I disagree. Many of the Standard players watch me and a buddy (borrowing one of my decks) play Legacy after FNM finishes. They've shown interest, I let them know they can borrow decks/cards from me, but they still don't want to invest as Legacy is expensive, and at least with Standard, you can easily find 2-3 sanctioned tourneys to play in a week locally.
Legacy is hard to push because of price. Around here I've been trying to push Legacy to no avail (almost entirely because of price), where as unlimited proxy vintage has people showing up who hadn't even considered the format before. If Legacy was cheaper, I'm sure more people would play, around here (Boulder) would be a perfect example.
Mental Misstep - If this card is true, newbies have a new legacy card to pick up.
Jace the Mind sculpter
New Tezz!!!!!!!!
stoneforge mystic,
all the new swords
pridemage, KotR, wild Natcal etc...
And thats over just a few years.
Here is how newbies play legacy. The can play, when they have played for a long time. Hence the word "Legacy" Legacy is NOT for all people.
People seem to have this attitude that they can play every deck. There are budget legacy decks out there. I just got beat by a cheap affinity deck filled with ornithopters and signal pests. And yes no dual lands were in the deck. As WotC prints more good cards, new players will gradually colllect them.
Effort has a cost -- your time and the hassle of trying to maximize your dollars.
I have around 30 duals -- except for one Plateau (that I bought for like $10) -- were acquired through trades and eBay. I spent that time as a hobby (it was kinda fun) but it still took a ton of time, emails, PMs, searching, trips to the post office, etc. to get all of those cards. So yeah, on a $1000 purchase you can save $200 (which is considerable), but that $200 isn't free money in your pocket since you had to give up your time and effort to earn it, time you could have spent doing something more valuable to you.
If it's fun or your time is worth less than the cost difference, then save your money and trade and scour eBay. If your time is more precious (mine is now), then the extra fees you'll pay to a reputable card shop have value too.
Last edited by Bardo; 04-20-2011 at 01:06 AM.
Proxy Legacy and Pauper are the only Eternal formats that have the capacity to grow. The limited supply of cards puts a hard upper limit on the total number of people that can own competitive Legacy decks. There just is no way the format can grow. What we are seeing right now is that due to a rapidly growing popularity in Legacy, only players who are willing to fork over massive amounts of money can purchase competitive decks.
The "hard upper limit" is literally, like uh, 50 million players. The soft upper limit so to speak is much lower, that is, how much people feel like spending
I will make use of every tool that fate presents.
There are probably significantly less than 100k playsets of Force of Will in existence: http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/f...nd_Part_2.html
So you are only off by over 2 orders of magnitude...
Not everyone is fortunate to live around Legacy areas like the northeast of Minneapolis or have friends that have solid collections, I'm not disagreeing with that. You have to start somewhere, when my friends and I got into Legacy we didn't have the cards, but eventually we built up our collections. We've been to a handful tournaments that have failed to get sanctioned because of numbers just to show stores we were interested in the format, and thankfully that patience has paid off. If you want to play grow the popularity of a certain format in an area and you don't have friends or can't find people to become friends with who have collections, the amount of effort is obviously going to be a lot greater.Players without a Legacy scene that they can jump right into? I've seen many posts like yours that basically say, "Hey, you can just borrow the Legacy cards you need from Person ABC!!!".
Some people not having playgroups still doesn't take away from the fact the overwhelming majority of Magic players play with their friends or travel with them to tournaments. That's one of the most enjoyable aspects of the game for a lot of people; being able to spend time with your friends.
"Attack with Order of the Ebon Hand."
"K, block with Jotun Grunt?"
"It has pro white."
"Swords?"
"It still has pro white."
Team OMRIAIGTWYFEWARTCAE Team RTD
Twitter: @shawnldewey
So we have Dragon's take on the situation, which says metagames should be defined not by what people feel is the best deck but by whatever their pockets pigeonhole them into. Can you actually believe this and still call yourself a Magic player? Because I'd like to think that the metagame shifts based on the best players, not the ones with the deepest pockets. I'd like to be a better player than my opponents, not just a richer one.
