Allow Legacy to go the way of Vintage, becoming a niche format with little support.
Aggressively implement and promote Overextended as a replacement.
Break the reserve list and reprint promo versions of many of the worst offenders, price-wise.
Take a hatchet to the format, banning some of the worst offenders, price tag wise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuum_fallacyOriginally Posted by Pippin
you're making a fallacy of the heap because you are demanding that our claims be arbitrarily precise. is there a magic number where the price NEEDS to be? of course not, price of cards change due to all sorts of factors. But this isn't a financial market, it's a game that exists for fun as the bottom line, so WotC arbitrarily reprinting when them and players feel prices have had a degenerative effect on a format that is obviously fun and popular. So the playerbase and wizards should roll over because there is no price written in the sky as specific as youd personally like it? cmon man
I will make use of every tool that fate presents.
I'ts incredible that so many people voted for the first option. Do you really want Legacy to implode? I can't get your point of view.
Anyway. Reading about the increasing price of the hobby makes me think of a comparison with another hobby I enjoyed in the past: Warhammer. The entry cost for Warhammer is probably as high as for Mtg Legacy, because you have to spend about 400-450 eur to buy a complete army and Army List, then you have to buy the rulebook (60 eur) and scenic materials to play (30-50 eur splitting the price between 2-4 friends). I'd say the initial cost is about 500-550 eur. Then every couple of years you have to buy a new rulebook, new Army List (25 eur) and new troops to have your army up to date with the newer rules and innovations (100-150 eur) so, in the first 2 years, you'll have spent probably between 650-700 eur. Moreover, if you want to paint your miniatures ( and I did and enjoyed it as much as playing with them) you have to spend 100 eur more for colours and brushes. And you need a suitcase to carry your army everywhere (+50 eur).
Keep in mind that, if you see your playsets of staples= WH troops, many staples keep their status of key cards forever, while lots of troops in Warhammer become obsolete and/or unplayable under newer rules/ Army lists. Mtg is an expensive hobby, as is Warhammer, but in Mtg you can cash out whenever you want to at a reasonable price, while in WH if you cash out you'll probably find out that your 800 eur very good painted army (as mine was) is valued between 250-300 eur.
I'm not justifying nowadays prices by any means, I'm just saying that the situation is not so awful as many of you believe (or better want to believe) and that there are other hobbysts in the world in the same if not worse situation as us.
That's why I don't want legacy to become a niche format, I don't want replacements for it and I don't want the banhammer for my FoWs.Simply because there's no sense and need for such extreme decisions. I just want to keep enjoying the game, and for people with litter budgets there should be a parallel, more cheap, eternal format.
Are you into Jazz? Have a look at the Lp's I have for sale on Discogs!
How would the annoucement of the break of the reserved list affect the prices of these cards?
I mean, whoever worry about prices going down after the reprint of cards shall have enough time (from the announcement until the printing) to sell them. Then wotc prints FTVs and at least stabilizes the prices.
If you fail to explain the reason behind your choice, technically, it's the wrong choice.
Zerk Thread -- Really, fun deck! ^^
If WotC announces reprintings, the price of the card will immediately be discounted, so sellers won't really have any time to react and cash out at their original price. The price will be cover 90% discounted to the new price if the speculation is very accurate, and speculation may even overestimate the cheapening and volume of reprinting
I will make use of every tool that fate presents.
You can see it in MTGO with the reprint of Duals in MED4. The old Duals drop off 50-70% and keep a price 2-4$ up over the new ones.
But what will happen when they announce the break of the reserve list, without the announce of what is going to be reprinted
If you fail to explain the reason behind your choice, technically, it's the wrong choice.
Zerk Thread -- Really, fun deck! ^^
being off the reserve list is light years away from being reprinted, that's hardly a super secret "sell" indicator for people wanting to cash out. they might as well sell now, the reserve list is meaningless for that
I will make use of every tool that fate presents.
