged on its stance on Mythic Rares. When they were originally announced, I believe they were supposed to just be the sort of cards a Timmy would put into kitchentable.dec or the kind of splashy 8-mana crazy effect that'd only see play in EDH multiplayer formats. Just something to think about.

[maharis]

Eh, for me it's not the cantrips. I know this is just opening a tremendous can of worms but those cards are only as good as the cards they find. To me things feel stifled because of a handful of objectively excellent cards that have been printed over the past few years. It feels to me like a lot of decks now are just piles of the best cards in XYZ color combination, and a lot of those cards push you towards building a deck a certain way.

Delver, Snapcaster, Pyromancer, Mentor, and DRS all favor building a deck that's heavy on cheap spells and light on creatures and land.

The whole Miracle mechanic pushes you towards a critical mass of library manipulation.

Then you've got the huge bomby stuff like Griselbrand, Emrakul, and Omnomnomniscience that are just begging to be cheated into play.

Finally, there's a ton of excellent hate now like Thalia, Rest in Peace, Surgical, DRS(again), Canonist. So a lot of really lopsided matches got more even, which is good in some ways, but makes meta gaming seem less critical than it used to.

I think banning some amount of the "cantrip cartel" is probably the quickest and easiest way to give the format a big shake up, just sad to see something as iconic as Brainstorm on the chopping block for something as utterly boring as Delver of Secrets.

I don't think it's a coincidence that there hasn't been a post in the B/R thread in a week and now we have this thread. If you care at all about the diversity of the Legacy metagame, the last announcement going by without even a cursory glance at the format was extremely demoralizing. There's no reason to even argue on the internet about a format that is essentially an orphan.

I'm not in favor of banning Legacy back to the stone age to preserve the cantrip shell, because there will always be a best card for the cantrip deck and the cantrip deck will always be the best at finding its key cards. Cards like Stoneforge Mystic, Jace, Thopter Foundry don't encourage building a deck heavy on cheap spells and light on creatures and land -- but they do play incredibly well in those kinds of decks. (As do, of course, Tarmogoyf, Nimble Mongoose, or to pick more recent examples, Tasigur and Gurmag Angler). So then you have to ban SFM and/or Batterskull, and Jace, and Sword of the Meek, then True-Name Nemesis, then Tarmogoyf, then where are we?

However, I think it's increasingly fair to suggest, OK, Brainstorm is a card people have very intense feelings about, we are going to get rid of Ponder and Preordain and let you wrestle with the second-best cantrip being either Opt or Serum Visions.

Of course, all that does is solve the metagame problems, and not the accessibility problem. So whatever.

Couple other things: Thalia is, IMO, one of the best cards printed for Legacy in the four years I've been back in the game. It does exactly the opposite of the problematic cards you listed in that you want to play more land and fewer cheap spells. But it's very balanced in that decks that have trouble with it can find ways to get it off the table easily (Massacre was a huge blowout when I played Maverick this week, and paying 1W or 1R for STP or Bolt isn't that bad.) The trouble Wizards has had is finding more cards that fit into that space. Eidolon of the Great Revel is the next-best thing, but it's unrefined.

And a card that you missed listing, but one that I'm more bummed about recently, is Abrupt Decay. It's not even that it's uncounterable that's a problem. It's that it nails literally anything in Legacy's sweet spot. If you want to try and explore an engine in non-blue colors, you're probably going to use at least one permanent with cmc <=3, and possibly even have to untap with it. The fact that any deck with two mana can snap you off at instant speed makes things really rough.

[maharis]

Possible alternative: they could create another new Eternal Format that has essentially one uniting factor -- All Mythic Rares are Banned (in addition to the usual list of dexterity/ante/misc. banned cards).

This would include cards that were later upgraded to Mythic Rarity via online and special print-runs, e.g. Power 9 and other Vintage restricted cards, (maybe stuff printed in From the Vaults), Modern Masters, etc.

Some of the cards that would notably be banned:
-Tarmogoyf
-Dark Confidant
-Sword of X+Y, Jitte, Batterskull
-Griselbrand, Emrakul, Omniscience, etc.
-ALL Planeswalkers

This might be a fairly interesting format that would allow access to Magic cards from its entire history while still reducing the power level back towards a more acceptable level. I'm sure there are some cards that I'm forgetting about that would still need to be banned for power reasons, but at the very least this would be arguably less arbitrary than the Modern banlist.

WotC reneged on its stance on Mythic Rares. When they were originally announced, I believe they were supposed to just be the sort of cards a Timmy would put into kitchentable.dec or the kind of splashy 8-mana crazy effect that'd only see play in EDH multiplayer formats. Just something to think about.

This is an interesting idea, but I still think you'd need a supplemental ban list. Jitte isn't banned in this format unless you count the special GP printing. And Top isn't unless you count FTVs, which means Stoneforge Countertop Thopters would probably be brutal.

And if you do count FTVs, FTV: 20 really guts this format, taking out Dark Ritual, Swords to Plowshares, Hymn to Tourach, and Green Sun's Zenith, not to mention Lotus Petal, Aether Vial, and Berserk in other FTVs.

You're not wrong about the mythic rarity messing with Legacy though. Omniscience is a cute Timmy card in any format except those where S&T, Eureka, Hypergenesis, and Academy Rector are legal.

[Admiral_Arzar]

I don't think it's a coincidence that there hasn't been a post in the B/R thread in a week and now we have this thread. If you care at all about the diversity of the Legacy metagame, the last announcement going by without even a cursory glance at the format was extremely demoralizing. There's no reason to even argue on the internet about a format that is essentially an orphan.

I'm not in favor of banning Legacy back to the stone age to preserve the cantrip shell, because there will always be a best card for the cantrip deck and the cantrip deck will always be the best at finding its key cards.

And a card that you missed listing, but one that I'm more bummed about recently, is Abrupt Decay. It's not even that it's uncounterable that's a problem. It's that it nails literally anything in Legacy's sweet spot. If you want to try and explore an engine in non-blue colors, you're probably going to use at least one permanent with cmc <=3, and possibly even have to untap with it. The fact that any deck with two mana can snap you off at instant speed makes things really rough.

Yes, the announcement was incredibly demoralizing although not entirely unexpected. WOTC has shown they don't give a rat's ass about Legacy by the incredibly low frequency of unbans we've gotten in the last few years (IIRC only Worldgorger has been unbanned since Land Tax in 2012). There are some serious no-brainers on the list but I won't get into that as it's been harped on over and over in the correct thread.

The strategy I've always advocated has been fixing the mistakes WOTC made starting with Innistrad, but I see your point here. No amount of bans outside the cantrip shell will make other strategies more consistent than that shell (or remotely near it, for that matter). A ban on Ponder, Preordain, Gitaxian Probe, and DTT would rewind the blue cantrip shell back to 2009 and would lead to some entertaining arguments about the second-best cantrip...Opt, Serum Visions, Thought Scour? Who knows. That approach also appeals to me as it would allow people to continue playing with all the cards they like while dramatically evening the playing field in terms of consistency.

Yeah, Abrupt Decay is a card that I have a love/hate relationship with, but mostly hate. It's an obnoxious card that has to exist to keep another obnoxious card (Counterbalance) in check, but also causes a huge amount of collateral damage. A blue cantrip deck having a maindeck out to Chalice/Ensnaring Bridge/Choke/etc. no matter how many Chalices are in play is nonsense and makes the BUG vs. anti-blue matchup far better than it should be. Unfortunately, Abrupt Decay is here to stay, at least as long as Counterbalance is a thing.

[Krimson Viper]

I really wish Legacy could just part ways with WotC and ignore all of their announcements and tournaments and be its own company because WotC doesn't want them and Legacy doesn't want WotC, but that's a pipe dream.

Back on topic, my Legacy scene is actually getting more active as time goes on, and I'm from the Bay Area of California. NorCal, pretty notorious for not having interest in Legacy when compared to SoCal. In the last year though, it's gone from one event a month at one store, to three stores and one of them having almost weekly tournaments for Legacy, so long as there's nothing major coming from WotC that weekend, like prereleases, PPTQs, etc. I have to drive thirty minutes or more to get to them, but they're there and I'm enjoying them.

To be honest, I'm glad SCG dropped Legacy streaming. The format has been unhealthy for awhile, and it's hard to tell when that really happened. The streams from SCG were boring, even with commentary from Ceddy and Sulli. Everything just got bland and i could actually put SCG on the screen so it could lull me to sleep, and the best part was that I could wake up an hour later and say "sweet! I didn't miss anything!" Since the same deck was being piloted by a different player. I just really wish SCG didn't get their grubby little paws on this format and rape it before letting it go.

Now I've picked up streams like SouthFloridaMagic and Tuskvision for my Legacy fixings, but they provide interactive commentary -and- show a variety of decks on camera. They are showing different decks in the swiss, but in the reality of things, top eight will have SCG event-like decks because they really are the best decks. I believe Legacy, as a whole, is hurting. In certain areas, it's thriving. In the next year or two, we will really see what gets happen to Legacy.

It can go either way for me, really. I am beginning to hate WotC as a company, and some of its "pro players" can really S my D. I'm already thinking about leaving this game because fuck both of them.

[UnsungHero]

My legacy scene has Ebbs & Flows in terms of format participation. Over the years we have people come and go with interest in the format. We have a core group of 8-10 people who travel to small events, mainly just to see other people who play the format. If SCG suddenly gets ride of legacy it will be a bummer, but not the end of the world. The people who are really passionate about legacy are the people you want to play and enjoy the format with, rather than a bunch of wanna-be pro players.

One thing my playgroup has considered is making a giant proxy box. I'm not talking a box of already made decks, but a box of proxies that copies contain multiple format staples (like have like 30 of each dual or forces or whatever.) This way people can try and test new decks and concepts without having to drop money on cards and if they truly are committed to the format maybe they will buy their own cards and play in the random tournaments that come here and there. Even if they don't buy in, it is still an interesting way to get people to at least try the format, and play something different as well as having new opponents. You can't sanction it with DCI, but who the hell cares because the only sanctioning it some stupid ass planeswalker points that doesn't mean shit to the average player anyways.

Legacy (like vintage) is a grassroots format, people want to keep it alive and are usually the ones working hard to create events and they create unique and fun atmospheres that are excellent alternatives to the SCG tournaments.

[cheerios]

Most of the casual legacy players in my area moved into EDH and modern.

I don't even know if we will see a significant increase in player base with a hypothetical dual lands reprint. The current state of legacy has more problems than availability. Modern players (mostly new players) hate mana denial, turn 1 kills, etc. These guys grew up playing a different "version" of magic. We're used to good counterspells, mana denial, while they grew up with cancel, big creatures etc. Sadly, most of the guys with the legacy cards have outgrown the game

Cheers

[wcm8]

This is an interesting idea, but I still think you'd need a supplemental ban list. Jitte isn't banned in this format unless you count the special GP printing. And Top isn't unless you count FTVs, which means Stoneforge Countertop Thopters would probably be brutal.

And if you do count FTVs, FTV: 20 really guts this format, taking out Dark Ritual, Swords to Plowshares, Hymn to Tourach, and Green Sun's Zenith, not to mention Lotus Petal, Aether Vial, and Berserk in other FTVs.

You're not wrong about the mythic rarity messing with Legacy though. Omniscience is a cute Timmy card in any format except those where S&T, Eureka, Hypergenesis, and Academy Rector are legal.

You're right, there would be a supplemental ban list to hit the cards that are obviously broken. I think I would also add Snapcaster Mage to the banned list since creatures like Tarmogoyf and Dark Confidant are banned. I'd also probably ban ubiquitous cards like Brainstorm and Lightning Bolt, considering Swords to Plowshares and Hymn to Tourach are banned.

I think I *would* include FTV, because the point of banning All Mythics is to force this hypothetical format to look quite different from existing alternatives. So getting rid of those cards would force players to play weaker alternatives, and would also eliminate some of the problematic decks.

Notable Legacy/Vintage cards banned due to their elevation to Mythic Rarity via FTV printings:
-Lotus Petal
-Mystical Tutor
-Goblin Lackey
-Skullclamp
-Sensei's Divining Top
-Green Sun's Zenith
-Berserk
-Strip Mine (obviously would've been banned regardless)
-Trinisphere
-Aether Vial
-Mox Diamond
-Grove of the Burnwillows
-Ancient Tomb
-Boseiju, Who Shelters All
-Dryad Arbor
-Maze of Ith
-Vesuva
-Dark Ritual
-Swords to Plowshares
-Hymn to Tourach
-Venser, Shaper's Savant
-Armageddon
-Cataclysm
-Firespout
-Rolling Earthquake
-Tinker
-Terminus
-Wrath of God

Other notable cards that are Mythic Rare via online reprints:
-All is Dust
-Bazaar of Baghdad
-Bitterblossom
-Cephalid Coliseum
-Channel
-Cursed Scroll
-Demonic Tutor
-Dream Halls
-Fastbond
-Forbidden Orchard / Oath of Druids
-Grindstone
-Knight of the Reliquary
-Mana Drain
-Memory Jar
-Mishra's Workshop
-Mox Opal
-Pernicious Deed
-Recurring Nightmare
-Smokestack
-Sol Ring (not to mention other Vintage fast mana: Moxen, Lotus, Mana Vault/Crypt, etc.)
-Survival of the Fittest
-Time Vault
-Tinker
-Tolarian Academy (would also include Gaea's Cradle)
-Vedalken Shackles
-Yawgmoth's Bargain / Will

Some decks/strategies that would cease to exist due to the elimination of certain cards:
-Storm (no Dark Ritual, Time Spiral, Past in Flames, etc.)
-Show and Tell
-Reanimator (very few worthwhile targets at normal Rare)
-Stoneforge Mystic (not having broken equipment makes her lackluster)
-Elves would be quite a lot worse without GSZ or broken Natural Order targets
-Tarmogoyf
-Dark Confidant
-Punishing Fire (worthless without Grove)
-Miracles/Counterbalance (bad without SDT)

Not having Planeswalkers, nor access to the broken and ubiquitous cards that define Vintage/Legacy/Modern whilst still allowing for a deep cardpool might make for an interesting format. We'd still have the Dual/Fetch/Wasteland scenario, but I think the format would probably go towards midrange strategies since there'd be less fast combo and efficient sweepers.

[Megadeus]

You're right, there would be a supplemental ban list to hit the cards that are obviously broken. I think I would also add Snapcaster Mage to the banned list since creatures like Tarmogoyf and Dark Confidant are banned. I'd also probably ban ubiquitous cards like Brainstorm and Lightning Bolt, considering Swords to Plowshares and Hymn to Tourach are banned.

I think I *would* include FTV, because the point of banning All Mythics is to force this hypothetical format to look quite different from existing alternatives. So getting rid of those cards would force players to play weaker alternatives, and would also eliminate some of the problematic decks.

Notable Legacy/Vintage cards banned due to their elevation to Mythic Rarity via FTV printings:
-Lotus Petal
-Mystical Tutor
-Goblin Lackey
-Skullclamp
-Sensei's Divining Top
-Green Sun's Zenith
-Berserk
-Strip Mine (obviously would've been banned regardless)
-Trinisphere
-Aether Vial
-Mox Diamond
-Grove of the Burnwillows
-Ancient Tomb
-Boseiju, Who Shelters All
-Dryad Arbor
-Maze of Ith
-Vesuva
-Dark Ritual
-Swords to Plowshares
-Hymn to Tourach
-Venser, Shaper's Savant
-Armageddon
-Cataclysm
-Firespout
-Rolling Earthquake
-Tinker
-Terminus
-Wrath of God

Other notable cards that are Mythic Rare via online reprints:
-All is Dust
-Bazaar of Baghdad
-Bitterblossom
-Cephalid Coliseum
-Channel
-Cursed Scroll
-Demonic Tutor
-Dream Halls
-Fastbond
-Forbidden Orchard / Oath of Druids
-Grindstone
-Knight of the Reliquary
-Mana Drain
-Memory Jar
-Mishra's Workshop
-Mox Opal
-Pernicious Deed
-Recurring Nightmare
-Smokestack
-Sol Ring (not to mention other Vintage fast mana: Moxen, Lotus, Mana Vault/Crypt, etc.)
-Survival of the Fittest
-Time Vault
-Tinker
-Tolarian Academy (would also include Gaea's Cradle)
-Vedalken Shackles
-Yawgmoth's Bargain / Will

Some decks/strategies that would cease to exist due to the elimination of certain cards:
-Storm (no Dark Ritual, Time Spiral, Past in Flames, etc.)
-Show and Tell
-Reanimator (very few worthwhile targets at normal Rare)
-Stoneforge Mystic (not having broken equipment makes her lackluster)
-Elves would be quite a lot worse without GSZ or broken Natural Order targets
-Tarmogoyf
-Dark Confidant
-Punishing Fire (worthless without Grove)
-Miracles/Counterbalance (bad without SDT)

Not having Planeswalkers, nor access to the broken and ubiquitous cards that define Vintage/Legacy/Modern whilst still allowing for a deep cardpool might make for an interesting format. We'd still have the Dual/Fetch/Wasteland scenario, but I think the format would probably go towards midrange strategies since there'd be less fast combo and efficient sweepers.
So you're proposing we essentially just play modern with duals and wastes? This proposed format sounds awful Tbh. You're banning a lot of sweet cards, not for their ubiquity or power level, but for their rarity. Just go play pauper

[wcm8]

So you're proposing we essentially just play modern with duals and wastes? This proposed format sounds awful Tbh. You're banning a lot of sweet cards, not for their ubiquity or power level, but for their rarity. Just go play pauper

I own a playset of pretty much every Legacy and Modern staple. I'm not proposing this format as a personal cost-saving measure; it's simply an idea about a format that's based around an arbitrary restriction, much like Tiny Leaders (CMC 3 or less) or Pauper (only Common).

