All B/R update speculation.

[TraxDaMax]

Plus there are probably ten times more dual lands than P9 and there are 2 or 3 times more distinct and viable decks in Legacy compared to Vintage. However with the exponential growth in prices it is certainly going to create a slow down in the very near future. A year ago LED shooting from $35 to $50 was a big deal, this year it is $100. Jace was $55 a year ago, now it's $150. Prices were always crazy but it's certainly approaching the red line this year.

LED one hundred dollars? I'm sure it'll get there but it's still 25-30 dollars short though. Obviously the point is still valid, even if those prices are a bit off..
Last year I finally cashed up for LEDs and paid 160 euro for a playset. The guy bought them 60 for a playset a couple of years ago.
If we go 5-6 years back in time we can buy every deck we want for just the price of 1-2 decks these days. And back then a legacy deck would cost just a bit more then standard, which was worth the hassle considering your deck could be played for as long as it didn't become broken/unhealthy for the format.

For the moment I doubt anything is unhealthy or broken.

[Justin]

I wouldn't worry about Modern replacing Legacy, WotC has made it pretty clear (through actions not words) that Modern is replacing Extended.

The fate of Legacy is more similar to Vintage. The cards get more and more expensive until almost every event is proxy. The difference between Legacy and Vintage is that Vintage is just too broken for some people which further cut into it's player base. That said Legacy will probably not drop off as hard as Vintage did back in the early 2000's since a large part of that was continued cycles of broken decks being allowed to run amok which killed a lot of the interest.

This is an excellent point! Legacy is a much more appealing format for players who like to play "fair" decks than Vintage is. In Legacy, you can actually play a fair deck such as Aggro and win. Many players don't like to even play proxy Vintage because they find the format "unfun." Legacy does not suffer from this problem. I think that Legacy will always have a fair amount of appeal. However, I agree that this appeal will decline over time if Legacy staples are not reprinted.

[Megadeus]

LED one hundred dollars? I'm sure it'll get there but it's still 25-30 dollars short though. Obviously the point is still valid, even if those prices are a bit off..
Last year I finally cashed up for LEDs and paid 160 euro for a playset. The guy bought them 60 for a playset a couple of years ago.
If we go 5-6 years back in time we can buy every deck we want for just the price of 1-2 decks these days. And back then a legacy deck would cost just a bit more then standard, which was worth the hassle considering your deck could be played for as long as it didn't become broken/unhealthy for the format.

For the moment I doubt anything is unhealthy or broken.

Star city wise yjese prices are true. Obviously SCG is not the only place to buy cards, but just seeing the fact that the largest dealer has the balls to move it up that high is going to say something.

[Arsenal]

Star city wise yjese prices are true. Obviously SCG is not the only place to buy cards, but just seeing the fact that the largest dealer has the balls to move it up that high is going to say something.

Problem is that many other retailers will move their prices higher to reflect SCG's prices, then private sellers will follow. It's a domino effect when the "industry leader" sets the pricepoint; all others eventually fall in line.

[Megadeus]

Problem is that many other retailers will move their prices higher to reflect SCG's prices, then private sellers will follow. It's a domino effect when the "industry leader" sets the pricepoint; all others eventually fall in line.

This. Sometimes this doesnt happen, but with staples like LED, they know people need the card and if they dont bump their prices they will sell out very quickly.

[sdematt]

This. Sometimes this doesnt happen, but with staples like LED, they know people need the card and if they dont bump their prices they will sell out very quickly.

My local store used to have their own prices that they would sell at, which was always under Starcity. Then, they moved to matching SCG. Now they're pricing whatever they want based on demand (which can be higher than SCG). It's pretty sad when in my perspective, I should go to an online store instead of my own local store.

Unforts the above comments are right. Once there's a baseline by the biggest player setting a standard, most will follow.

-Matt

[nedleeds]

1) You had years to buy LEDs @ $10-40.
2) If you sold them then you learned a harsh lesson, never sell your reserved list magic cards. Never.
3) Playing storm is a privilege not a right.

[DragoFireheart]

So hey guys, Balance seems like a good choice to unban. I mean, it's a completely balanced card!

[sdematt]

3) Playing Legacy is a privilege not a right.

Fixed that for you.