It's both. The "best" players do play the most expensive cards.
Magic has always been about playing the best cards because that wins more games. The best cards are going to cost more than the worst cards overall. If you can't afford them, you won't win as much. Period.
A better magic player isn't going to shift the meta by playing Spell Blast. A worse player will control the meta if his opponents are better but packing Spell Blast when he's holding Force of Will.
If tomorrow there was a deck that was "The best deck ever", I assure you that the cost of those cards would rise and some people wouldn't be able to afford to play it. Player B would still have his way with player A if B has FoW and A has Spell Blast.
"Better" player = winning more games. Being smarter doesn't make Spell Blast better than Force of Will. Cards have a power level and that is often reflected in cost.
Player A is a better Quake player but can only afford dial-up and has 900 ping.
Player B is a worse Quake player but has a trunk and gets around 20 ping... and has his way with Player A repeatedly.
This is like saying guns are unfair in a fight. There's a reason it's called "The equalizer". You can buy a gun and *BAM* you're now able to kill someone that would otherwise have their way with you. Hint - you can buy a gun too. Can't afford one? Cry a river. Life's unfair.
I'm sorry if this is the closest thing to a flame I have ever written. I just really am inclined to believe my opinion is more accurate in regards to reality.
I feel that Wizards is printing quite a few cards that a Legacy playable. I think the alternatives are out there. Get to it deck designers!
Then you should be playing standard or draft. Remember access to cards is relative. If your a teenager with no job and no money, then even a 20 dollar card is expensive, right??? Standard is even unattainable. I could NOT afford to play standard as a teenager. Draft or limited was it. If you play for a long time you will collect the cards. Think about it. As a new player, should you have all the cards? I sure didn't when I first started. You have to pay your dues. Look at the cards in the new set. Mental misshap, torporb etc ... Even the scars dual lands are great. Ask yourself this question, if the cards were not worth anything, would you play tournament magic? People play in tournaments to win that valuable underground sea.
Standard - new players
extended - older players
Legacy - the oldest players
Sure if your rich you can skip a few levels.
I will add one more thing.
When you play legacy, you will find that the most cutthroat players, play in this format. Why? They are the vetern's of magic. They have more experience, knowledge and understanding of the cards. And of course for the real ancients there is vintage.
People of all ages can enjoy legacy, but access to all the cards is just not possible (at least in paper format) without proxy.
I have played many budget decks and performed quite well. The metagame is so diverse and unlike standard, there are many competitve decks that can and do win tournaments.
Decks that I care about:
Steel Stompy
UWx Landstill
Dreadstalker
DDFT (10% practice)
Mangara on MWS? You must be masochistic. -kiblast
Slander.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
I laugh when people complain about the cost of legacy, and how it's too expensive to play, yet the ones complaining play Standard, the most expensive format there is. Sure, you can build a standard deck cheaper than Legacy, but within 2 years the cards you purchased are no longer playable, and chances are, you will need an entire new deck. You're buying cards when they're at their highest price, holding onto them to play in tournaments, and then selling them when they've rotated out and dropped in price. The people complaining just aren't thinking long-term. Most of the people playing Eternal have been playing magic for many years. Very few of us got into the format by buying an entire deck and then going to our first tournament. We played terrible decks while slowly accumulating cards. I've played Burn, Sligh, White Weenie, etc. I got my butt kicked, but I met amazing people and ended up having a lot of fun. Legacy has the most variety of any format. If you can't find something to play, then you obviously don't want to. just grab a handful of cards and enjoy yourself.
Unfortunately, many people these days don't want to save up and work towards a goal. It's easier to complain about what they want now, even though they've put forth zero effort to achieve it.
You're right. They don't want to work towards their hobby. They want to be able to just play their hobby. They don't think that their hobby should entail months or years of effort just to be able to participate in. Under these conditions they will look for a different hobby.
I'm sorry, was this going somewhere?
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
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