Hello, receive greetings from the heart of Mexico City on this, the first day of the year. Here the whole Magic Community is small, about 200 regular players.
Seventy percent of those players are exclusively interested in Standard and the other 20%-25% usually plays Extended.
The best MTG format is played competitively among some costumers of a store located here, in downtown. We, a core of five-six players, have been supporting our store´s policy of organizing legacy tournaments every three weeks. Starting on august, we held six small events (12-16 participants).
Our Legacy environment is, however small, filled with many competitive decklists. Eva Green, Dreadstill, Ugbw Countertop, White Stax, Ichorid (and New Level Dredge), The Rock, Merfolks, Vial Goblins, Combo Elves, Canadian and other thresh variants dominate the local metagame.
The problem here is that this core of players tends to monopolize the format staples and builds. We are almost the same players, piloting something different, who usually get into the top 4. It is not (that) uncommon, among people of our team, to have 8 – 12 Force of Will or Tarmogoyf so that’s why, on a context in which people refuses to play against well suited (complete) competitive decks, the format is somehow stagnated in Mexico.
We try to solve this by constructing competitive decks just to borrow them to other players (all this under the store administration). We supposed that this was a way to get more people interested on the format, a way to promote legacy. Time showed up that it was healthier to borrow those decks, as a personal decision, exclusively to friends and not to random costumers.
Then we changed the approach. Some of us started to sell cards to the store and directly to other players in order to create incentives for deckbuilding. It wasn´t a pleasing thing to watch them just sell the cards back for unfair (much higher) amounts of money to collectors that are not interested in organized play. But well, we all know how this world engine works. It was not a bad balance after all, since in the move I completed my personal collection.
With the proximity of the GP of Madrid we start the testing work just to notice that the local metagame was not evolving in the worldwide tendency, this because the metagame here is virtually artificial and near to inexistent. It was not possible, in this first attempt, to create a stronger environment to play and prepare ourselves for the February big event in Europe.
Of course, we have the alternative plan: compete and practice inside this petit core of players. Or we could simply proceed to the MWS…
But this is not what we want in the mid-long term. We are struggling to generate the conditions for a developed organized and competitive legacy bund here on one of the biggest cities of the world.
We would be glad to know your experiences in improving the format level there where it is small and undeveloped.
Thanks for reading, thanks for your help.
I'm sorry to give such a short answer to such a lengthy post but; allow proxies? If what is important is testing then you'll get the best results when the entire card pool is available.
I agree with the proxies idea... even going so far as allowing 100% proxies just to make it as easy as possible for people to get started. Having good prizes is also nice, the store I go to has very casual tournaments, but first prize always gets a really nice card (Force of Will, Umezawa's Jitte).Originally Posted by Nessaja
Proxies is definitely the way to start, and then slowly phase them out. For example, start with 20 proxies and tell people you're only going to allow 20 proxies for the next 5 tournaments. That gives people 15 weeks to acquire cards. Then drop the proxies to 15 for another 5 tournaments, giving people another 15 weeks to acquire 5 more cards.
Continue until eliminating proxies.
Don't Hate the Herd
I agree with this, but I would have to say that the FNM I go to all allows 4 proxies, and this is a good number. This also benefits me, because I have all the cards in my deck except the 4 Underground Seas (I play Team America) and this allows me to proxy them as I continue to earn money for them.
but yes, the gradual time of letting less and less proxies is a good Idea, except maybe allowing 4 proxies at the end except for sanctioned events.
Favorite Card: Dark Depths
If you're doing weekly tournaments, you could even start with 75 proxies and go down one each week until the end of 2010, where you're down to 23 proxies. (where people can still build almost any deck, but would need to buy some of the cheaper common and uncommon staples)
Have someone throw a dual land up for a prize and get part of the take to compensate them for the card.
This serves two purposes: It generates interest in the tournaments because people are willing to take a shot at winning those "old" cards and it puts some of those cards into cicrulation where they can be traded and sold. This helps grow the player base and the community.