With the reserve list up, they can just hold these cards and wait for them to rise on price. Without, they'd be taking their risk. I think WotC should break the reserved list, and after a fair amount of time, enough for these worried collectors to sell their cards (this should bring the prices down a little), they start anoucing, slowly, the reprints (FTV style). That way noone really loses, or at least, lose less, because whoever keep these cards will mostly be willing to play with them, whatever the price is.
Also, this would prevent people from holding unused cards, which rises the price.
If you fail to explain the reason behind your choice, technically, it's the wrong choice.
Zerk Thread -- Really, fun deck! ^^
The poll is useless. Choice 3 won't happen so matter how much we want it to, Wizards already said they won't change their mind. :(
Choice 4 won't happen either, it would piss off way too many people and achieve nothing. Most of the expense of playing legacy comes from dual lands and fetchlands. Is Wizards going to ban those instead of simply printing viable replacements?
Choice 1 and 2 say the same thing. Overextended being aggressively marketed as a replacement will serve no purpose other than to make legacy a niche format with little support.
That would be a shame because modern legacy is easily the most diverse and varied format ever, in the history of magic. There are dozens of tier one decks and literally hundreds of viable tier two strategies and decks capable of winning a tournament in the right metagame.
There is one and only viable route that Wizards can take...
1. Print viable replacements for the dual lands, for example, by making lands like Secluded Glen and Graven Cairns fetchable. If those two lands functioned with fetchlands, they would certainly see a lot more play.
2. Reprint cards not on the reserved list like fetchlands, tarmogoyf, force of will and wasteland, in a legacy specific release. Commandeer is a legacy/vintage specific set, these cards could and should show up in that set.
As much hate as the reserved list gets, other than the duals none of the overpriced must play legacy staples are actually on the reserved list. It's not the reason that card prices are unreasonable. And it can be worked around if Wizards prints viable alternatives to the duals.
@Clark: As much as I like the solution to adress the issue by new printings (like the fetchable glen) instead of reprints, the problem is here that people don't WANT to play any "inferior" card if there's something better out there. There are 3 threads on the board adressing the issue and every one boiled down to 2 solutions to stop the crying:
1. Break the reserved list promise and print hundredthousands of 1:1 copies at common-rarity so Duals and Co. rival with a Cup of coffee over a Single buck in my wallet.
2. Print strictly Superior new versions of cards (Serra angel -> baneslayer) and be sure to make them Common too or the whole whinning repeats in a few Years.
I don't blame Wizards for keeping me at the doormat of competitive Legacy these days, I blame OPEC.
Why can't wizards just look at some of the most popular tribal decks (elves, merfolk, goblins, zombies, vampires) and print awesome new cards for them? Reprint 4x force of will for the merfolk decks, and put it in a new set as well... The goblins could get 2-3 of each "staple" goblin, etc.. You can drop the cost of $30 piledrivers AND make winning tournaments more accessible for newbies. I run goblins on a regular basis. I don't care if my deck is $900 or $50. Have nationwide Legacy sanctioned events where you get 4x Wasteland just for showing up.
Maybe drop the price of duals by printing a new mechanic on "strictly better" cards: "Runecursed" This creature/spell can only be cast with mana from basic lands == or "if you control any non-basic land, this spell costs (1) more for each non-basic land you control." If I could play a 4/4 for 2 green with Runecurse, I'd be running 24 basic forests. Just brainstorming.
I don't care what my cards are worth. All having expensive cards does is make trading require smartphones. I don't want to get rid of my staples because I WANT TO RUN those different decks at tournaments. I want to keep my cards, and I don't care if they're 10 cents each.
"In consideration of past commitments, however, no cards will be removed from this list."
BUT they did say they could print oversized cards... Anyone up for petitioning "Oversized Legacy"?
Not sure if you were around in 2004 or not, but this is almost exactly what they did. Back then Legacy was a niche format and by removing most of the high costed offenders (i.e. Mana Drain, Bazaar, Workshop, etc..), they made this format much more accessible and lowered the entry costs substantially. It did piss a lot of people off, but in all honesty, it was an overall good thing for the format since it's bigger than ever.
Correct. This is also exactly what Legacy has done to Vintage over the past 6-7 years.