Sure, many 'sweet' cards are banned in this hypothetical format, but so too are a bunch of WotC's mistakes. It would offer an alternative that's somewhere between Legacy and Modern, where overplayed and ubiquitous cards are banned.

[iamajellydonut]

where overplayed and ubiquitous cards are banned.

So that other cards can become overplayed and become ubiquitous. All of those buzzwords you're throwing around are completely relative. From concept to ideology to execution, I stand respectfully opposed.

Politeness filter engaged. -zilla

[chris_acheson]

Just go play pauper

This is my plan if my local Legacy scene fizzles out. Pauper is a lot of fun. I'm working on putting together a whole library of decks that I can use to introduce people to the format.

[wcm8]

So that other cards can become overplayed and become ubiquitous. All of those buzzwords you're throwing around are completely relative. From concept to ideology to execution, that's the dumbest fucking idea I've ever heard of.

OBVIOUSLY any format will eventually devolve into a most played/ubiquitous card/archetype. 'Non-Mythic' as a format would simply be an alternative Eternal format option. Nothing more, nothing less, and I never implied it to be such. I also never offered it as a 'solution' to the future of Legacy or anything like that, merely as an aside to the discussion in this thread regarding Eternal Formats in general. This format wouldn't appeal to everyone, in the same sense that not everyone sees the appeal of Tiny Leaders, EDH, Pauper, etc. It might appeal to the people in the B/R thread complaining about seeing Brainstorm all the time, because it would arbitrarily force players to build decks around currently lesser-played cards.

Response to flames removed. Totally reasonable points, but only gets us more off topic. Please just report the post next time. Thanks. -zilla

[Emo]

From my experience Modern has begun to attract many legacy players because modern is in a healthy state of flux right now: everyone is in the honeymoon period, rogue decks are extremely viable, and interactive decks are more prominent than have been in the past for modern. Grixis, RUG, and BUG strategies are creeping up everywhere and the modern metagame has yet to settle. This may definitely change but for right now modern has captured many brewers' imaginations and many games promise a high-level of interaction (i.e. Gerry Thompson was posting daily about the "rogue" decks that won dailys). In contrast, I do not believe Legacy is in the greatest shape even though it is the most skil-l intensive and rewarding format. Before DTT and to a much lesser extent, True-Name Nemesis, legacy had a considerable amount of diversity (I do not have hard data to back this up, I base it off the decks I observed in SCG opens I played in). The last time I was on Modo I played 4 miracle decks in a daily and then the next daily I played in, I played against was 2 omnitell decks and 2 miracle decks. Right now I belive it is almost impossible to have a Rogue brew and top 8 at a large event in Legacy.

Like many have said I believe it boils down to the financial incentives of WOTC. Modern Masters 2 sold like Hotcakes and by having WOTC and SCG promote more Modern events, Many competitive players have easier access to modern IQs and PPTQs. Sadly this is my case now. I have been to 4 modern IQs in the last two months and there has only been 1 Legacy IQ in the area. Do I like legacy more than modern? of course. But I play more modern now because 1) I know more ppl that modern (standard converts + legacy converts) and I am almost always guaranteed to find a modern IQ within 50 minutes of my area every 2 weeks.

[Admiral_Arzar]

From my experience Modern has begun to attract many legacy players because modern is in a healthy state of flux right now: everyone is in the honeymoon period, rogue decks are extremely viable, and interactive decks are more prominent than have been in the past for modern. Grixis, RUG, and BUG strategies are creeping up everywhere and the modern metagame has yet to settle. This may definitely change but for right now modern has captured many brewers' imaginations and many games promise a high-level of interaction (i.e. Gerry Thompson was posting daily about the "rogue" decks that won dailys). In contrast, I do not believe Legacy is in the greatest shape even though it is the most skil-l intensive and rewarding format. Before DTT and to a much lesser extent, True-Name Nemesis, legacy had a considerable amount of diversity (I do not have hard data to back this up, I base it off the decks I observed in SCG opens I played in). The last time I was on Modo I played 4 miracle decks in a daily and then the next daily I played in, I played against was 2 omnitell decks and 2 miracle decks. Right now I belive it is almost impossible to have a Rogue brew and top 8 at a large event in Legacy.

Like many have said I believe it boils down to the financial incentives of WOTC. Modern Masters 2 sold like Hotcakes and by having WOTC and SCG promote more Modern events, Many competitive players have easier access to modern IQs and PPTQs. Sadly this is my case now. I have been to 4 modern IQs in the last two months and there has only been 1 Legacy IQ in the area. Do I like legacy more than modern? of course. But I play more modern now because 1) I know more ppl that modern (standard converts + legacy converts) and I am almost always guaranteed to find a modern IQ within 50 minutes of my area every 2 weeks.

This actually parallels my experience on a local level. In the last 4 months or so, I have been to one Legacy IQ (the only one available). I have also played at States, a GPT, and 4 or 5 PPTQs for Modern during that same time frame. There have been other available events that I haven't attended due to laziness and/or distance that were still easily doable. Strangely enough, that Legacy IQ had similar turnout to any of the Modern events - so the player base is there. The problem is the events aren't there, and I don't see most of those players at the one weekly event that does fire consistently, so our numbers have been pretty pitiful lately.

[hymnyou]

From my experience our local scene has exploded the last couple months in Atlanta. We went from 10-15 to 26-36+. We were at the lowest numbers when SCG was in its prime. We responded to SCG changes with a stream and people are pumped in Atlanta about Legacy. We have Legacy 5 nights a week in Atlanta, including a FNM. We have IQ's every 2 months and most of us travel to events like this upcoming Eternal Weekend. Our legacy scene kicks ass- I feel blessed and I'm glad I don't have to touch Modern because I have 0 interest.

[Doishy]

Our Legacy scene (Bristol UK) is starting to take off pretty fast. Where previously we had only 1 event a month that is leaping to 3 a month on average with the playerbase building up interest. The only downside is the lack of close to home large scale events with Lille being the last proper one. A UK base large scale legacy event would be lovely :)

[jrsthethird]

I'm getting back into the game after selling out 4 years ago. I have a couple decks built on MTGO, but all I have in paper is a binder full of random playable cards I got from reasonably-priced eBay lots. I've yet to turn any of them into a deck, so I'm still clueless on what's happening in the local scene. Plus, I'm looking at an apartment in NYC and moving next month, so digging back into it here is fruitless.

It's kind of disappointing to see how it's dwindled. I'm finally getting the hang of the format the way it is now, so it hasn't been stale for me yet (although seeing the conversations on here compared to 5 years ago, I can understand the idea.).

I don't have the patience for Standard, but I'll dig into Modern eventually. Just like I'll dig into Vintage if I had the opportunity for Power. No matter what, Legacy is where my heart is and I hope I can find some decent Legacy players in NYC once I get settled in. If not, there's always MTGO. (Ugh...)

[presquepartout]

I don't get all of the Modern love in this thread. Modern is terrible.

[dzhu4500]

After following this thread for a bit, an interesting idea came to me and I'm interested to see what people think...
I think the direction modern/legacy is headed will depend on which format is healthier. I think legacy has not yet fully adapted to dig through time and thus the format is going through some growing pains and people turn to modern. When pod was in modern there was noticeably more legacy love, and I think there's potential in the future for modern to get into a rut with a bannable but not quite card. People then come back to legacy and so on and so forth, especially as "tier 1" modern gets more expensive. Thoughts?

[tianyuan2k4]

http://i.imgur.com/9TL5Qyn.png

[Lord Seth]

One thing that is worth pointing out--though I don't know how much this necessarily affects things--is that Legacy starts an hour before Modern on Sunday. For anyone who's driving a significant distance to get to the tournament, the fact Modern lets them sleep an extra hour could be a factor in which they want to go to. I sure know if I was uncertain which one to go to, I'd definitely go for the later one.

Why do they start at different times, anyway? That always struck me as a bit odd. Why not start both at 10 instead of Legacy at 9 and Modern at 10?

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

Are you so insecure that you actually care about modern attendance vs legacy attendance?

[tianyuan2k4]

I don't have the patience for Standard, but I'll dig into Modern eventually. Just like I'll dig into Vintage if I had the opportunity for Power. No matter what, Legacy is where my heart is and I hope I can find some decent Legacy players in NYC once I get settled in. If not, there's always MTGO. (Ugh...)It's like 20+ players on Monday weeklies in NYC (Twenty Sided Store (https://twentysidedstore.com/)). I hope you could find some decent challenge there. (At least you will see Roland Chang (http://mtgsalvation.gamepedia.com/Roland_Chang) there)

[meffeo]

One thing that is worth pointing out--though I don't know how much this necessarily affects things--is that Legacy starts an hour before Modern on Sunday. For anyone who's driving a significant distance to get to the tournament, the fact Modern lets them sleep an extra hour could be a factor in which they want to go to. I sure know if I was uncertain which one to go to, I'd definitely go for the later one.

Why do they start at different times, anyway? That always struck me as a bit odd. Why not start both at 10 instead of Legacy at 9 and Modern at 10?

How on earth could this be a thing? People always traveled hours for tourneys if they love to play Legacy / Modern / Pauper / whatever; I won't believe that players' decisions are based on the starthour of the first round.

By the way, Modern really sucks.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk.

[jrsthethird]

It's like 20+ players on Monday weeklies in NYC (Twenty Sided Store (https://twentysidedstore.com/)). I hope you could find some decent challenge there. (At least you will see Roland Chang (http://mtgsalvation.gamepedia.com/Roland_Chang) there)

That's the one place I found that looked promising. Glad to know there's a weekly that fires on a weeknight. Great as a bartender that I don't have to lose a good weekend shift to sling cardboard. Last time I was in Brooklyn to look at apartments I Googled it to check it out, but it was pretty far out of my way at the time. I've heard about Midtown Comics, but nothing about Legacy events there.

[bruizar]

What I find interesting is that most local legacy scenes are about 30 to 40 players in size. That type of demand in no way explains the outrageous prices of eternal staples which in turn is having its toll on the size of the legacy scene.

[TsumiBand]

What I find interesting is that most local legacy scenes are about 30 to 40 players in size. That type of demand in no way explains the outrageous prices of eternal staples which in turn is having its toll on the size of the legacy scene.

There are like 3 major formats that want Eternal staples - Vintage, Legacy, and Commander (4 I guess if you count Cube, I guess). Any time that the card can also be played in Modern, that's even more demand.

Plus you know, something something collectors something. Which, honestly, I have no idea what the motives are there, or if it affects anything but AB cards while RU are typically for players, or what.

[sjmcc13]

There are like 3 major formats that want Eternal staples - Vintage, Legacy, and Commander (4 I guess if you count Cube, I guess). Any time that the card can also be played in Modern, that's even more demand.

Plus you know, something something collectors something. Which, honestly, I have no idea what the motives are there, or if it affects anything but AB cards while RU are typically for players, or what.

Ya, I think most of the legacy/reserved list price issues come from EDH and casual players, due to the difference in #'s. Is it me or do you normally see worse price differences between physical and MTGO versions of casual/EDH cards then of competitive cards...

[CabalTherapy]

How on earth could this be a thing? People always traveled hours for tourneys if they love to play Legacy / Modern / Pauper / whatever; I won't believe that players' decisions are based on the starthour of the first round.

By the way, Modern really sucks.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk.


So true, my friend. On a regular Legacy Saturday I get up around 6am, travel almost 1h to visit my parents, eat breakfast there, travel again 1h to the shop to meet meffeo 1h before the tournament starts to talk, drink energy drinks and make fun of Standard players. And then we are around 6-10 people.
#Berlin

[GrimoirePath]

This might sound strange to a lot of people, but i played Magic way back when, and as a sixteen year old i was all about type 1 as opposed to type 2 which was about all the formatting that existed. I sold out of magic and came back many, many years later. Want to know what changed in that time? The internet.

The whole concept of seeing someone elses decklist and being able to to just build it card for card is a recent phenomenon. Maybe not recent per se, but it definitely affects how magic is played (not to mention card accessibility via ebay, online stores, etc.)

Way back when, everyone brewed because you had to. And you had whatever was in your own stash or within your own circle of friends/stores to build with.

Im not saying the internet, net decking, etc. is awful or anything, but it absolutely reduces the variance in decks being played. When it becomes predictable as to what you will play against, down to the point of essentially knowing what the entire deck list is, it does reduce the amount of situations you encounter, on the fly decisions, etc.

Also, when the big events like SCG's have top prizes of a grand, and cost thirty bucks to play in plus travel expenses, people are less likely to bring some weird home brew they have been toying with and would rather bring a stock list tier one deck. Cant blame them, I guess.

This is all a tangent, now, so sorry. I guess my general notion is that magic is supposed to be fun, and if Legacy gets distilled down into a hobby robbed of much creativity, it will probably feel pretty uninspiring after a while. So I guess the solution is to keep Legacy alive, it has to be fun, so it cant be dominated by a handful of companies that hold all the big events, and the local and friendly scene should be nurtured.

[Phoenix Ignition]

I don't think netdecking is even that big of a part of it, since it's been around and prevalent for like 10 years now. It's just that the power creep has finally gotten to the point where:

1) There are enough blue cards that FoW is always "on" and it is no longer a drawback to run 20+ blue cards in a deck
2) Cards that can be cheated into play actually win the game extremely efficiently (Bogardan Hellkite vs. Emrakul... it's just dumb), which allows blue based combo/control decks a foothold in the metagame that only the extremely finicky old high tide used to have.
3) There are threats now that are so much better than others that making rogue decks means using sub-par threats. There didn't used to be cards that were fundamentally turns better than every other alternative out there. Like, Werebear used to be the biggest beater, so you could easily replace that with something else and not get automatically blown out.


John Finkel's quote still rings true in response to:
You have seen the evolution of Magic from a spell-based system to more of a creature-based system; was there a favorite time in Magic for you as a player?

"I liked when magic was a game of incremental advantages where getting a small edge here or a small edge there and over time you accumulated victories that way. Now I feel like they've ramped up the power of threats, not just creatures but planeswalkers as well, and it's made magic a much swingier game. I don't love the kind of magic of people throwing hay-makers as opposed to getting card advantage here, getting a land advantage here."

Now you have to worry about threats that win the game in 1-2 turns, so you need your answer right now or you die. The best answer is Force of Will, it's free and answers everything, but FoW isn't the reason magic sucks now, and neither is netdecking. It's just that threats are so stupidly powerful that the design space of Legacy is now at an all time low. It isn't because people are just lazy, like so many here love to suggest.

[kinda]

This might sound strange to a lot of people, but i played Magic way back when, and as a sixteen year old i was all about type 1 as opposed to type 2 which was about all the formatting that existed. I sold out of magic and came back many, many years later. Want to know what changed in that time? The internet.

The whole concept of seeing someone elses decklist and being able to to just build it card for card is a recent phenomenon. Maybe not recent per se, but it definitely affects how magic is played (not to mention card accessibility via ebay, online stores, etc.)

Way back when, everyone brewed because you had to. And you had whatever was in your own stash or within your own circle of friends/stores to build with.

Im not saying the internet, net decking, etc. is awful or anything, but it absolutely reduces the variance in decks being played. When it becomes predictable as to what you will play against, down to the point of essentially knowing what the entire deck list is, it does reduce the amount of situations you encounter, on the fly decisions, etc.

Also, when the big events like SCG's have top prizes of a grand, and cost thirty bucks to play in plus travel expenses, people are less likely to bring some weird home brew they have been toying with and would rather bring a stock list tier one deck. Cant blame them, I guess.

This is all a tangent, now, so sorry. I guess my general notion is that magic is supposed to be fun, and if Legacy gets distilled down into a hobby robbed of much creativity, it will probably feel pretty uninspiring after a while. So I guess the solution is to keep Legacy alive, it has to be fun, so it cant be dominated by a handful of companies that hold all the big events, and the local and friendly scene should be nurtured.

This plus the point on power creep. There are a few very high power level, very consistent shells dominating the format. If your goal is to perform well...your odds r better with a deck that has been tuned by thousands of people and places consistently. Your odds of winning with a rogue deck are better in modern.