Well, I have some experience in this area. When I started playing in my new meta, about a year ago, I was the only Legacy player. Now we have monthly Legacy tournaments and a small but stable Legacy meta.
Personally, I would not go the proxy route. If you follow the Vintage meta at all, you will know that proxies are blamed for all manner of ills. While they make the format more accessible, they also discourage investment in the format and reduce enjoyment (according to some - this is a sensitive issue for many). Instead, I printed out a variety of info sheets for my local store.
These info sheets contained a budget mono-colour deck for each of the five colours with an explanation of how they worked and how much, roughly, each deck would cost to scratch build (burn, elf combo, suicide black, death and taxes and mono-blue control, I think, but I could have chosen other decks if I had wanted). Lots of standard players have no clue where to start with Legacy, so showing them some interesting and inexpensive Legacy decks gave them a place to start.
I also proxied up these (and other) decks, and kept stopping by the store to play people with my proxy decks. The thing about Legacy is that it is very addictive. After a turn 1 Tombstalker or Hypnotic, players are going to view their standard decks the way that Legacy players do, ie, slow and inefficient.
It is also worth targeting the store's "key players", the guys that everyone else looks up to. If your local "big man" decides Legacy is for him, other people will take you far more seriously.
Most of all, though, I think you have to approach the situation with enthusiasm. When people see you excited and enjoying yourself, they will naturally gravitate towards Legacy, looking for that same excitement and enjoyment.
-Silent Requiem
I strongly disagree with allowing Proxies.
If you're trying to get your metagame developed and people interested sanctioning the tournaments is a huge deal (The Wizards' Player Rewards are a pretty big incentive and they hand out some awesome cards).
I think the better idea is to run tournaments with guarenteed prizes and low entry costs (1st place is your choice of a blue dual, $5 entry fee or something like that). Then, also have best placing deck for the deck without Duals (still play Merfolk). Or best place for the deck without Duals and Forces (still play Rock without Duals). Or best place for the deck without Duals, Forces and Goyfs (can still play Goblins, Burn, White Stax, Dragon Stompy, Ichorid, Storm). However you want to do it. Have that prize be choice of a non-blue dual land.
If this doesn't help after a month (all the regulars just keep playing Storm), make the non-blue Dual a door prize, and just hand it out to someone you know doesn't have good decks.
One other thing. It's far less about allowing proxies, or not allowing proxies, etc, and far more about prize support and advertising. If you've got a tournament and you're handing out the Power 9 at it, it doesn't matter if no one heard about it.
1) Get some decent prize support
2) Get the word out
3) Once you find something that works, stick with it, while trying to increase the prize support.
If you can run a Dual Land Draft (40 duals for Top 8) and advertise, advertise, advertise, people will come long distances to compete for the duals. This gives your regulars some competition which they'll appreciate. Furthermore, the people that find out about it that don't have to go long distances will be more inclined to show up to your smaller events (once they show up to the large event make sure everyone gets handed a flyer with your weekly events on it).
Make sure you get your events sanctioned. Getting Player Rewards from Wizards is always fun, and sometimes you even get cards to make your decks more competitive.
First of all, thanks to all of you for your responses.
I believe that allowing proxies is not a decision that tends to develop our beloved format. I´m afraid a lot of random contenders could get into Legacy without any restriction. Serious players that have spent a lot of money in their collections would not be pleased by this.
I mean, someone piloting a 60 proxies deck should not win, by any means, a tourney in which others are competing whith real cards. Proxies harms the interest in investing for the format.
As Silent Requiem suggests, we spread information about monochromatic budget decks. The last time we did this it showed nice results except for the fact that, as players interested in the improvement of the format, we were selling the staples needed for those decks at allmost half of the star city price. This took to a situation in which only collectors, and not players, were buying our stuff. Now, we are only printing info sheets.
We will be holding the first sanctionated legacy tourney of the year this saturday. We are opting, as suggested by members of this forum, for the improvment of the price support. A set of FoW for the 1st. And a Tundra for the second.
Moved to Community.
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