No matter how a card is worded, unless it is somehow better than the original dual lands, it will always be inferior and the wrong choice to play with these substitutes over the current dual lands.
I don't blame Wizards either. But, they are the only organization that can make the changes.
I've been seriously considering selling most of my collection that I've owned and used quite often since 1993. I should be in the "not whinning" category, considering I'm someone who stands to significantly gain from this price increase, but even owning full playsets of almost every Legacy card, these price hikes still seem foolish to me and absurd to anyone interested in getting involved in Legacy as a format.
I'm not in the "price complaining people" because I already have almost all legacy staples. I think that the solution is to reprint cards to get lower prices.
Anyways I wanted to say that not all decks are expensive to play. There has just been a Legacy Tournament in Italy with 125 people playing.
I checked the prices of the decks that made top 8 on a website and this is what came out..
1 Belcher: 314$
2 Supreme Blue: 1296$
3 Zoo: 793$
4 Maverick: 806$
5 Elf Combo: 207$
6 UB Merfolk: 930$
7 Thopter: 1230$
8: The Gate: 355$
As you can see, also cheap decks can make good results. Also the Spiral Tide deck (version w/o Candelabra) is competitive and quite cheap to build..
Team Stimato
He told you a foil from Time Spiral was Summer?
This man must be a Jedi.
That is my point thought. What past events - Vintage? No. What behavioral tendencies? From my perspective Legacy has done nothing but go up.
Despite the weak argument of current players potentially leaving Legacy and their cards somehow not returning to the secondary market and being relegated to an unknown nether void I don't see how principles of supply and demand are going to influence future events or make the format unsustainable.
Honestly you could argue that the format is reaching or has reached a plateau but you give no note to the current player base that is already significantly larger than any other competitive Eternal format. Somehow that population is going to disappear and the format is going to die, cards will never be returned to the secondary market, and the format will become unsustainable for no reason other than “old cards cost money”.
Not to appear ignorant but quite frankly Asia/South America are not North America. Formats are going to be popular in different regions look at Vintage in Europe and tell me they don’t have better access to expensive older staples.
I’m sorry I will be honest and admit I haven’t taken the time to read any posts past page 1 of this thread so if you have come up with factual historical evidence of why you think Legacy is going to trend the way of the Dinosaurs please point it out to me.
I said this on Salv and I'm going to say it again.
When Magic is a game being played competitively for prizes (money):
More players = more tournaments = more fun/higher payouts
-> The drawback is that with demand, supply goes down and prices increase. But this is a tradeoff you have to be willing to make if you want to win CASH.
When Magic is a game being played with friends on the kitchen table:
You can proxy and not spend any money because no one is judging you, and you are not taking it to a a tournament.
Simple facts. You cannot expect to spend nothing and engage in a competitive sport, which is what Magic has become with SCG Opens.
There's a simple solution to this whole bloody issue.
Wizards just needs to print cards that are good enough to make going non-tribal mono-colored a viable option for winning tournies. The main problem with the entering the format is that a manabase for a good multi-colored deck in Legacy is at a minimum $700. If Wizards prints new cards that encourage players to go non-triball mono-colored, we WILL see an influx of new players as the format's cost barrier will be significantly lessened. New players will still need to acquire expensive staples such as Wasteland, Force of Will, and Tarmogoyf, but that's significantly cheaper than buying 10 playsets of dual lands. Also, this works out in Wizards's favor as Legacy players would actually buy packs instead of going through the secondary market.
Ta-da! Problem solved!
That would mean a TON of cheap combo hate, because no color outside of Blue can exclusively tote an even to positive combo matchup.