[mishima_kazuya]

As long as the Reserve List remained in place, the contraction of Legacy was inevitable as the competitive scene grew.
I believe that there are enough of the recent new Legacy players (post Zendikar) to keep the format relevant until we have a way to get around the Reserve List.
Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your viewpoint, vendors (SCG and the like) along with WoTC have taken pro-active measures to gradually curtail Legacy to ease players out of the format and/or pick up other formats.

With those items in mind, I think that the number of players in Legacy will stagnate and/or slowly decline. Local tournaments will undoubtedly maintain the format presence, Northeast USA and Europe communities notably, as the rest of the world drops Legacy. Semi-competitive players and casuals will switch over to EDH and Cube while Spikes can just keep playing the remaining competitive formats.

As for myself, I'm a decent player (humble brags) and have built up a large collection from my winnings over several years. I have the advantage of being flexible enough to hop into any Constructed format, maintain relevant Legacy decks (I live in the US Northeast) and keep pumping winnings into pimping out my Cube. So let the apocalypse come. :cool:

[Julian23]

It's like 20+ players on Monday weeklies in NYC (Twenty Sided Store (https://twentysidedstore.com/)). I hope you could find some decent challenge there. (At least you will see Roland Chang (http://mtgsalvation.gamepedia.com/Roland_Chang) there)

That place is amazing, totally recommended! We went there with Team #EuroSwag right after GP NJ and had a great time with the other players. The couple who runs the store are also great people and I really enjoyed my time there a lot.

Bonus: Marc won with Stasis. He beat my Elves in the swiss. How does that even work :D

[GrimoirePath]

I don't think netdecking is even that big of a part of it, since it's been around and prevalent for like 10 years now. It's just that the power creep has finally gotten to the point where:

1) There are enough blue cards that FoW is always "on" and it is no longer a drawback to run 20+ blue cards in a deck
2) Cards that can be cheated into play actually win the game extremely efficiently (Bogardan Hellkite vs. Emrakul... it's just dumb), which allows blue based combo/control decks a foothold in the metagame that only the extremely finicky old high tide used to have.
3) There are threats now that are so much better than others that making rogue decks means using sub-par threats. There didn't used to be cards that were fundamentally turns better than every other alternative out there. Like, Werebear used to be the biggest beater, so you could easily replace that with something else and not get automatically blown out.


John Finkel's quote still rings true in response to:
You have seen the evolution of Magic from a spell-based system to more of a creature-based system; was there a favorite time in Magic for you as a player?

"I liked when magic was a game of incremental advantages where getting a small edge here or a small edge there and over time you accumulated victories that way. Now I feel like they've ramped up the power of threats, not just creatures but planeswalkers as well, and it's made magic a much swingier game. I don't love the kind of magic of people throwing hay-makers as opposed to getting card advantage here, getting a land advantage here."

Now you have to worry about threats that win the game in 1-2 turns, so you need your answer right now or you die. The best answer is Force of Will, it's free and answers everything, but FoW isn't the reason magic sucks now, and neither is netdecking. It's just that threats are so stupidly powerful that the design space of Legacy is now at an all time low. It isn't because people are just lazy, like so many here love to suggest.

Really great post! That John Finkel quote is really spot on.

[phonics]

As long as the Reserve List remained in place, the contraction of Legacy was inevitable as the competitive scene grew.
I believe that there are enough of the recent new Legacy players (post Zendikar) to keep the format relevant until we have a way to get around the Reserve List.
Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your viewpoint, vendors (SCG and the like) along with WoTC have taken pro-active measures to gradually curtail Legacy to ease players out of the format and/or pick up other formats.

With those items in mind, I think that the number of players in Legacy will stagnate and/or slowly decline. Local tournaments will undoubtedly maintain the format presence, Northeast USA and Europe communities notably, as the rest of the world drops Legacy. Semi-competitive players and casuals will switch over to EDH and Cube while Spikes can just keep playing the remaining competitive formats.

As for myself, I'm a decent player (humble brags) and have built up a large collection from my winnings over several years. I have the advantage of being flexible enough to hop into any Constructed format, maintain relevant Legacy decks (I live in the US Northeast) and keep pumping winnings into pimping out my Cube. So let the apocalypse come. :cool:

The thing is they can try as hard as they can to move people away from reserve list magic, but as long as the alternative is a neutered format like modern, legacy and vintage will continue to have communities because they offer something that will never be available to any other formats as long as Wizards is in charge of the game. I'm guessing after a while Wizards will just kill off the formats by introducing absurdly broken cards that are only legal in the two formats, sort of like what they are already doing by printing cards so powerful they invalidate a large portion of previously viable alternatives, which will force format homogeneity.

[bruizar]

The thing is they can try as hard as they can to move people away from reserve list magic, but as long as the alternative is a neutered format like modern, legacy and vintage will continue to have communities because they offer something that will never be available to any other formats as long as Wizards is in charge of the game. I'm guessing after a while Wizards will just kill off the formats by introducing absurdly broken cards that are only legal in the two formats, sort of like what they are already doing by printing cards so powerful they invalidate a large portion of previously viable alternatives, which will force format homogeneity.

lodestone golem and the restriction of blue cantrips killed vintage. But mostly lodestone golem.

[Reaver027]

Let me add my littel story to the mix.
I stopped playing magic in 2012 and sold all my cards with the exception of a pauper cube. I still watched a lot of magic and always had the interest to get back into the game.
Time, money and the closure of my LGs always prevented me from getting back into the game. Never been a big fan of standard because of the rotation and Modern never really seemed as good as Legacy.
Now i got enough time again to play some games of magic but i can't get back into Legacy because of money.
In comes modern where i can get a decent enough deck that will let me win some games and have fun for 150€. And that deck i will be able to play for a long time.

Modern is just a much easier format to get started in or like me to get back into the game.

[Quasim0ff]

lodestone golem and the restriction of blue cantrips killed vintage. But mostly lodestone golem.

Not correct.

[mishima_kazuya]

Just in via the PT Live Stream interview with Helene Bergeot.

WoTC is going to be giving out PT invites to select independent series top finishers in the near future.

My speculation is that they may cut Legacy GP's and give PT invites to SCG Legacy Open winners, BoM Winners, Eternal Weekend winners, etc.

[Darkenslight]

Three Legacy GPs next year - one in Chiba post- WMC, and two in June.

Not looking good here.

[Julian23]

Looks like I won the BoM in the wrong year :eek:

Legacy GPs in Columbus, Chiba aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand PRAGUE! Awesome! :)

[Whitefaces]

Prague is one of the most amazing cities I've been too, what a great place for a Legacy GP. It should be excellent!

[theBloody]

GP Prague 2016!!! Looking forward to this event.

On topic: our local legacy events still get about 12 - 22 people. It is like this for about 4 years. Bigger cities in 100km from here seen some decreasing popularity but I think Prague is still running strong (maybe slosh can confirm).

[Sloshthedark]

GP Prague 2016!!! Looking forward to this event.

On topic: our local legacy events still get about 12 - 22 people. It is like this for about 4 years. Bigger cities in 100km from here seen some decreasing popularity but I think Prague is still running strong (maybe slosh can confirm).

Prague is a nice surprise, wow we get so many great events lately

it's going down last 2-3 years since there are 2 shops and 2 weeklies people split their time between both so you're facing the same people at lower numbers which hurts the overall attendence imo, also payout changed into more relaxed... we get very rarely get over 20 in the bigger one (which used to be the norm years back) more like 14-16 and 10-12 in the smaller one, it basicaly works because of a guy who can lend out 3+ decks in each event

[theBloody]

@Sloshthedark: Ah, I thought it was better :/. At least Zuzy saving the day with legacy series and Prague Eternal.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

That's not true, Sváča is killing the community similarly to how a sharpie hurt the Vintage.

There are no Legacy addicts/affivocados (that word) anymore, as everything a random dude needs to do is to lend a Brainstorm.dec, wear a "zis is a seriouz game, ima serious palyer" mask and start throwing cantrips all over the lgs. Those dudes don't give a smallest damn about Legacy, they'd be Warcracking or vandalize benches, but as long as there are cards to borrow, they'll waste my time by poisoning the air in Rytíř as it's much closer to Burgerking than their usual shitshop or dealer.

The prices of duals and stuff (heck, Waste is USD 100 affair, right?) are only a part of the trouble, as the decks/gameplay is unbearable no matter the price; it'll suck even if they'd be giving SnT for free in minimarket. There's no spell in what a usual Legacy tournament may offer

What's true is that ever since the prices of certain cards went absurd (while the others kept in the 2009-ish range), there's hardly anything that can motivate you to build a Legacy deck, not to mention a collection, becasue most of it is a waste of cardboard. My "collection" is a complete waste of space, as there's nothing to brew except in the blue shell of a Card That Shall Dwell Alone unless you're bent on trying your luck with miscarriages of a deck, but then why oh why should I ever need an lgs to start with? I may just as well dick with my real friends (baring I'd have any) without having to pay for stinky air in a pit full of adolescent morons whose lifestyle I don't share and whose worldview (if they have any at all) I despise: so there's just that damned Magic that should keep me inthere... yet the game turned into such a rubbish in past three or four years that words can't even tell hashtagGrizzlyband, hashtagOmniderp, hashtagDelver, hashtagSnapguy, hashtagTerminus.

Basically what's killing Legacy (beyond the obvious points that Arzar and co. wrote about already) is that it's not a communal thing anymore. There's no reason why you'd bring your old friends in a "go try your old deck, it's a real fun with those old cards" style as there's simply none of that fun anymore. I'd take the extreme risk to sound like an old whiner (which I really am), but back when I started to play Legacy (2007/8?), everything was possible in a (semi)serious setting I played within. Then the field narrowed and narowed with every printing and every (un)banning up to the point where you don't need glasses to acknowldege the deck by the first non-BS spell cast. Even few years ago Legacy was (kind of) interesting, but seeing the ever the same sequences of ever the same spells with ever the same results being played by ever the same people gets really old quite fast.

CCGs are relics of bygone era.

[Krieg]

I will continue doing my part to keep legacy alive and recruit new players.
$5 Legacy FNM every week that almost always fire.
Monthly legacy events at least half of them with $1000+ in staples prize pools

No deck or want to try something different?
11 decks are available to borrow, just don’t riffle shuffle them please.

/

[bruizar]

Not correct.

I'm pretty sure Workshop aggro took over when they could consistently drop workshop, mox, lodestone golem followed by sphere of resistance, thorn of amethyst and more lodestone golems. I mean, as a workshop player I was a part of it. Curious about your views though.

[jrsthethird]

I will continue doing my part to keep legacy alive and recruit new players.
$5 Legacy FNM every week that almost always fire.
Monthly legacy events at least half of them with $1000+ in staples prize pools

No deck or want to try something different?
11 decks are available to borrow, just don’t riffle shuffle them please.

/

Give this man a cookie. Props for hanging in there.

[Lord Seth]

How on earth could this be a thing? People always traveled hours for tourneys if they love to play Legacy / Modern / Pauper / whatever; I won't believe that players' decisions are based on the starthour of the first round.Why wouldn't you believe that? You don't think that people generally prefer to sleep in longer? Obviously the people who really want to play Legacy would play Legacy, but if someone plays both then the timing is a definite sticking point. I absolutely believe that starting later means some people would take Modern over Legacy; I can tell you that it's part of the reason I'd play Modern at a nearby SCG rather than Legacy.


By the way, Modern really sucks.Even if that's true (and I don't think it is), I don't see how that has the slightest relevance to my point.

[meffeo]

I will continue doing my part to keep legacy alive and recruit new players.
$5 Legacy FNM every week that almost always fire.
Monthly legacy events at least half of them with $1000+ in staples prize pools

No deck or want to try something different?
11 decks are available to borrow, just don’t riffle shuffle them please.

/

This is exactly how should it work.
Props for pointing out the NO RIFFLE SHUFFLE PLEASE.


Why wouldn't you believe that? You don't think that people generally prefer to sleep in longer? Obviously the people who really want to play Legacy would play Legacy, but if someone plays both then the timing is a definite sticking point. I absolutely believe that starting later means some people would take Modern over Legacy; I can tell you that it's part of the reason I'd play Modern at a nearby SCG rather than Legacy.

Even if that's true (and I don't think it is), I don't see how that has the slightest relevance to my point.

If I'm planning a tournament, less sleep is one of the first thing to consider. I'd sleep the night right after, or even better, go earlier in bed the day before.

About the debatable format, feel free to play whatever you prefer, ofc. In my point view, if I had the chance to play Legacy over Modern, the decision would be very clear, fck off timetables, but that's just me.

[Lysandros]

SCG has a Legacy Open this weekend...and all their content is Standard / Modern / Commander so far this week. Sad.

[Varal]

SCG has a Legacy Open this weekend...and all their content is Standard / Modern / Commander so far this week. Sad.

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/31308_Todd-VS-BBD-Omni-Tell-VS-Grixis-Delver.html

[Megadeus]

Great. A premium video watching the exact match up that I'm sure we'll see on camera for half the rounds this weekend. Riveting stuff.

[wolfstorm]

Ha, well at least here in Austin, TX Legacy is thriving, 25 people usually every weekly, + a 50-75+ person event every month.

[MGB]

It's not surprising that Legacy is seeing a a slow death of support from Wizards and Starcitygames. There's simply no real financial incentive to continue to pander to the Legacy community. Wizards has clearly determined in their focus group research that Limited and Standard are the most enjoyable formats for the casual player, and Wizards makes the most money catering to the casual player, so they focus their support on formats that appeal to the casual player. There's just nothing you can really do about it at this point, short of turning Wizards/Hasbro into non-profit organizations.

Just enjoy the few big Legacy tournaments we have left (a few Opens here and there, two GPs within the next year, Eternal Extravaganza 3, a few IQs...), try to find a Modern and/or Standard deck you enjoy playing - as hard as that can be for some Legacy people, it *is* possible to enjoy these "lesser" formats as they still are, after all, Magic - and move on with your life. Sell most of your cards that you don't play with in your main Legacy deck and invest in more Modern staples. Sure, it might suck to have to do this, but in the long run you either have to adapt or turn into that fuddy-duddy that constantly talks about the "golden age" of Magic, and that guy is just lame.

[MechTactical]

I never played legacy and I never played competitive magic. Despite of this I recently bought several legacy staples and spent around 3k. I used to play as a teenager just for fun and I was always drawn to the game. Legacy seems very fun and exciting to me at this point.

I really don’t see how legacy is more expensive than any other hobby / sport. I bought a cross country bike for 3k and I bought my cards for 3k, what’s all the fuss about? Do I bitch because my bike set me back 3k? No It’s a fun bike and I like it. And my bike will crash in price no matter what I do. So even if card prices totally crash it will be the same for me as with other hobbies. I don’t drive my bike competitively nor do I want to be the world champion. The same applies to mtg I’m not looking to get “rich and famous” and all cute winning big tournaments. I’m here to have fun the old fashion way. So I choose the deck that appealed to me the most and bought in although I don’t even know how to play it – hopefully that’ll change in time. What I’m trying to say is that with a fairly reasonable income one can spend several k now and then for stuff like travel, sports and hobbies. Don’t get me wrong I don’t have cash to throw around… in that case I would buy into vintage I guess? After all spending money is the only true freedom we have left.

Mr. Bed Decks Palyer expressed his concerns about the younger generation (which is worrying in general I have to agree), maybe legacy just isn’t meant for them? Why would it be a bad format if it was just us older dudes? Let’s ban hyped rich kids not emrakul right? Let’s play BIG magic! Why settle for less? That’s what it’s all about isn't it? If the current decks are domination legacy I guess they’re the best decks mankind made right?
Maybe u guys who find the format stale should move to other formats, games, hobbies,… regardless of the “health” legacy is in. You seem to be bored with it anyways. When we noobs buy your legacy collections you’ll see innovation! Once we figure out what you guys were doing for the last decade or two you’ll see a whole lot of variety as we netdeck your builds to whole new levels…:tongue:

[ESG]

It's not surprising that Legacy is seeing a a slow death of support from Wizards and Starcitygames.

MGB, you've been here at least three years. Haven't you seen these doomsaying threads before? Legacy used to be a lot smaller before SCG started running a traveling tournament series, and Legacy was fine even then.

Scenes obviously wax and wane as years go on and people move, but there have been decent threads on these boards that talk about how to grow a scene. Anybody's who's unhappy with the gaming options in their area can apply that advice to their situation and bring in new players. I recognize that this is harder to do in rural areas, but my observation is that a lot of people just don't try.

[MGB]

MGB, you've been here at least three years. Haven't you seen these doomsaying threads before? Legacy used to be a lot smaller before SCG started running a traveling tournament series, and Legacy was fine even then.

Scenes obviously wax and wane as years go on and people move, but there have been decent threads on these boards that talk about how to grow a scene. Anybody's who's unhappy with the gaming options in their area can apply that advice to their situation and bring in new players. I recognize that this is harder to do in rural areas, but my observation is that a lot of people just don't try.

There's only so much community-sponsored events can offer the serious Legacy competitor.

Unless you're strictly a casual player, there's simply no replacement for a Legacy Grand Prix or even a Legacy Open or Premiere IQ.

I love Legacy more than any other format, but if there were no SCG events and no Grand Prix events for Legacy, I probably would never play the format in person.

[ESG]

There's only so much community-sponsored events can offer the serious Legacy competitor.

Unless you're strictly a casual player, there's simply no replacement for a Legacy Grand Prix or even a Legacy Open or Premiere IQ.

I love Legacy more than any other format, but if there were no SCG events and no Grand Prix events for Legacy, I probably would never play the format in person.

I think this depends entirely on your community. I'm in no way a casual player. In my area we played 80-person and 100-person Legacy tournaments for duals or a Lotus years ago. We didn't need GPs or SCG. SCG's involvement has bumped attendance up more, and, yeah, Opens and GPs are larger than our homegrown events, but those weren't necessary for a thriving community here. We can still request Legacy Opens and GPs, but my opinion is that people should focus on growing their communities if they are unsatisfied.

[DragoFireheart]

Just enjoy the few big Legacy tournaments we have left (a few Opens here and there, two GPs within the next year, Eternal Extravaganza 2, a few IQs...), try to find a Modern and/or Standard deck you enjoy playing -

REALLY think about what you just said.

Legacy is dead. I don't see any local tournaments that are being held. $300 Underground Seas and Brainstorm saturated decks are the cause.

Go dig up this crazy bird's posting history. I called this shit years/months ago.

[Tammit67]

REALLY think about what you just said.

Legacy is dead. I don't see any local tournaments that are being held. $300 Underground Seas and Brainstorm saturated decks are the cause.

Go dig up this crazy bird's posting history. I called this shit years/months ago.

A broken clock is right twice a day

[Lord Seth]

It's not surprising that Legacy is seeing a a slow death of support from Wizards and Starcitygames. There's simply no real financial incentive to continue to pander to the Legacy community. Wizards has clearly determined in their focus group research that Limited and Standard are the most enjoyable formats for the casual player, and Wizards makes the most money catering to the casual player, so they focus their support on formats that appeal to the casual player. There's just nothing you can really do about it at this point, short of turning Wizards/Hasbro into non-profit organizations.The problem is that everything you gave as a reason for them not supporting Legacy is a reason for them to not support Modern, and they've been supporting that (if not as much as some Modern players would like). In fact, from what I've heard, they actually really want there to be a format for Standard players to swap over to when they lose interest with Standard, as usually happens after a while. After all, that player who sticks around to play another format is a person who's still playing Magic and thus is more likely to possibly return to Standard at some point.

No, the reason is, was, and always will be the Reserved List. The higher-ups have apparently decreed it's here to stay, so that instantly put a real crimp on Legacy that's really starting to show right now. Modern doesn't have the problem of the Reserved List, so it doesn't have the issue of its growth being limited (their annoying lack of reprints is a bit of a limiting factor, but that's still not as problematic as the Reserved List).

[Phoenix Ignition]

(their annoying lack of reprints is a bit of a limiting factor, but that's still not as problematic as the Reserved List).

And really I don't think there's been that annoying of a lack of reprints, same as many others. I see so many complaints when there's a new Modern Masters set and they didn't put something like Blood Moon in it so everyone freaks out. Well they did put a crapton of other stuff in there, like Bitterblossom, bob, Elesh Norn, Emrakul, Iona, Karn, Kiki-Jiki, Kozilek, Mox Opal, Prime Time, Tarmogoyf, Ulamog, Vendilion Clique, Cryptic Command, Noble Hierarch, and the list goes on. That's just in the most recent printing of modern masters as well.

Yeah it sucks that Blood Moon spiked in price because of the lack of being printed, but there were SO MANY CARDS that are highly sought after that they did reprint. They're bound to miss a few in each print cycle, and people don't need to freak out about it. Damnation shouldn't be a 50 dollar card, but at least Noble Hierarch, who is used in way more decks, is still under 40.

The fact that they're not willing to completely nuke the market with reprints while still increasing the number of cards out there is really promising for the format. That's just not the case for Legacy and shelling out $250+ is ridiculous to ask of people for a single dual land.

[lordofthepit]

LOL our local Legacy weekly just had 48 players and three video coordinators. On a fucking non-holiday Monday night.

[Sloshthedark]

LOL our local Legacy weekly just had 48 players and three video coordinators. On a fucking non-holiday Monday night.

Seattle right? Where else could this happen...

[lordofthepit]

Seattle right? Where else could this happen...

Correct

[chris_acheson]

I really don’t see how legacy is more expensive than any other hobby / sport. I bought a cross country bike for 3k and I bought my cards for 3k, what’s all the fuss about? Do I bitch because my bike set me back 3k? No It’s a fun bike and I like it.

No comment in particular about the future of Legacy here, but you can enjoy your bike just fine on your own. Your Legacy deck? Not really enjoyable without other people to play with.

[Higgs]

No comment in particular about the future of Legacy here, but you can enjoy your bike just fine on your own. Your Legacy deck? Not really enjoyable without other people to play with.


Goldfishing TinFins or High Tide can be pretty fun without other people. It can be especially fun without some guy huffing and puffing across the table. Lol

[Mr.C]

As someone who's been registered on here since before Portal was legal in Legacy, I've seen the format go from people barely playing it, to the Legacy boom, to SCG Opens, to $100 Seas killing Legacy, to $200 Seas killing Legacy, and finally to $300 Seas killing Legacy.

Legacy won't ever 'die'. I mean, people still play Vintage ffs. But the boom is over, and very soon Legacy will be to most players what Vintage is right now. A relic, an old format full of broken and expensive stuff.

That said, it will also get cheaper. Underground Seas are closing for under $200 on eBay. Its been years since they've hit that price. Stuff from AN/AQ and Legends probably won't fall much. Then again, I know of people hoarding Tabernacles, so if they decide to sell, there's no telling what the market will do.

Finally, Wizards disappointed me greatly in 2010 with the qhole Reserved List clusterfuck. It was the right choice for them, in hindsight, but that was what put an expiration date on the format. Modern just was the nail in the coffin.

Speaking of Modern, Legacy was created when there were 11 years worth of Magic sets. Modern now has 12 years of Magic sets...

Gentlemen, it's been an honor and a pleasure. I'm sure we'll see each other in small tournaments in Vancouver or Seattle, where we'll reminisce about the good old days of Legacy.

[danyul]

@ Mr. C - I don't mean to be an alarmist or whatever, but I'm basically in the same place. The format isn't as interesting anymore and I've found myself almost resenting my Legacy stuff since it's just a bunch of money sitting in a box doing nothing. And even when I bust it out to battle, things just aren't as fun anymore. I'll probably sell out after GP Seattle and go about life as a true muggle. It couldn't be that bad, right?

Edit: does my reading comprehension suck right now? Maybe you weren't even being a Debbie Downer like me. Oh well. I like the youtube clip.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8yweQSVCu4

[Lormador]

Selling out a collection is a hazardous endeavor. We have all heard the stories of people selling only to buy back in again some time later. It might be months or years, but it happens a lot.

I don't think the situation warrants such drastic action. Look at Vintage. That's absolutely the worst that could possibly happen, and there's no way things will ever get that bad because there are so many more copies of the necessary cards in circulation already.

The format might not even shrink in the near-term. I'm in the middle of a visit back to the US, and I played down at the LGS last week. They had way more people there than they used to when I lived around here about 1-2 years ago, up to 26 from an average of 10-15. It's an awesome time to be playing, but perhaps that's because I've long since stopped worrying and learned to love the blue.

[danyul]

I sold the bulk of my collection a year or so ago already. This would just be the final blow. And it's not due to one or two little problems with the format. I think I'm just tired of Magic right now. I should see a therapist instead of posting on internet forums, huh?


It's an awesome time to be playing, but perhaps that's because I've long since stopped worrying and learned to love the blue.

I don't play blue so that probably explains everything.

[jrsthethird]

And really I don't think there's been that annoying of a lack of reprints, same as many others. I see so many complaints when there's a new Modern Masters set and they didn't put something like Blood Moon in it so everyone freaks out. Well they did put a crapton of other stuff in there, like Bitterblossom, bob, Elesh Norn, Emrakul, Iona, Karn, Kiki-Jiki, Kozilek, Mox Opal, Prime Time, Tarmogoyf, Ulamog, Vendilion Clique, Cryptic Command, Noble Hierarch, and the list goes on. That's just in the most recent printing of modern masters as well.

Yeah it sucks that Blood Moon spiked in price because of the lack of being printed, but there were SO MANY CARDS that are highly sought after that they did reprint. They're bound to miss a few in each print cycle, and people don't need to freak out about it. Damnation shouldn't be a 50 dollar card, but at least Noble Hierarch, who is used in way more decks, is still under 40.

The fact that they're not willing to completely nuke the market with reprints while still increasing the number of cards out there is really promising for the format. That's just not the case for Legacy and shelling out $250+ is ridiculous to ask of people for a single dual land.

The thing is though, reprinting staples doesn't actually lower the cost of the format. As the reprinted cards go down, the staples that weren't reprinted spike in value, and generally keep the majority of that boost.

SaffronOlive at MTGGoldfish wrote a great article on this about a month ago: http://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/modern-decks-cost-25-percent-more-today-than-six-months-ago


Seattle right? Where else could this happen...

Soon enough you'll have a small army of Legacy players ready to storm Renton and demand some change!

[GenghisTom]

Honestly, it's an anomaly Legacy was able to reach the size it did.
Legacy and Vintage shouldn't be large formats due to the availability of cards and the particular taste one has to have to want to play it.
We should be lucky (or unlucky) that Legacy ever got this big in the first place. I've always been expecting it to settle back down to the original levels.

I don't post much, but I've been a source lurker for quite some time and I remember the days when Legacy was very small and we all secretly knew it was the better format and were in a way happy it wasn't "mainstream".
At this point I don't care what happens to Legacy in terms of SCG opens and GP. I don't need large tournaments to enjoy the game (then again, I'm also enjoying the fruitful scene we have here in Seattle so...)

[DragoFireheart]

A broken clock is right twice a day

But will you be saying this a year from now?

[Mattincognito]

Legacy could never reach the same level of Standard/Modern due to availability issues obviously... I don't see any reason to believe the format will "die" though... Its an incredibly fun format with a diverse number of decks. Hell... Aggro Loam just put multiple copies in the top of a GP... who saw that coming...

WOTC has no real reason to reduce support of the format any further... tossing us a bone of 1 -2 GPs a year is all they need to do to not piss off people... so I doubt that will change.

If SCG reduces support any more.... (it is still played every weekend in some capacity) that will probably reduce card prices by decreasing demand... If the demand ever dipped to where prices were really low... some other retailer or SCG again would be incentivized to increase support of the format to respike the prices of the cards...

I think the format is settling in to its post boom role. It will never be a premiere format... but if your like me and want a format that you can play competitively a half dozen weekends a year and then play with your friends 1-2 times a week without risk of huge card price devaluations.... well legacy is that format, and I doubt that will ever change in the foreseeable future.

[LOLWut]

Negators always have the shrillest voices. The silent majority are playing, not posting, and basking in Legacy love. Lot of scenes, not just Seattle, growing or thriving. FACT

[Ogh!]

Negators always have the shrillest voices. The silent majority are playing, not posting, and basking in Legacy love. Lot of scenes, not just Seattle, growing or thriving. FACT

I'm very tempted to agree as this is also my "gut-feeling".

However, I'd be interested in an objective indicator of Legacy's popularity to examine the validity of this stated "FACT". The best objective indicator I can come up with is price development of Legacy(/Vintage)-only cards. Unfortunately, I'm not in the mood to conduct such an analysis but if I had to guess, I'd say that on average prices have been rising by a significant margin in every year since the format's inception.

[MechTactical]

No comment in particular about the future of Legacy here, but you can enjoy your bike just fine on your own. Your Legacy deck? Not really enjoyable without other people to play with.

I have no comment about the future of legacy because i have no legacy past. And I’m guessing that's a common sentiment shared by new players on the subject. We didn't see the "glory days" etc etc and because of that we are not burdened by the future of legacy. Maybe if we'll play the format for a decade we will eventually get very grumpy and aggravated with it and just sell out, like many of you are doing now.

I can go to a couple of small tournaments yearly in my vicinity and one bigger event reasonably close. That’s more than enough for me as I’m quite busy with work and other stuff – you know how things start to turn after 30… So basically my magic time is precious as there is very little of it. I’ll rather use that time to play a true eternal format than playing against justin bieber type fellas popping up in lesser formats. besides that I like jamming my dual lands into any causal deck for the local kitchen tables…

[Cartesian]

There has always been grumpy players in Legacy, and there always will be. The format is just fine, but it is getting increasingly difficult to attract new Legacy players like you, because of the increasingly high prices on format staples, caused by speculation, which is a direct result of the reserved list promise to never reprint the cards on the list.

[Higgs]

The problem some people on this thread seem to be having is called burn out. Give it 6 months, you'll feel the itch again.

Having said that I think the metagame is fucking stale and boring. People tune out. Also having weekly SCG coverage was something keeping people tuned in, so not having that is also a minor factor. Prices have been higher than this so I don't think that's a factor. There is an overall sense that Legacy is declining because people feel bored and fed up with the format. It's just that boring.

[MechTactical]

There has always been grumpy players in Legacy, and there always will be. The format is just fine, but it is getting increasingly difficult to attract new Legacy players like you, because of the increasingly high prices on format staples, caused by speculation, which is a direct result of the reserved list promise to never reprint the cards on the list.

The funny thing is that for me the reserved list means exactly the opposite. I would be less likely to buy in at the current prices if I had 0 guarantee. In this respect I don’t think the reserved list is a barrier for new players as it gives some kind of guarantee that the prices won’t just crash overnight with a massive reprint. Although I didn’t buy in for speculation reasons nor do I expect to retain value, never the less it feels better with the reserved list. And besides I don’t think it would be any fun if the prices would drop dramatically, then the eternal formats would lose their allure. You would just see an influx of your average smart ass biebers popping up everywhere.

It’s probably better they would redistribute legacy stashes through things like priceless treasures (maybe legacy masters?) or similar and use all available means to stop the speculators / “investors” hording cards for profit (especially the big culprits). Surely they could at least try if they wanted to right? Hasbro has more “power” influence than these hoarders reaping us off right?

[Cartesian]

Very interesting point, I agree to some extent. I still think the current financial barrier to entry to Legacy is simply too high for many players that would otherwise be interested.


Having said that I think the metagame is fucking stale and boring. People tune out. Also having weekly SCG coverage was something keeping people tuned in, so not having that is also a minor factor.
That is not everyones opinion, though. I think Legacy is very interesting right now. Maybe it is because I still think that it is possible to be innovative and attack specific decks and the format (which is very predictable at the moment) from new angels. If I ever lost that feeling, I would probably by bored too.
About SCG, other places are taking over now, streaming Legacy from smaller locations on a regular basis.

[LeoCop 90]

Attracting new people to the format is becoming more difficult also because not everyone is interested in playing the cantrip cartel. There is just no room for innovation or alternative deckbuilding in legacy, so people who like me don't like playing the blue stuff either quit legacy or start playing modern where you can do a lot more things with a reasonable chance of winning.
The sad part of this is that i'm convinced banning brainstorm would open a lot more breathing room for different decks in legacy, making the format more interesting.
Regarding legacy streams, nowadays they are probably one of the most boring things i've ever watched, with all the same decks covered (because they are the only decks people play, not a fault of starcitygames) and half the time spent watching brainstorms and ponders.

[Barook]

Having said that I think the metagame is fucking stale and boring. People tune out. Also having weekly SCG coverage was something keeping people tuned in, so not having that is also a minor factor. Prices have been higher than this so I don't think that's a factor. There is an overall sense that Legacy is declining because people feel bored and fed up with the format. It's just that boring.
There is only so much "Delver vs X", Delver mirrors or other "exciting" matches like Omniderp vs anything that can people take before they'll get eventually bored. An average of 7 out of 10 of your matches being some blue cantrip shell (often alongside FoW) with exchangable wincons/removal/disruption is simply too much. Actual diversity is suffering under the pretense of the fake "diversity" the blue cantrip shell creates.

Somebody on the Wizards homepage recently stated that they banned all quality cantrips in Modern because they make games play out the same and thus make the format boring.

As for recruiting new players, I think the general consensus is that many people are interested in Legacy, but it's simply too expensive for them, thus they pick up Modern instead.


The funny thing is that for me the reserved list means exactly the opposite. I would be less likely to buy in at the current prices if I had 0 guarantee. In this respect I don’t think the reserved list is a barrier for new players as it gives some kind of guarantee that the prices won’t just crash overnight with a massive reprint. Although I didn’t buy in for speculation reasons nor do I expect to retain value, never the less it feels better with the reserved list. And besides I don’t think it would be any fun if the prices would drop dramatically, then the eternal formats would lose their allure. You would just see an influx of your average smart ass biebers popping up everywhere.