And no, discard doesn't count
The problem with your thought is that you're assuming that everyone with Legacy cards is a Legacy player. As the price spirals higher out of control, you see constriction in the market place, driving prices further up. No matter what people might say about Legacy's death driving down prices, it won't. The prices will be held stable because the people that hold these cards are tight-fisted and won't sell at a loss. The cards will sit in collections and collect dust. Juzam Djinn goes for $150, Library of Alexandria goes for $250 and Aladdin goes for $6 (SCG prices and LoA is sold out!). They're all the same rarity. They're all equally useful for tournament play (i.e. not). Juzam has almost doubled in price over the last 12 years despite the fact that it has seen play in exactly 1 deck (and not a popular one, it was a deck called Butterknives in T1 around the turn of the millenium) in that time span. Library is 2.5 times it's value in 1999 and it hasn't seen real play in Vintage (the only format it's legal in) since around 2002. I don't know what the price was on Aladdin back then, but I'd bet it was around $5-$6. It was never a collector hype card and thus not subject to the upward spiral of ever higher price.
Think about that one for a moment. Vintage died. I mean, there are some Vintage players still limping along out there but compared to where it was 6 or 7 years ago, it's as dead as the Wicked Witch. The format is dead and cards that were only good a decade and more ago are STILL increasing in value. What more proof do you need that players aren't the ones setting prices, collectors are? What do you think the chances are of cards like Candelabra going back down? It doesn't matter if High Tide lives or dies, or even if Legacy lives or dies, it's a $250 card now and you won't find it cheaper ever again.
Once the price on a card goes up, it's easy for it to stay up. If everyone bought in at $100 and nobody wants to sell for a loss, then $100 is the floor of where the card will sell at. If you want it to play the game, you pay $100 or you don't play with it. If you're talking a card like Jace 2.0 when Standard ends and you've got a lot of people selling, the price will slowly drop as there are enough people willing to sell at a loss to drive the price down, but it will not fall in line with it's decreased playability. Yes, it's good in Legacy and Vintage, but combined those two markets probably don't make up 10% of the Jace usage. There's no way Jace will see $10. It might bottom out at $50. That's the power of speculators.
Supply is more than just how many cards are out there. Not everyone with a Jace is willing to sell. There may be 3,000 playsets of Candelabra worldwide, but how many of those are actually for sale? How many have been snapped up by collectors that treat the game as a secondary aspect? I can't even guess at those numbers, but it's significant.
Personally, I voted for reprints. But we know it won't happen. And while some of you may not like the idea of cards being banned for price, I think it's the only way the format survives. The other option for breaking down the price barriers is proxying, and we've seen where that took Vintage. The reality of the situation is people will bitch more loudly about price bans than the "collectors" did about the reprint policy and the format will eventually die. Who knows when it will happen. To be honest, I didn't think the format could sustain prices this high; putting together a Bant deck this January cost me as much as putting together a playset of P9 and 40 duals did in 2000.
In response to the earlier post asserting that price bans would shoot Rav duals up to $50 each, I think that's unlikely. Fetchlands currently see as much play as duals do, if not a little bit more. Pricing on Rav duals would probably be a little bit lower than that, since Ravnica is a more recent set than Onslaught and Rav duals are not straight up replacements for real duals. A lot of decks would rather run other lands in place of missing duals than Rav duals. Can you see ANT fetching for two untapped Watery Graves at a cost of 6 life (i.e. 5-6 cards with AN)?
But I think most of the people in this thread feel that the reprint policy is going to lead to the death of Legacy as we know it. Either through proxy tournaments, price bans or just the actual death of the format as a competitive tournament format. So I think the poll question ought to be 'how do we strike back at the collectors whose speculation is killing the format we love?'
Good points Spikey, but the same can be said for non-collectors/legacy players that we ourselves are hoarding a playset of playables for the format even though we probably only use 10% of the cards in our Legacy collection to play decks. How does one tell these people that they should sell cards they don't intend to use? You can't really answer the question 'how do we strike back at the collectors whose speculation is killing the format we love?" when everyone including me and you, are all responsible in the whole chain of supply/demand affecting the card prices. Obviously collectors contribute more negatively from our point of view, but from their point of view, they are probably pissed as well for there being so many Legacy players screwing up their collections by jackig up prices.
Decks that I care about:
Steel Stompy
UWx Landstill
Dreadstalker
DDFT (10% practice)
Mangara on MWS? You must be masochistic. -kiblast
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