It’s probably better they would redistribute legacy stashes through things like priceless treasures (maybe legacy masters?) or similar and use all available means to stop the speculators / “investors” hording cards for profit (especially the big culprits). Surely they could at least try if they wanted to right? Hasbro has more “power” influence than these hoarders reaping us off right?
All the RL does is create an artifical bubble that is going to pop sooner or later - be it either Magic/Legacy dying for good or the Chinese getting their shit together regarding quality fake cards. Especially the latter is a concern if value remains high since there's alot of money to be made.

[Teluin]

something something the cantrip cartel words words.

I find it hard to take anyone who says this seriously, as it's clear they are just regurgitating what other people have said on the matter.

[MechTactical]

As for recruiting new players, I think the general consensus is that many people are interested in Legacy, but it's simply too expensive for them, thus they pick up Modern instead.


All the RL does is create an artifical bubble that is going to pop sooner or later - be it either Magic/Legacy dying for good or the Chinese getting their shit together regarding quality fake cards. Especially the latter is a concern if value remains high since there's alot of money to be made.

Generally speaking the RL certainly gives some comfort to players buying in. And all of us who bought in now would feel like monkeys getting raped by wizards if they crashed prices with a reprint.

That being said I’m willing to take one for the team if it helps the format. :laugh:

[Whitefaces]

I find it hard to take anyone who says this seriously, as it's clear they are just regurgitating what other people have said on the matter.

So what? It makes sense. People repeat each other all the time.

[Teluin]

People repeat each other all the time.

Other people doing something doesn't make it ok :P. Have you seen the B/R thread? It's probably the most redundant thread on this forum, as the same thing is repeated on either side of the same issue for the last 50+ pages. This site isn't supposed to be mtgsalvation Legacy-edition.

[LeoCop 90]

If you prefer i wil repeat brainstorm, ponder, gitaxian probe, dig through time, force of will every time i have to speak about those cards. Doesn't matter if i call them blue shell, cantrip cartel or stinky shit, it is just a method to save time.

[bruizar]

Cantrip cartel or not, magic is still 1000% healthier than hearthstone :)

[Mr.C]

Negators always have the shrillest voices. The silent majority are playing, not posting, and basking in Legacy love. Lot of scenes, not just Seattle, growing or thriving. FACT

Same for the other extreme, people who refuse to look at the situation objectively.

Vancouver used to have a strong Legacy scene, with a box tournament every month and multiple stores running Legacy weeklies. Nowadays? 8-12 players, maybe, at one store.

[Lord Seth]

Negators always have the shrillest voices. The silent majority are playing, not posting, and basking in Legacy love. Lot of scenes, not just Seattle, growing or thriving. FACTAnd lots of scenes, rather than growing or thriving, are shrinking or dying out. FACT.

A message like the one you posted doesn't actually mean much of anything because it's a bunch of bluster without any real facts behind it (despite the "FACT"). Sure, some areas are thriving. Other areas are doing the opposite. You need to look at the big picture and see if the general trend is growth or decline.

[Dosferra]

About two years ago we were around 14 people for our legacy weeklies, now we’re usually ~40. Yep, circa 40 ppls every wednesday playing legacy.
A lot of new faces, usually starting out with something “cheap”, D&T, Nic Fit, Dredge etc., after that they start borrowing decks and after a few months they buy into blue.

[Richard Cheese]

About two years ago we were around 14 people for our legacy weeklies, now we’re usually ~40. Yep, circa 40 ppls every wednesday playing legacy.
A lot of new faces, usually starting out with something “cheap”, D&T, Nic Fit, Dredge etc., after that they start borrowing decks and after a few months they buy into blue.

For those of you that have growing Legacy scenes, what's your tournament structure like (time/cost/prize support)? Are there multiple stores in one area successfully running events? How far are people traveling? How do you advertise?

[danyul]

For those of you that have growing Legacy scenes, what's your tournament structure like (time/cost/prize support)? Are there multiple stores in one area successfully running events? How far are people traveling? How do you advertise?

Seattle has an excellent scene that seems to grow year over year. The regional Facebook group has 1500+ members, is highly active, and acts as The Place to advertise events. The hotspots for Legacy are Card Kingdom and Mox Boarding House (sister stores roughly 45-60 min apart) with locations in the two biggest metropolitan areas. They have Legacy weeklies on Mondays and Thursdays with payouts as follows:

$10 entry fee, 4 rounds, starts at 6:30 PM. 4-0 is $70 store credit, 3-0-1 is $50, 3-1 is $30, 2-0-2 is $20, and 2-1-1 is $15.

Store credit is saved on gift cards which an also be used in the restaurants AKA you can win at Magic and then buy microbrew booze with your winnings. Turnout is typically 30-45 players. For a weekly event.

The stores are clean, have plenty of space, excellent selection, singles, and also sell booze + upscale food. This is an ideal situation for MTG players. HOWEVER, we also have Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Bungie, Nintendo, Boeing, and a number of other gigantic companies importing young techies from all over the world to come live here. The guy you see on the street wearing a dirty t-shirt and flipflops likely makes twice as much as the guy walking next to him in a suit. That's the environment. And it's honestly great for Magic, especially Legacy. I see new faces all the time and they are in their early 20s, make programmer salaries, live alone with few responsibilities, and have insane disposable incomes. They buy into (BLUE) Legacy without hesitation. That isn't normal. This isn't an easily reproducible environment. And honestly, I don't really care for the brogrammer types. But that's the future of Legacy/Vintage so we might as well get used to it. For the Regular Joe making a median income with financial responsibilities outside of rent + a cell phone, buying into Legacy can be really daunting. Even if the prices aren't at their peak, they are still stupid high. Sure, we get some randoms who are savvy and manage to buy in. But lately those have been the exception rather than the rule.

[MechTactical]

Seattle has an excellent scene that seems to grow year over year. The regional Facebook group has 1500+ members, is highly active, and acts as The Place to advertise events. The hotspots for Legacy are Card Kingdom and Mox Boarding House (sister stores roughly 45-60 min apart) with locations in the two biggest metropolitan areas. They have Legacy weeklies on Mondays and Thursdays with payouts as follows:

$10 entry fee, 4 rounds, starts at 6:30 PM. 4-0 is $70 store credit, 3-0-1 is $50, 3-1 is $30, 2-0-2 is $20, and 2-1-1 is $15.

Store credit is saved on gift cards which an also be used in the restaurants AKA you can win at Magic and then buy microbrew booze with your winnings. Turnout is typically 30-45 players. For a weekly event.

The stores are clean, have plenty of space, excellent selection, singles, and also sell booze + upscale food. This is an ideal situation for MTG players. HOWEVER, we also have Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Bungie, Nintendo, Boeing, and a number of other gigantic companies importing young techies from all over the world to come live here. The guy you see on the street wearing a dirty t-shirt and flipflops likely makes twice as much as the guy walking next to him in a suit. That's the environment. And it's honestly great for Magic, especially Legacy. I see new faces all the time and they are in their early 20s, make programmer salaries, live alone with few responsibilities, and have insane disposable incomes. They buy into (BLUE) Legacy without hesitation. That isn't normal. This isn't an easily reproducible environment. And honestly, I don't really care for the brogrammer types. But that's the future of Legacy/Vintage so we might as well get used to it. For the Regular Joe making a median income with financial responsibilities outside of rent + a cell phone, buying into Legacy can be really daunting. Even if the prices aren't at their peak, they are still stupid high. Sure, we get some randoms who are savvy and manage to buy in. But lately those have been the exception rather than the rule.

shizezz more biebers, that's kind of lame... i want old folks with old cards grumping and puffing away ... that's my ideal of legacy. but i have to admit that most players i know aren't capable of spending the $$$/€€€ on these cards. god bless google and friends for brining you guyz the mtg bieber influx

[MGB]

I think the reason that Seattle has a burgeoning scene is because of Microsoft and other big tech companies basically mean that the average techie worker there only needs to spend a single paycheck and he can own a fully pimped out BUG Delver deck.

[lordofthepit]

I'd estimate that well under 20% of the Legacy player base in Seattle is employed by one of those tech companies. The reason that Legacy is so successful here is that we have excellent stores that are willing to invest in it and a community that is interested in introducing new players to the scene. Build it and they will come.

I still remember the days when Card Kingdom couldn't get 8 people to show up at their events so we could only play three rounds. Now we're regularly in the 40's.

[twndomn]

I think the reason that Seattle has a burgeoning scene is because of Microsoft and other big tech companies basically mean that the average techie worker there only needs to spend a single paycheck and he can own a fully pimped out BUG Delver deck.

Seattle has Cedric Philips and Russell Wilson, what more can people there ask for?

[danyul]

I'd estimate that well under 20% of the Legacy player base in Seattle is employed by one of those tech companies. The reason that Legacy is so successful here is that we have excellent stores that are willing to invest in it and a community that is interested in introducing new players to the scene. Build it and they will come.

I still remember the days when Card Kingdom couldn't get 8 people to show up at their events so we could only play three rounds. Now we're regularly in the 40's.

I dunno Shawn. I'm pretty sure it's mostly programmer/techy folks at the weeklies. But I haven't exactly taken a poll or anything. And of course the local stores have done a lot to help foster the community. Anyways this is getting slightly off topic.

How about them Brainstorms, huh?

[chris_acheson]

shizezz more biebers, that's kind of lame... i want old folks with old cards grumping and puffing away ... that's my ideal of legacy. but i have to admit that most players i know aren't capable of spending the $$$/€€€ on these cards. god bless google and friends for brining you guyz the mtg bieber influx

Who exactly do you mean by "biebers"? At first you seemed to be referring to younger Magic players that aren't willing/able to shell out the cash for Legacy. Now it's young people that have plenty of money? Do you just hate anyone under the age of 30? That would be a shame, because there's plenty of really cool Magic players in their teens and 20s. There's also a fair number of salty assholes in the 30+ crowd.

I want Legacy to be the default format that everyone plays. I've always wanted this. It has always been bizarre to me that weird formats with weird card pool restrictions are the default instead.

Death the the Reserved List. Long live Legacy.

[ESG]

I'm very tempted to agree as this is also my "gut-feeling".

However, I'd be interested in an objective indicator of Legacy's popularity to examine the validity of this stated "FACT". The best objective indicator I can come up with is price development of Legacy(/Vintage)-only cards. Unfortunately, I'm not in the mood to conduct such an analysis but if I had to guess, I'd say that on average prices have been rising by a significant margin in every year since the format's inception.

Lordofthepit basically already did this.
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?25864-Why-the-demise-of-Legacy-is-greatly-exaggerated&highlight=

Again, these hand-wringing threads about the future of Legacy have come up before, and Legacy is fine.

Edit: That second link is broken. Stupid Salvation. Internal link to the discussion here still works. I'm sure Lordofthepit can repost his analysis from wherever else he stored it.

Edit 2: I also feel compelled to add that local scenes have a lot to do with the shop itself. Poorly run shops or shops in difficult-to-access areas are unlikely to find long-term support from players. There are several shops in the wider Seattle area that tried weekly or biweekly Legacy and dropped it within six months because they couldn't fire events. This had everything to do with them offering lousy prize support or not having judges or holding tournaments on bad days or at bad times. Good shops find support. If you're a bad shop, turn it around. The only people who are truly disadvantaged are the ones in really rural areas who don't have enough of a Magic population to build a scene on.

[Barook]

Why do people forget to mention that Seattle is also the main seat of WotC? :eyebrow:

[DragoFireheart]

Negators always have the shrillest voices. The silent majority are playing, not posting, and basking in Legacy love. Lot of scenes, not just Seattle, growing or thriving. FACT


Why do people forget to mention that Seattle is also the main seat of WotC? :eyebrow:

Because the negators always have the shrillest voices?

Anyways I have begun my move to Pauper magic. You can play 4 of Brainstorm, the average cost of a deck is $40-$50, and there's a nice variety of decks to play.

[Dice_Box]

http://www.mtgsalvation.com/members/64345-lordofthepit23/articles

[ESG]

Why do people forget to mention that Seattle is also the main seat of WotC? :eyebrow:

Because that doesn't really matter? WOTC employees aren't padding our totals. It's not like we're some unique city where everything aligns. There are plenty of other areas where Legacy is growing or well-established with large, regular turnouts at events. We built a community, and other places could do it too. It takes motivation from a core group of players and a solid shop or two, but I really believe it can be replicated almost anywhere. I don't believe that the answer is to wait around for WOTC to throw us a bone.

[LOLWut]

And lots of scenes, rather than growing or thriving, are shrinking or dying out. FACT.

A message like the one you posted doesn't actually mean much of anything because it's a bunch of bluster without any real facts behind it (despite the "FACT"). Sure, some areas are thriving. Other areas are doing the opposite. You need to look at the big picture and see if the general trend is growth or decline.

Some local scenes are growing and some are shrinking; so damn incisively true.

It's difficult for me to maintain my stance that negative voices are the loudest, and that those voices are no evidence of decline, and poor representation of the Legacy player base, in light of that knowledge dropping.

It's not a proclamation of universal health; it's that the health of so many scenes would be impossible if the manner in which the scorched earthers spoke of Legacy were accurate. FACT

[Lord Seth]

Some local scenes are growing and some are shrinking; so damn incisively true.

It's difficult for me to maintain my stance that negative voices are the loudest, and that those voices are no evidence of decline, and poor representation of the Legacy player base, in light of that knowledge dropping.

It's not a proclamation of universal health; it's that the health of so many scenes would be impossible if the manner in which the scorched earthers spoke of Legacy were accurate. FACTI don't think anyone is disputing that Legacy is growing or retaining popularity in <i>some</i> locations. But if those locations are the minority and in general it's losing popularity, that doesn't mean much.

I don't know how I'd go about evaluating the overall growth/decline in Legacy, but the overall is the important figure.

[DragoFireheart]

It takes motivation from a core group of players and a solid shop or two, but I really believe it can be replicated almost anywhere.

Tell that to the "kids" that may want to get into Legacy but sees the price tag.

Which would rather blow 2k on: pieces of cardboard or a piece of ass*?

(*Dates, money for car to drive around, other more meaningful stuff)

[jrsthethird]

Which would rather blow 2k on: pieces of cardboard or a piece of ass*?

(*Dates, money for car to drive around, other more meaningful stuff)

Cardboard holds its value and doesn't talk back.

[Dan Pyre]

Cardboard ... doesn't talk back.
What is having to mulligan, mana screw, or mana flood for 500, Alex? :tongue:

[Lord Seth]

Tell that to the "kids" that may want to get into Legacy but sees the price tag.

Which would rather blow 2k on: pieces of cardboard or a piece of ass*?

(*Dates, money for car to drive around, other more meaningful stuff)I think the bigger choice is between spending that money on a Legacy deck or spending half that amount on a Modern deck, which also gives more opportunities (in general) to be played.

[Stevestamopz]

I think the bigger choice is between spending that money on a Legacy deck or spending half that amount on a Modern deck, which also gives more opportunities (in general) to be played.

Modern events to be played in Melbourne weekly? Probably close to 5-6.
Legacy events to be played in Melbourne monthly (with 20-25 proxies allowed)? Maybe 1, sometimes 2.

To get into Legacy now, you just have to really really love a deck. I bought into Goblins 2-3 years ago ish, and I only got the 4th Port about December last year because even though the deck is a supreme piece of shit, I love playing it and really enjoyed learning to play it. There's no deck in Modern that plays even close to it, and there definitely isn't an essentially mono-red creature control/combo/aggro strategy that has 4x Port 4x Wasteland in it. If you want to play those cards (which I do) you have to get into Legacy. Now that I'm working as a lawyer it's pretty lulzy how "cheap" Goblins is, but when I was a broke uni student, dropping $120 aus on each Port was a huge amount of money.

The same applies to my mate; he got into Legacy because there is no "hard control deck" in Modern, whereas Miracles exists in Legacy.

When people really like playing a deck, they'll take ownership of it and if they start to love it they'll take pride in finding ways to buy the actual cards, logic and pricing be damned.
Would Bryant Cook have an extremely beautiful TES deck if he didn't love it as much as he does? Same goes for Jack Kitchen/KapnCook and Bahra with his super pimp Taxes deck and Julian with elves etc etc etc. This is why I'm really hoping WOTC open up Legacy by banning some of the ridiculous cards that have made most of the Tier 1 Legacy decks look identical. It's got nothing to do with a "hatred of blue" or whatever, I just love playing Legacy and would like to be able to have more people to play it with. Maybe I'm wrong, and it's very possible that I am, but opening up Legacy and having multiple different decks (e.g. non-cantrip/goodstuff decks) being viable options would be a good way to get fresh blood into Legacy.

P.s: The price on Foil Rishadan Ports :eek:

[sjmcc13]

I think the bigger choice is between spending that money on a Legacy deck or spending half that amount on a Modern deck, which also gives more opportunities (in general) to be played. This. Though it is probably more like 1/3rd as much to build a modern deck, since most Legacy decks are in the $2000-$4000 range, with allot of the more desirable ones (Stoneblade, Miracles, RUG/BUG Delver, etc) being ~$3000+ while most modern decks are under $1000. and few are "much" higher then that.

I took some (The end of Lorwyn/Shadowmore up to the M13) away from magc, and had to sell a lot of my cards during my time as I was between jobs and needed some cash. When I got back in if I did not still have my sets of Seas (Only dual I did not get forced to sell for cash), Wastelands, Strands, Deltas and FoWs I might not have even looked at Legacy, and just gone straight to modern as like storm and merfolk decks, and still had everything pre-alara that merfolk could run and modern storm cost me like $200 at the time with most of that being a set of tarns. Buying back in to legacy was allot more expensive, and I still need Ports to be able to look at non-blue lists.

[lordofthepit]

Since the incomparable ESG requested that I do this, I went ahead and looked at my DCI history and plotted attendance numbers for all Card Kingdom Monday weeklies I've attended:

http://i.imgur.com/1vnK1Mt.png

(Asterisks for two events in 2013 correspond to special one-time events on Memorial and Labor Day where prize support was increased.)

Seattle has always been a city with a lot of high tech jobs, but its Eternal Magic community wasn't big even a few years ago. Furthermore, the relative density of high-paying jobs for young computer science/engineering types that isn't a feature unique to the Emerald City. Its Legacy scene had to grow, nourished by an excellent store (Card Kingdom) and to a lesser extent by passionate community members. It's thriving and growing even without the SCG circuit, as the company has apparently decided that it is too cost-prohibitive to ever run an Open weekend in the state of Washington, having twice already moved previously scheduled events.

Unfortunately, this is probably the last graph I'll ever publish for Card Kingdom. Beginning next week, I will be unable to attend weeklies on a regular basis, perhaps ever, so I won't be able to access data from my DCI history. But I'm happy that the Legacy scene has more than quadrupled in size since I first started playing the Seattle area in 2009. I hope other communities experience the same growth.

[MechTactical]

Who exactly do you mean by "biebers"? At first you seemed to be referring to younger Magic players that aren't willing/able to shell out the cash for Legacy. Now it's young people that have plenty of money? Do you just hate anyone under the age of 30? That would be a shame, because there's plenty of really cool Magic players in their teens and 20s. There's also a fair number of salty assholes in the 30+ crowd.

I want Legacy to be the default format that everyone plays. I've always wanted this. It has always been bizarre to me that weird formats with weird card pool restrictions are the default instead.

Death the the Reserved List. Long live Legacy.

You basically nailed it. I hate everybody that's under 30 and looks like this:


Jace, Vryn's Prodigy

and thinks like this:


Tell that to the "kids" that may want to get into Legacy but sees the price tag.

Which would rather blow 2k on: pieces of cardboard or a piece of ass*?

(*Dates, money for car to drive around, other more meaningful stuff)

:tongue:

No but seriously i think that if a player makes a sacrifices (no matter his age) he will respect the format / game. If you have a fella with all the above and a pimp legacy deck and etc etc chances are high you’re dealing with an adolescent smart ass bieber type fella with no respect.

And I strongly believe that it wouldn’t be magical if the prices would drop for more than let’s say half (this is highly debatable). What do you want tropical islands for 10 bucks? Come on where’s the magic in that? what kind of commitment do you want from the player base anywayz? you’d get a Bieber yu-gi-oh type of scene. One has to make a serious commitment to respect the game/format. It’s the quality not quantity of the player base that’s important… At least for me because I don’t have the time to play often :cry:

[Bed Decks Palyer]

What do you want tropical islands for 10 bucks?

Sure, why not? It's just a piece of cardboard and if the prices would drop down to 10 bucks/dual, they'd be in the same price range where they were back when I started. I may even consider to rebuy into Eternal then.
Btw, I seriously doubt that there's any other hobby where people are happy that they may spend heaps of money on it. "Dude,this book/bike/bitch costs 10k bucks, I'm so fucking glad that I must have sold the kidney to finance my Friday Night's Reading/Biking/Screwing." :eyebrow:

[chris_acheson]

You basically nailed it. I hate everybody that's under 30 and looks like this:


Jace, Vryn's Prodigy

and thinks like this:


Tell that to the "kids" that may want to get into Legacy but sees the price tag.

Which would rather blow 2k on: pieces of cardboard or a piece of ass*?

(*Dates, money for car to drive around, other more meaningful stuff)


Ah yes, the straw youths.



No but seriously i think that if a player makes a sacrifices (no matter his age) he will respect the format / game. If you have a fella with all the above and a pimp legacy deck and etc etc chances are high you’re dealing with an adolescent smart ass bieber type fella with no respect.


Like age and wealth, "sacrifices made" is an extremely poor indicator of the quality of a person.



And I strongly believe that it wouldn’t be magical if the prices would drop for more than let’s say half (this is highly debatable). What do you want tropical islands for 10 bucks?


$10 seems like an extremely reasonable price point for a reprinted dual land.



Come on where’s the magic in that? what kind of commitment do you want from the player base anywayz?


I'd like them to commit to taking some time out of their day to play Magic with me. If they're willing to commit to participate in a Legacy tournament once a week, even better!



you’d get a Bieber yu-gi-oh type of scene. One has to make a serious commitment to respect the game/format. It’s the quality not quantity of the player base that’s important… At least for me because I don’t have the time to play often :cry:

Given your criteria for "quality", maybe you'd be better off joining a yacht club or something?

[Dosferra]

For those of you that have growing Legacy scenes, what's your tournament structure like (time/cost/prize support)? Are there multiple stores in one area successfully running events? How far are people traveling? How do you advertise?

We play wednesdays 18:30-22:00, 4 round swiss, the cost is perhaps $3.5 and prizes are store credit.
The LGS does nothing, that I know of, to promote legacy, it’s fully community-driven.
The large uptick in players started after we made a facebook page and launched a league (sort of like SCG open points).
It’s just one LGS, for legacy anyway, sometimes people from nearby cities attend, when they do we are usually more than 40 people.
Other factors that might contribute, some(/many?) also play modern and promote legacy to those players and in Sweden even students and unemployed can save up for a legacy deck in a couple of months.
The largest factor is probably the friendly atmosphere and ease of borrowing cards/decks.

[MechTactical]

Sure, why not? It's just a piece of cardboard

just a piece of cardboard? no magical feelings?
i can agree that we're having first world problems right here, but i still think that a tropical island is more than a piece of cardboard otherwise i wouldn't play it in my deck...




Given your criteria for "quality", maybe you'd be better off joining a yacht club or something?

how did you know i am a member of a yacht club? :laugh: no really, but it's not all that fancy believe me...

[Dice_Box]

just a piece of cardboard? no magical feelings?
i can agree that we're having first world problems right here, but i still think that a tropical island is more than a piece of cardboard otherwise i wouldn't play it in my deck...
That's fine, I am sure that about 50 people around me don't feel the same way. Lose one player, gain 50? I will take that trade.

[CabalTherapy]

just a piece of cardboard? no magical feelings?
i can agree that we're having first world problems right here, but i still think that a tropical island is more than a piece of cardboard otherwise i wouldn't play it in my deck...


"Magical feelings" or simply said sentiment doesn't go along with some kind of financial value but with memories you have while looking at the card. "Oh I remember when I played the Tropical Island and then got crushed by Belcher. Those were happy times."

Duals for 10$/E?! That would be awesome for the game.

[Vicar in a tutu]

Which would rather blow 2k on: pieces of cardboard or a piece of ass?
Cardboard. (And this comes from a guy with a relentless and unapologetic ass fixation.

[Ace/Homebrew]

i still think that a tropical island is more than a piece of cardboard
Well yeah... It's also an Island and a Forest. :wink:

[MGB]

Cardboard holds its value and doesn't talk back.

This.

To expand on point A in that sentence, I'd like to note that cardboard will never get fat immediately after you marry it either.

[nevilshute]

This.

To expand on point A in that sentence, I'd like to note that cardboard will never get fat immediately after you marry it either.

Proposed to a piece of cardboard have you? :wink:

[frogczar]

The future is already here and it's called Commander.

I don't know about the rest of you but really the only Legacy cards that get played around here are in Commander decks.

RIP Legacy. Your new casual nature is affordable and appealing to a much wider base of players.

[Whitefaces]

The future is already here and it's called Commander.

I don't know about the rest of you but really the only Legacy cards that get played around here are in Commander decks.

RIP Legacy. Your new casual nature is affordable and appealing to a much wider base of players.

Um, what? The play style and player base of Commander is at pretty much the opposite end of the spectrum from Legacy.

[LeoCop 90]

I think if you are looking into a format similar to legacy you should consider tiny leaders and not commander

[GundamGuy]

Which would rather blow 2k on: pieces of cardboard or a piece of ass*?



Why not both?

Just spend 2K on copies of City of Ass.

[supremePINEAPPLE]

The future is already here and it's called Commander.

I don't know about the rest of you but really the only Legacy cards that get played around here are in Commander decks.

RIP Legacy. Your new casual nature is affordable and appealing to a much wider base of players.Commander is the magic version of special ed.

[Megadeus]

1v1commander maybe. Multiplayer is just absolutely msierable

[Julian23]

French Commander (= optimized for 1v1) is the only Commander I as a competitive player enjoy. But I do enjoy it very much. We also often have tournaments for it at big Eternal events, which is great and makes me want to really buy into it.

It's just a shame that the terminology is still so ambiguous. When I sit down for a match of 1v1 "Commander", I don't want my opponent to turn1 Sol Ring.

[hymn22rock]

I don't know about the rest of you but really the only Legacy cards that get played around here are in Commander decks.

This couldn't be further from the truth outside Boston. There are 5 shops within 30 minutes from me that have Legacy events weekly, typically drawing ~20 players.

[DragoFireheart]

I really do love the responses to my point.

But the lure of Modern is going to impact Legacy. $300 for an underground sea is a bit insane. It also doesn't help that Legacy tournaments are being held less often. I know for my area I see modern tournaments but not legacy.

[Dan Pyre]

French Commander (= optimized for 1v1) is the only Commander I as a competitive player enjoy. But I do enjoy it very much. We also often have tournaments for it at big Eternal events, which is great and makes me want to really buy into it.

It's just a shame that the terminology is still so ambivalent. When I sit down for a match of 1v1 "Commander", I don't want my opponent to turn1 Sol Ring.
Seconding this. Duel Commander (the 'official' terminology for it) is a surprisingly in-depth competitive format. It plays very much like 'Legacy-lite' and optimal deckbuilding leads you far astray from a multiplayer Commander deck, making it feel like an entirely new format. It's the only format I enjoy more than Legacy. The only hard part is convincing people that, yes, Sol Ring is very much broken ESPECIALLY if you're playing 1v1. No, Primeval Titan is not broken in a 1v1 game. Etc...

I would highly recommend any Legacy enthusiasts to check it out if you're looking for a new competitive format with eternal card pool to try.

[Tammit67]

Seconding this. Duel Commander (the 'official' terminology for it) is a surprisingly in-depth competitive format. It plays very much like 'Legacy-lite' and optimal deckbuilding leads you far astray from a multiplayer Commander deck, making it feel like an entirely new format. It's the only format I enjoy more than Legacy. The only hard part is convincing people that, yes, Sol Ring is very much broken ESPECIALLY if you're playing 1v1. No, Primeval Titan is not broken in a 1v1 game. Etc...

I would highly recommend any Legacy enthusiasts to check it out if you're looking for a new competitive format with eternal card pool to try.

They banned my Edric and my flying men.dec is useless!

[Dan Pyre]

They banned my Edric and my flying men.dec is useless!
Scryb Sprites were a REAL THREAT in that deck ;)

[menace13]

French Commander (= optimized for 1v1) is the only Commander I as a competitive player enjoy. But I do enjoy it very much. We also often have tournaments for it at big Eternal events, which is great and makes me want to really buy into it.

It's just a shame that the terminology is still so ambiguous. When I sit down for a match of 1v1 "Commander", I don't want my opponent to turn1 Sol Ring.
Odd. I find modo commander to be a better 1v1 format than french rules. I feel it's less constrictive, has more depth and more decks. Clique, Edric, and Zur aren't banned. One of the best decks me and friends have made is 5 color OmniTell. Beats pretty much any board state and only has trouble against a few decks(anything faster like Hermit Druid, or otherwise Clique).

Edit : Also tucking rules were still in effect last I played. Which I love.

[Richard Cheese]

Seattle has an excellent scene that seems to grow year over year. The regional Facebook group has 1500+ members, is highly active, and acts as The Place to advertise events. The hotspots for Legacy are Card Kingdom and Mox Boarding House (sister stores roughly 45-60 min apart) with locations in the two biggest metropolitan areas. They have Legacy weeklies on Mondays and Thursdays with payouts as follows:

$10 entry fee, 4 rounds, starts at 6:30 PM. 4-0 is $70 store credit, 3-0-1 is $50, 3-1 is $30, 2-0-2 is $20, and 2-1-1 is $15.

Store credit is saved on gift cards which an also be used in the restaurants AKA you can win at Magic and then buy microbrew booze with your winnings. Turnout is typically 30-45 players. For a weekly event.

The stores are clean, have plenty of space, excellent selection, singles, and also sell booze + upscale food. This is an ideal situation for MTG players.

How do you sell booze and sanction events in the same place? I thought that was against some WotC policy?

In terms of local economy, Denver has been growing like crazy and our job market is doing pretty well, which gives me some hope. Still, in that MTGS article, you'll notice DEN is at or near the bottom for attendance numbers every time it shows up. Our scene has definitely declined over the past year or so too. I think part of it is because we had too many stores spread out all over town each trying to run an event on a different weeknight. As nice as it sounds, nobody's driving 30min across town to play on Monday when there's an event 15min away on Tuesday.

Another, more concerning issue is that a lot of the long-time players (myself included), just haven't felt like screwing with the format. The reasons vary, but everyone just seems to be feeling burnt out on Legacy lately (personally I could do without seeing another Delver of Secrets ever again). Several went to Modern, and a handful of us are just getting together to do casual stuff like cube or limited because there can be booze and food and a more laid-back atmosphere.

I'd love to turn it around somehow, but I don't know how to get anyone else back into the format when I can't seem to get myself excited about it.

[Nocley]

The tournaments are a separate area (and IIRC, business entity) from the restaurant, however the Gift Cards credit are stored on are available for use at both. It's pretty similar to having events at a hotel that happens to have a bar, there's still a physical separator of the two areas. You can't go about bringing booze into the game store area.

I don't think WOTC seems to mind that much, as employees frequent these legacy events too.

[dsck]

French Commander (= optimized for 1v1) is the only Commander I as a competitive player enjoy. But I do enjoy it very much. We also often have tournaments for it at big Eternal events, which is great and makes me want to really buy into it.

It's just a shame that the terminology is still so ambiguous. When I sit down for a match of 1v1 "Commander", I don't want my opponent to turn1 Sol Ring.

You dont like highlander (http://www.highlandermagic.info/)?

[Ace/Homebrew]

How do you sell booze and sanction events in the same place? I thought that was against some WotC policy?
A lot of colleges have a [Mascot of school] Card that can be used for purchases around the campus (bookstore, cafeteria, etc). Local businesses usually accept the money on these cards as a form of payment because it benefits them to do so.

It sounds like Danyul is talking about something like this... Basically the local businesses have all agreed on some form of plastic currency. I don't believe players are actually buying booze at the same counter they are purchasing cardboard.

[DragoFireheart]

I don't believe players are actually buying booze at the same counter they are purchasing cardboard.

Well maybe this SHOULD be happening.

[MechTactical]

Well maybe this SHOULD be happening.

booze = legacy? hm.. i don't think so at least for me... i'd be looking at your Liliana’s rack rather than the board state. Maybe weed or MDMA or ... whatever suits you best, but not booze right? Speaking competitively....

[danyul]

IRT booze + Magic: The stores I'm referring to have a full bar, restaurant, play space, singles purchase area, and hella boardgames/minis all under the same roof. You can hang in the tournament space and play your matches. Then between rounds you wander over to the bar and down a beer. Then go back to the play space and sling spells while buzzed. Nobody is technically boozing *during* sanctioned matches so I guess it's all legit. There's no special college card things or whatever. The giftcards are for the entire store and since they sell booze and MTG, you can use the cards for either. I'll stop before this just becomes an ad for our local megastores but if yall are ever in the area you should check out the flagship Seattle card shops. I'll drink a microbrew with you. I might even share my vegetarian pasta.

[Crimhead]

Moving to Seattle...

[nedleeds]

French Commander (= optimized for 1v1) is the only Commander I as a competitive player enjoy. But I do enjoy it very much. We also often have tournaments for it at big Eternal events, which is great and makes me want to really buy into it.

It's just a shame that the terminology is still so ambiguous. When I sit down for a match of 1v1 "Commander", I don't want my opponent to turn1 Sol Ring.

French 1v1 is sweet. In Atlanta we got it rolling (a local guy really pushed it and put up his own cash, including bounties) a couple of times to the turn out of 20-30 people. The matches are really interesting, the decks are also very fun to build. It died out once he stopped Obamaing it with his own money.

Our local legacy events went from

Wednesday @ Supergames
2010 - 35
2011 - 25
2012 - 15
2013 - 10 ish
2014 - done

Miserable combo, miserable stale decks, bad traffic, the only ones left were just the credit misers trying to grind out $30-40 in credit playing misreable Brainponderpordian and Tell.

Thursday @ Giga-Bytes Cafe
2013 - non-existant
2014 - 10 ish if all my teammates got together and decided to come play each other
2015 - May 2015 - same
June 2015 - We start TuskVision and stream it every week and give away door prizes - 25-35 every week

The b&r list still sucks but people enjoy coming out and witnessing a spectacle. Some people play interesting decks and don't care so much about mising credit. Others are either stuck with one deck or are SCG barns, but they mostly get destroyed by the dozen or so Chokes/Omen of Fires/3Ball's floating around the room.

[Richard Cheese]

IRT booze + Magic: The stores I'm referring to have a full bar, restaurant, play space, singles purchase area, and hella boardgames/minis all under the same roof. You can hang in the tournament space and play your matches. Then between rounds you wander over to the bar and down a beer. Then go back to the play space and sling spells while buzzed. Nobody is technically boozing *during* sanctioned matches so I guess it's all legit. There's no special college card things or whatever. The giftcards are for the entire store and since they sell booze and MTG, you can use the cards for either. I'll stop before this just becomes an ad for our local megastores but if yall are ever in the area you should check out the flagship Seattle card shops. I'll drink a microbrew with you. I might even share my vegetarian pasta.

It sounds like an awesome concept. I'm guessing since it's a full restaurant, it's not too offputting for the parents that like to just drop a kid off for FNM, or is it mostly a 20s+ crowd?

Curious what you mean by great support from the store...I'd like to know exactly what they've done/are doing in terms of advertising and generating support. We've got a local FB group, but at this point it feels like a constant crawl of GPTs and PPTQs, all with less than a week's notice because there are so many events that advertising early gets you pushed off the page.

It seems like those two are also pretty centrally located for their respective areas. One of the problems it feels like we have here is that all the shops are out in the 'burbs on the outskirts of town, and usually not near any good food/drink options.

[frogczar]

Commander is the magic version of special ed.

I largely don't disagree. But the sad fact is that Legacy is on life support and essentially dead where I live locally in the Midwest. If you want to play with your old cards and you don't want to play the horrorshow that is Modern, Commander is all that's left for old folks like me.

Guys, I have tried to promote Legacy myself locally but the fact is people either don't have the cards or are unwilling to buy them, even if they admit it's the best format. You can only play against your own pre-built decks so many times.

In the end, Magic may end up where it began, as a casual game played amongst friends for fun.

[Jamaican Zombie Legend]

Commander is the magic version of special ed.

Us Legacy players shouldn't be throwing stones; Show and Tell has been a Tier 1 strategy in the format for a couple of years now. Durr-hurr ramp and group-hug multiplayer are scarcely stupider than "derp, Grizzlebees/SpaghettiMonster/Dumbniscience -> I win".


Guys, I have tried to promote Legacy myself locally but the fact is people either don't have the cards or are unwilling to buy them, even if they admit it's the best format. You can only play against your own pre-built decks so many times.

Bingo.

You can try your damnedest to pull together a scene, but the prices (and, consequently, the power level) are such a tough hill to climb when trying to recruit people into the format.

Legacy decks are an enormous upfront investment; four figures into cardboard is nothing to sneeze at. Switching costs are also sky-high, leaving small/isolated metas stagnant. Deck/card power levels exacerbate this problem further. The difference between a Tier 1 deck and some budget build is astounding, and given the omniprevalence of the cantrip cartel, newbies or budget players can't really even Hope//Pray for variance to be their sword and shield, delivering them from moneyed opponents; 4x Brainstorm/Ponder/Preordain/Dig/etc simply make powerful, explosive decks too consistent.

This is where Modern absolutely trounces Legacy in terms of accessibility. The gap in power between Tier 1 and (reasonably competitive) Budget decks is a bit slimmer. Powerful consistency tools (i.e. cantrips/tutors) are either too old for the format or banned, allowing variance to smooth things out for newbies or cash-strapped folks that couldn't afford Tier 1 decks. And, lately, every large event Top 8 showcases something new, presenting the image of an open format for brewing, where any build could potentially top 8. You know, like Legacy used to be like, before all the dumb shit that got dumped on the format from Rise of the Eldrazi onwards.

All this said, I'm envious of those with a healthy Legacy scene; my favorite decks in Magic aren't legal/"viable" elsewhere and I'd rather be playing them at a disadvantage than slinging something else. But it's naive to think that the format, as a whole, is healthy and sustainable. It's living on borrowed time in many areas, sadly.

[Mr Miagi]

We definetly need a "like" function this this forum. Greatmpost Zombi legend. So much truth in it.

[Shaman]

I like.

[presquepartout]

My LGS (Atomic Empire in Durham, NC) similarly has several beers on tap, and also sells bottled beer. The store is one of the largest in NC, and is frequented by people of all ages. I haven't ever seen beer be a problem. And you can buy beer with store credit. Our weekly Legacy tournament is $15 entry, with everything paid back out in store credit. I usually save up most of my credit for singles and to cover entry, but when I show up for cube, I do it as some higher being intended -- drunk off of good, local beer.

[danyul]

It sounds like an awesome concept. I'm guessing since it's a full restaurant, it's not too offputting for the parents that like to just drop a kid off for FNM, or is it mostly a 20s+ crowd?

Curious what you mean by great support from the store...I'd like to know exactly what they've done/are doing in terms of advertising and generating support. We've got a local FB group, but at this point it feels like a constant crawl of GPTs and PPTQs, all with less than a week's notice because there are so many events that advertising early gets you pushed off the page.

It seems like those two are also pretty centrally located for their respective areas. One of the problems it feels like we have here is that all the shops are out in the 'burbs on the outskirts of town, and usually not near any good food/drink options.

Well I mostly hit up the Legacy/Modern events and there aren't many kids there due to the cost of those formats. But I've slinked in on offdays and have witnessed seas of little ones battling Standard and Pokemon and Yugioh and stuff. The great support is due to the crazy prizes they give out. Duals and insane store credit. They make zero dollars off of the events (as far as I know) and put everything back into the community. Also the event runners are highly visible, well-liked, and genuinely awesome people. The stores are drama-free and generally fantastic. I'm just a schlub who goes there to take advantage of their hard work, so I probably couldn't tell you exactly what they are doing to generate this much success. I just know that they aren't fucking around. And everybody knows that these events will have great turnouts/support, so people show up because they know people will show up. That Catch-22 promotion isn't exactly helpful, but that's what we have up here.

[Julian23]

Can I move in with you Dan? That sounds just too amazing.

[danyul]

You are welcome to crash on my couch anytime.

[Chatto]

There are a couple of tournaments every month which I can attend. Most of them are visited by the regular people, and there will always be around 20-25 people. Most of those tournaments give store-credit, or some boosters (which is fine by me).

There is one bi-monthly tournamenti I know of, which is a bit different. You pay € 15 to attend, there is a real lunchbreak (you can either bring your own food or order something at the venue), during one round they serve a snack, and top 4 gets cash (varying, but usually the winner gets something like € 100). Also, if six-eight people dropped they sometimes start a single elemination side-event, with pretty good prices (always Legacy staples, Duals included). Of course you need to pay extra.

I have no idea were Legacy will end, but right now the Legacy-community is still going strong around here. Yes, the same faces will be there, but sometimes there are new guys attending. Thing is, it's much easier to get into Modern.

[Krieg]

Legacy is fine here.
24 for last Friday's FNM and 68 for yesterday's Seattle GPT

[Admiral_Arzar]

Legacy is fine here.
24 for last Friday's FNM and 68 for yesterday's Seattle GPT

Ugh I wish. We had 2 GPTs this weekend and they got 8 and 11 people respectively. I think we lost a good number of players to Modern PPTQs though (a lot of the grinders here would rather play Modern I think).

[elFinFas]

I think modern is garbage comparing to legacy!

Legacy is mostly about Skill. Modern is not.

[Begle1]

I think modern is garbage comparing to legacy!

Legacy is mostly about Skill. Modern is not.

In my mind, the biggest difference between Legacy and Modern is how extreme of a different game plan different decks have.

Legacy has the most extreme decks in the game, with the widest range of what decks are trying to do. Solidarity, MUD, Dredge, BUG, Omnitell, Lands, Elves, ANT, etc. are all playing these insanely different games.

As such, a ton of the skill in Legacy is knowing what you're playing against and the details of that matchup, which can get really incredibly bizarre sometimes.

Modern is a different skill... The decks aren't as radical in their gameplans, and frankly most matches drag into mid-range slug-fests and after a few rounds you're left exhausted because each match-up starts to feel like the same sort of grind. Instead of "Can I meaningfully interact on turn 1 and 2 with this combo deck so it doesn't kill me" it's "can my turn 1-3 disruption stop their turn 4-5 beater cards better than their disruption stops mine?"

Neither is easier to play, that will of course always depend on the decks and the players... Legacy is just so varied, it's so much more enjoyable to most players.

[twndomn]

Modern is a different skill... The decks aren't as radical in their gameplans, and frankly most matches drag into mid-range slug-fests and after a few rounds you're left exhausted because each match-up starts to feel like the same sort of grind. Instead of "Can I meaningfully interact on turn 1 and 2 with this combo deck so it doesn't kill me" it's "can my turn 1-3 disruption stop their turn 4-5 beater cards better than their disruption stops mine?"


Allow me to paraphrase: Modern is a format of combo a vs combo b. Yes, you'll be amazed at how frequently the MU is just combo a vs combo b. In such event, where is the interaction, if any? Also, there're more planeswalkers being played in Standard and Legacy than in Modern. Tapping out 3~4 Mana to play a planeswalker in Modern sound like a stupid idea, while it is possible to do so in Legacy thanks to various tools the format has to offer.

in conclusion, modern sux.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Legacy is mostly about Skill. Modern is not.

It's been a while since I've seen a statement this idiotic.


In my mind, the biggest difference between Legacy and Modern is how extreme of a different game plan different decks have.

Legacy has the most extreme decks in the game, with the widest range of what decks are trying to do. Solidarity, MUD, Dredge, BUG, Omnitell, Lands, Elves, ANT, etc. are all playing these insanely different games.

Neither is easier to play, that will of course always depend on the decks and the players... Legacy is just so varied, it's so much more enjoyable to most players.

I would have agreed with this a few years ago, but I don't anymore. Diversity in Legacy is so strangled by the cantrip shell that games feel very same-y to me. Sure, if you have people like me who play a lot of off-the-wall shit instead of trying to win, your Legacy meta might have different-feeling decks. Modern decks tend to use dramatically different shells and so games feel different (and very swingy). You have a BGx shell, a URx shell, an Rx shell, and that's just the fair decks. There is no single combo shell in Modern because cantrips are weak, so you get combo decks that play dramatically different from one another.


Allow me to paraphrase: Modern is a format of combo a vs combo b. Yes, you'll be amazed at how frequently the MU is just combo a vs combo b. In such event, where is the interaction, if any? Also, there're more planeswalkers being played in Standard and Legacy than in Modern. Tapping out 3~4 Mana to play a planeswalker in Modern sound like a stupid idea, while it is possible to do so in Legacy thanks to various tools the format has to offer.

in conclusion, modern sux.

The best deck in Modern is Jund. It's probably the most interactive deck as well. The strongest combo deck is Twin, which plays an enormous amount of interaction and often plays more like a tempo or agro-control deck than a combo deck. Non-interactive combo does exist but those decks are much less of a share in the metagame than Omnitell or Storm are in Legacy. So yeah, maybe I shouldn't be surprised that comments about Modern on the Source are outright lies. At this point I feel like it's just haters desperately trying to keep up the illusion that Legacy is a more diverse and interesting format than Modern - it'll be interesting to see how long it takes for the illusion to fall apart.

[CptHaddock]

For those of you that have growing Legacy scenes, what's your tournament structure like (time/cost/prize support)? Are there multiple stores in one area successfully running events? How far are people traveling? How do you advertise?

It's probably a little late to respond to this but here I go anyways!

I don't know if I would call Richmond's legacy scene growing but the amount of tournaments that we have had recently is higher than it has been in the past. Which is pretty good considering how none of the local stores usually support legacy (I think there is casual legacy player i.e. 2-3 players with decks playing against each other constantly). It's mostly because of 1 dude who likes playing legacy and works in a bowling alley who hosts monthly tournaments. Entrance is $10 which pays for food and free bowling. The bowling alley has beer too, so there is a good bit of drinking during the tournament. Prize support just depends on the number of players that show up, for the times that I have attended it has been some legacy staple. Attendance varies greatly between the events somewhere from 10-20ish players, luckily there seem to be more and more new faces each time I have attended. Normally advertisement has been through word of mouth or the Richmond Eternal facebook group.

[Begle1]

I would have agreed with this a few years ago, but I don't anymore. Diversity in Legacy is so strangled by the cantrip shell that games feel very same-y to me. Sure, if you have people like me who play a lot of off-the-wall shit instead of trying to win, your Legacy meta might have different-feeling decks. Modern decks tend to use dramatically different shells and so games feel different (and very swingy). You have a BGx shell, a URx shell, an Rx shell, and that's just the fair decks. There is no single combo shell in Modern because cantrips are weak, so you get combo decks that play dramatically different from one another.



The best deck in Modern is Jund. It's probably the most interactive deck as well. The strongest combo deck is Twin, which plays an enormous amount of interaction and often plays more like a tempo or agro-control deck than a combo deck. Non-interactive combo does exist but those decks are much less of a share in the metagame than Omnitell or Storm are in Legacy. So yeah, maybe I shouldn't be surprised that comments about Modern on the Source are outright lies. At this point I feel like it's just haters desperately trying to keep up the illusion that Legacy is a more diverse and interesting format than Modern - it'll be interesting to see how long it takes for the illusion to fall apart.

I think "grindy" and "swingy" are synonyms here.

Modern decks tend to have more interaction, because they need it because combos don't end games as fast as in Legacy and so games become mid-rangey.

I love Legacy because of how rock-paper-scissory the different decks are. Even with the cantrip cartel, which I feel is beyond defending at this point, you still get match-ups between cantrip decks that play radically differently. Legacy games don't usually swing or grind, how the game will be is more settled before the game starts than in Modern.

So what I'm saying is not knocking modern at all... I believe it is a more Spikey format than Legacy, exactly because games grind/ swing/ matter/ give players time and opportunity to actually play the game. Legacy is more of a Johnny format where the build of the deck is radically important and it tends to either work or not and games are more likely to be blow-outs.

Between the two options, I prefer how Legacy plays. I totally get why people prefer Modern, I think the majority of Spikes would. Who wants lopsided matches and games that entirely hinge on one stack exchange? For some reason I do...


Every Legacy deck I see I think, "I want to play that!" I've never had a Modern deck excite me, every time I see one I think "I'm going to have to grind out every win with this thing". I have a half dozen Legacy decks I love, I've been through thirty Modern decks and can't find one that gives me that good ole' Magic feeling I tend to get from other formats.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Every Legacy deck I see I think, "I want to play that!" I've never had a Modern deck excite me, every time I see one I think "I'm going to have to grind out every win with this thing". I have a half dozen Legacy decks I love, I've been through thirty Modern decks and can't find one that gives me that good ole' Magic feeling I tend to get from other formats.
Not that you're wrong, but never forget that an important thing about Modern might be that there are crappy (dual)lands to start with, and there are no old cards to play with. It's quite possible that half of your discontent comes from the mere fact that you cannot play nice and nostalgic cards (moreover: powerful ones), but you're limited to worse cardpool. I'm pretty sure that it works in my case, as there are lots of Modern decks I'd love to play, but I'm unwilling to ever lay my fingers on shockland.

[jimmythegreek]

Anybody watching New Jersey invitational semi/finals? I'm about to fall asleep if I have to watch another delver match. Legacy has really lost a lot of the appeal that attracted me to the format in the first place imho. Watching a delver fight a drs is about as exciting as watching standard.

[Barook]

I didn't even bother after seeing 5 fucking Delver lists in the Top 8. Quickly tuned in for the 5th game of the semis, which was kinda entertaining.

But 7 decks running some combination of Brainstorm + Ponder + DTT, plus a single Merfolk? I remember being excited about watching the Open. Now it's just a borefest because diversity is dead.

[Megadeus]

Yep. Legacy is a snoozefest. I'mwatching purely because I have nothing better to do after work.

What's worse is I can't even troll SCG chat because you have to subscribe to their channel to comment.

[mishima_kazuya]

At the moment, I would rather play a Modern tournament instead of a Legacy tournament. A big part of the reason I still attend monthlies in my area, is to support the local scene.

I am a Spike who likes to pimp out decks, so I find Modern very suitable to my tastes.

If you want to complain about lopsided combo races between Infect vs Boggles or Grishelshoal vs Burn; then man up and play some disruption or play an interactive deck like Jund, Twin or Grixis Control.

[nedleeds]

I didn't even bother after seeing 5 fucking Delver lists in the Top 8. Quickly tuned in for the 5th game of the semis, which was kinda entertaining.

But 7 decks running some combination of Brainstorm + Ponder + DTT, plus a single Merfolk? I remember being excited about watching the Open. Now it's just a borefest because diversity is dead.

Hey they are all different skill intensive takes on blue. Brainstorm promotes a 75 card deck building experience becuase .... Uh. Nevermind. Its a complete joke at this point to defend the state of the banned and restricted list.

[Zombie]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsAwmqEqnx8

As good a solution to the dullness as any - and certainly skill-testing! They have consistent results. Imagine that.

[Finn]

I think you are looking for the Street Fighter thread.

[twndomn]

It's been a while since I've seen a statement this idiotic.

The best deck in Modern is Jund. It's probably the most interactive deck as well. The strongest combo deck is Twin, which plays an enormous amount of interaction and often plays more like a tempo or agro-control deck than a combo deck. Non-interactive combo does exist but those decks are much less of a share in the metagame than Omnitell or Storm are in Legacy. So yeah, maybe I shouldn't be surprised that comments about Modern on the Source are outright lies. At this point I feel like it's just haters desperately trying to keep up the illusion that Legacy is a more diverse and interesting format than Modern - it'll be interesting to see how long it takes for the illusion to fall apart.

How much interaction is there between Living Death vs Affinity? How much interaction is there between Bogle vs Living Death?

MUs among Affinity, Bogle (auras), Living Death, Reanimator, and Ad Nauseam, I just don't see it. They all do their own thing, and then that's the match result.

Are you suggesting that Omni-tell is not interactive? It has counters and lighting bolt, hello? I question your understanding of interaction. Who's being a hater and an illusionist here?


At the moment, I would rather play a Modern tournament instead of a Legacy tournament. A big part of the reason I still attend monthlies in my area, is to support the local scene.

I am a Spike who likes to pimp out decks, so I find Modern very suitable to my tastes.

If you want to complain about lopsided combo races between Infect vs Boggles or Grishelshoal vs Burn; then man up and play some disruption or play an interactive deck like Jund, Twin or Grixis Control.

This makes no sense. Did you pimp out Pod before the ban hammer? From the financial perspective, investing in foil pimp-out Pod to get banned is precisely the reason you should not do so in Modern.

Every format has non-interactive combo MU, including Legacy. Hence, telling people to change their deck or play a different deck because the possibility of facing non-interactive MU is never a good response. The key issue is how frequent do we see this occurring? From all the on-camera matches I have seen, it's pretty damn often. That's fundamentally the problem. The distribution of Legacy is such that many people play Delver decks, hence lots of stack interaction, even when your Legacy deck isn't on delver or tempo strategy.


I didn't even bother after seeing 5 fucking Delver lists in the Top 8. Quickly tuned in for the 5th game of the semis, which was kinda entertaining.

But 7 decks running some combination of Brainstorm + Ponder + DTT, plus a single Merfolk? I remember being excited about watching the Open. Now it's just a borefest because diversity is dead.

SCG Invitational is a mixed format event. May we compare apples vs apples?

Further, BS (4) + Ponder (4) + DTT (2) package exists in tempo, combo, and control strategy. Is this a good thing? Hell no, I would clap if WotC would drop ban the hammer on DTT. However, from diversity perspective, it's still the same. The only change is that the existing decks are standardizing their cantrip package into the identical 10. Is it possible that people switch away from decks that cannot run such package? Certainly, but I can't find conclusive data or articles about it.

[maharis]

Legacy is dying as a spectator sport. Playing it is a different animal. I played against 7 different decks in an SCG 5k IQ and not a single Delver of Secrets. Only 3 decks playing Brainstorm. That's probably due to card availability.

But of course, none of the non-Brainstorm lists were represented in the top 16 of that tournament. People show up with their deck, hope to have fun, go 2-3 or whatever, and there's your diverse format. And since the blue lists are better, they win, show up on coverage, driving more people to play them (hello) and push out the interesting decks.

It would be better if different kinds of decks than cantrip-into-wincon were viable, but c'est la vie right now.

[Barook]

Legacy is dying as a spectator sport. Playing it is a different animal. I played against 7 different decks in an SCG 5k IQ and not a single Delver of Secrets. Only 3 decks playing Brainstorm. That's probably due to card availability.

But of course, none of the non-Brainstorm lists were represented in the top 16 of that tournament. People show up with their deck, hope to have fun, go 2-3 or whatever, and there's your diverse format. And since the blue lists are better, they win, show up on coverage, driving more people to play them (hello) and push out the interesting decks.

It would be better if different kinds of decks than cantrip-into-wincon were viable, but c'est la vie right now.
I found game #5 of the World Champion final way more entertaining than any of the Delver slugfests the Open had to offer today.

I wish MTGO had that kind of diversity as you stated - instead you run into 80% blue decks. At some point, I just got bored.


SCG Invitational is a mixed format event. May we compare apples vs apples?
I didn't complain about powerlevel, since the 7-1 Legacy decks had at least some nonblue decks: http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/3464_legacy_71_or_better_decklists.html

Watching Miracles, Omnitell or anything involving Delvers (especially Delver mirrors) is just boring to watch. The novelty has worn off. The only thing that is probably even worse are TNN equipped with Batterskull on both sides of the table in terms of entertainment value.

Only 5k people watched the Invitational final. Sure, you can blame the WC for that, but I wonder how many people turned off the stream disgusted by several hours of nonstop Delver-on-Delver action.

[Phoenix Ignition]

This makes no sense. Did you pimp out Pod before the ban hammer? From the financial perspective, investing in foil pimp-out Pod to get banned is precisely the reason you should not do so in Modern.


I love it, this line gets spouted out so frequently. Thing is, if you pimped out Pod you'd be rolling in money now since the Abzan Collected Company deck runs all of the same creatures along with Chord of Calling. Like it's almost the same thing, just running Collected Company instead of Birthing Pod.

[twndomn]

I love it, this line gets spouted out so frequently. Thing is, if you pimped out Pod you'd be rolling in money now since the Abzan Collected Company deck runs all of the same creatures along with Chord of Calling. Like it's almost the same thing, just running Collected Company instead of Birthing Pod.

The pod banning announcement happened on January, Dragons of Tarkir was released at end of March. In other words, you had no idea what would happen in between. What incentives do you have in keeping a banned deck? Furthermore, why would you put yourself in that risky position financially at the first place? What you're saying is that there is a slight chance in which that Wizard R&D might print an alternative in the next set to save your investment. Can you promise me that sequence of events will happen at every Modern banning? I can promise you Modern banning will happen in the future, Pod will not be the last one.

[force_of_phil]

Only 5k people watched the Invitational final. Sure, you can blame the WC for that, but I wonder how many people turned off the stream disgusted by several hours of nonstop Delver-on-Delver action.

*raises hand*

[bruizar]

Icouldnt bare another delver matchup either. I switched to the standard stream and i dont even play thatformat

[Admiral_Arzar]

How much interaction is there between Living Death vs Affinity? How much interaction is there between Bogle vs Living Death?

MUs among Affinity, Bogle (auras), Living Death, Reanimator, and Ad Nauseam, I just don't see it. They all do their own thing, and then that's the match result.

Are you suggesting that Omni-tell is not interactive? It has counters and lighting bolt, hello? I question your understanding of interaction. Who's being a hater and an illusionist here?


Living Death interacts with every deck that has creatures and/or nonbasic lands, at least assuming you consider playing Wrath effects and a bunch of land destruction interactive. I didn't see you address anything in my actual post, you just went off on this worthless tangent about "interaction" with an example that's obviously horribly flawed. Nice job.


Legacy is dying as a spectator sport. Playing it is a different animal. I played against 7 different decks in an SCG 5k IQ and not a single Delver of Secrets. Only 3 decks playing Brainstorm. That's probably due to card availability.

But of course, none of the non-Brainstorm lists were represented in the top 16 of that tournament. People show up with their deck, hope to have fun, go 2-3 or whatever, and there's your diverse format. And since the blue lists are better, they win, show up on coverage, driving more people to play them (hello) and push out the interesting decks.

It would be better if different kinds of decks than cantrip-into-wincon were viable, but c'est la vie right now.

Yup. The diversity of Legacy is largely illusionary, at least once the chaff gets filtered out and the wheat rises to the top tables.


I love it, this line gets spouted out so frequently. Thing is, if you pimped out Pod you'd be rolling in money now since the Abzan Collected Company deck runs all of the same creatures along with Chord of Calling. Like it's almost the same thing, just running Collected Company instead of Birthing Pod.

Anyone with half a brain saw that Collected Company was going to be insane, and that the cards from Pod were easily playable in any kind of successor list. Anyone who fire-saled all their Pod stuff...well, I stand by my previous remark.

[Piceli89]

How much interaction is there between Living Death vs Affinity? How much interaction is there between Bogle vs Living Death?

MUs among Affinity, Bogle (auras), Living Death, Reanimator, and Ad Nauseam, I just don't see it. They all do their own thing, and then that's the match result.

Are you suggesting that Omni-tell is not interactive? It has counters and lighting bolt, hello? I question your understanding of interaction. Who's being a hater and an illusionist here?




Just for the sake of actually answering your first questions, Living End vs Affinity comes down to see Ravager in time before the board sweep happens. As for Bogles vs Living End, it is a hideous matchup for the first deck given it can't avoid its creature being nuked by LE.

The decks you just mentioned are the non-interactive part of the format- arguably the worst one, if you will. Luckily, though, on broad scales these decks tend not to do well consistently. They burst in single events (or certain period given metagame circumstances) to wane shortly after. Amulet Bloom also used to fit this description, but somehow it managed to fool its buyers about its consistency and made it to the rank of SCG-endorsed "quality picks" for the format.

Anyways.

If you define 'interactive' spending your counterspells to protect your three-cards combo then ok, Omnitell may fit the description. I don't believe, though, that this creates interesting games (at least for the person sitting on the other side of the table). The variety of axis Magic is a good game for gets basically reduced to a subset of 'right' cards to find in time with your cantrip spells to not die by the hand of a broken set of cards. 'How many Pyroblasts and Flusterstorms do I have to assembl in my hand to beat their own?'

The same argument can be applied for every other combo deck in the format. The difference with Modern combo decks, in my opinion, is that the Legacy ones are on an entirely superior class of consistency and dangerousness, which in turn cuts off playability of other very-interactive (and non-blue) decks to basically nothing, unless you accept their inferior capability of card selection and inherent clunkiness (or you built anti-meta decks like Chalice decks for that matter, which is something I find to be hardly enjoyable).

In a nutshell, that is why Legacy is bound to shrink more and more into a trifecta of Delver decks, Miracle/Stoneblade and the various combo decks. Shards may change, sideboard slots and metagame circumstances (Pyroblast md) as well, but the situation is pretty much the one described. Of course one could point the recent success of 'outdated'/oddball decks like Aggro Loam and MUD as a counterargument, but once again, number-wise it doesn't really constitute a valid proof to break the rule.

I am not trying to imply that Modern is in a better shape and, by no means, a better choice. The overabundance of linear decks is putting a damper on the format there, too. You can't prepare for everything and too many decks have such strong openings that it makes you regret having paid for the tournament at all- turn three Tron, Bogles voltroning up, Affinity puking their hand on turn one, but also turn xyz Twin my dork as soon as you skip a beat. This is broken Magic, much as in Legacy, and broken Magic is bound to leave a bitter taste in your mouth a good number of times for its intrinsic nature. The natural consequence of this trend is that you are likely to pick one of these decks yourself to destroy them before they destroy you, unless you are so confident (and/or rich) to pick BGx or URx.

My very personal opinion is that both the formats are doomed to die. Maybe it will take more for Modern to wane than Legacy because they are trying to incentivize the access to it with reprints, but still those didn't do anything to lower the prices for new players, meaning that Modern as well is bound to become a format played in small local cliques that had access to the cards before they were worth half the price of a car. See Snapcaster, Tarmogoyf and the such. For competitive purposes, these cards are irreplaceable and workarounds in creative fashions usually bring to inferior decks that don't stand much of a chance against very good pilots with very good decks, unless you are either an incredible lucksack or a genius deckbuilder + player combined. I pity every person on Mtgsalvation pouring their time and heart into creating the latest iteration of Superjanky.dec just to be crushed consistently by Thoughtseize into Tarmogoyf. I was there for too many months.

---

On the other hand, if you also consider how much Standard is popular, promoted with high-stakes events and relatively cheap (as the only really expensive cards right now are Jace and Nissa), I think that the direction of the formats is already pretty well set up and clear to recognize. It may still take some years, though. The monetary loss of cards rotating is easily offset by selling the chase rares before the next rotation or just winning a single event.

If you want to play powerful Magic that does not fall into degenerate or uninteractive dynamics, I would indeed suggest to put away the usual "Oh I am a Legacy player and my dick is so big" mentality and delve into Standard a bit. The concepts of card advantage, tempo, midrange and such are still present but way more scaled down. Also, building 'indie' decks is still possible and the metagame shifts at a very high speed- which is something that may be enjoyable as it rewards players' capability to interpret local and global trends as well as to deckbuild one level ahead of anybody else.

I used to play Legacy, got tired of it being too extreme and without space for innovation; went to Modern, felt the same shortly after. Started playing Standard, and it's not bad at all.
(Let the haterain fall on me :tongue:)


EDIT- I also forgot to mention that, in all likelihood, WotC has largely lost interest in keeping a keen eye on the health of Legacy in these very last years and is basically leaving the format to adjust itself throughout new sets coming out, unless anything majorly worrying happens. Given Dig Through Time hasn't reached Survival/Cruise levels of success, it is most likely going to be a staple in the format for another long while.

[Barook]

My very personal opinion is that both the formats are doomed to die. Maybe it will take more for Modern to wane than Legacy because they are trying to incentivize the access to it with reprints, but still those didn't do anything to lower the prices for new players, meaning that Modern as well is bound to become a format played in small local cliques that had access to the cards before they were worth half the price of a car. See Snapcaster, Tarmogoyf and the such. For competitive purposes, these cards are irreplaceable and workarounds in creative fashions usually bring to inferior decks that don't stand much of a chance against very good pilots with very good decks, unless you are either an incredible lucksack or a genius deckbuilder + player combined. I pity every person on Mtgsalvation pouring their time and heart into creating the latest iteration of Superjanky.dec just to be crushed consistently by Thoughtseize into Tarmogoyf. I was there for too many months.
Wizards doesn't really support the format as you'd think. They have zero interest in lowering the price of cards like Tarmogoyf to "protect the secondary market", as Maro said on his blog. They're basically throwing us a bone here and there while they continue to milk us. If one card gets cheaper, the rest of the not-reprinted cards go up - and thus the cycle continues.


EDIT- I also forgot to mention that, in all likelihood, WotC has largely lost interest in keeping a keen eye on the health of Legacy in these very last years and is basically leaving the format to adjust itself throughout new sets coming out, unless anything majorly worrying happens. Given Dig Through Time hasn't reached Survival/Cruise levels of success, it is most likely going to be a staple in the format for another long while.
DTT has already surpassed TC by alot. TC was in about 40% decks during its heydays, DTT has reached 60% already.


"Oh I am a Legacy player and my dick is so big"
I suggest this to become the future Legacy slogan.

[bruizar]

DTT has already surpassed TC by alot. TC was in about 40% decks during its heydays, DTT has reached 60% already.


I warned for Dig Through Time during the speculation thread and argued it is more powerful than Treasure Cruise. It is essentially a one-sided draw 7 where you get to pick the best 2 cards. It is conveniently instant such that you can dig for a Force of Will and something to pitch turning it into a Counterspell in a pinch. Otherwise, it helps you dig for sideboard hate, immediate board state answers or as we've seen, assembling degenerate combo cards. If card quantity was better than card quality, Land Tax and Squadron Hawk would be everywhere, but they are not.

[mishima_kazuya]

The pod banning announcement happened on January, Dragons of Tarkir was released at end of March. In other words, you had no idea what would happen in between. What incentives do you have in keeping a banned deck? Furthermore, why would you put yourself in that risky position financially at the first place? What you're saying is that there is a slight chance in which that Wizard R&D might print an alternative in the next set to save your investment. Can you promise me that sequence of events will happen at every Modern banning? I can promise you Modern banning will happen in the future, Pod will not be the last one.

I didn't pimp out Pod per say.
Like I can use my Japanese Snapcaster Mages and Abrupt Decays in other formats. Or I could use my signed fetchlands in both Legacy and Modern.