-Matt

[BlackFlameAshura]

To be entirely honest (and with nearly 300 pages of content here I really haven't through the entire thing to find all the arguments for or against it) I'd honestly like to see Black Vise unbanned. It's a card that in the last couple weeks I look at it and think "why the hell is this card banned?" Sure, if you hit the nuts and get all four with some quick mana accel on the play, you're going to wreck your opponent's day, but you can do that with a lot of decks. It's just as possible to turn one Show and Tell into Omniscience and Emrakul for the win or just go Belcher which seems far more possible (and better) than Black Vise Magical Christmas Land.

Vise is a great card but I doubt it's so good that it's degenerate for the format. It doesn't just punish some control, either. Think about Reanimator and SnT with Griselbrand. If they draw a lot of cards on your turn (say to counter a spell you're playing) they're going to be taking a real hard hit come their turn on top of the life loss they already took from drawing from Griselbrand's ability. Strong, not degenerate, and keeps other decks in check (and provides an even more respectable reason to not ban Griselbees). It's just the surface of the argument, I'm sure, but I think it really wouldn't be a bad option at all.

[Lemnear]

We had the discussion about Vise. It's a better Delver in the early turns for Tempo decks (Wasteland + Stifle!), punishes Control for no reason and is a repeatable Lightning Bolt (~6 damage) for Burn.dec.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

1) You had years to buy LEDs @ $10-40.
2) If you sold them then you learned a harsh lesson, never sell your reserved list magic cards. Never.
3) Playing storm is a privilege not a right.

I'm glad that this is a puritan morality play and not a pretendy fun time game where we compete to see who the mightiest wizard in the realm is.

[Amon Amarth]

We had the discussion about Vise. It's a better Delver in the early turns for Tempo decks (Wasteland + Stifle!), punishes Control for no reason and is a repeatable Lightning Bolt (~6 damage) for Burn.dec.

Or the other side where it's a terrible topdeck, a high variance spell that very few decks would want. There are two sides to this argument.

[nedleeds]

Better Delver. Lol.

[Gheizen64]

Better Delver. Lol.

Maybe he meant Mons's Goblin Raiders.

[FieryBalrog]

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazin...tr13/welcome#3

Grand Prix coverage.

At this point, based on multiple years of data, if you're not playing Brainstorm in Legacy, chances are you (1) can't afford it, (2) don't care about winning, or (3) are not very bright.

[lordofthepit]

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazin...tr13/welcome#3

Grand Prix coverage.

At this point, based on multiple years of data, if you're not playing Brainstorm in Legacy, chances are you (1) can't afford it, (2) don't care about winning, or (3) are not very bright.

The four undefeated decks are Omnitell, Storm, Elves, and Death and Taxes. 50% non-Brainstorm decks in a field that is probably over 50% Brainstorm decks.

Edit: I see you're referring to the GPT Winners.

[xfxf]

Sorta like now?

We have one deck that is not blue that is a DTB: Jund. The format fluctuates, but most of the time there only ever exists one non-blue DTB. Sure, there are other non-blue decks that put up results, but they are almost all tier 1.5/2 decks because they just die to combo. And guess what every one of those blue decks have?

Brainstorm.

The point I was making wasn't to justify a unbanning of Ancestral Recall (because it is clearly too powerful), but rather to show that the power level of Brainstorm is too high for Legacy and that it stifles (viable) deck variety. You need a damn good reason not to run Brainstorm in Legacy. No, this isn't anything new, but neither is the trend of 90% of the meta being blue and maybe one or two decks being non-blue that are tier 1 and don't just fold to combo.

I wouldn't want to be you looking at the GP results right now after all that fuss.

[AEnesidem]

but there you said it yourself, most of the field is playing bluen not because of brainstorm, but because it's the only color that reliably stops combo. Why is nobody splshing blue in decks like maverick, death n taxes goblins or even jund? because those decks don't want to be doing that. They have better things to cast within their plan. If brainstorm really was THAT broken, everyone would be splashing blue just for that card.

[kiblast]

but there you said it yourself, most of the field is playing bluen not because of brainstorm, but because it's the only color that reliably stops combo. Why is nobody splshing blue in decks like maverick, death n taxes goblins or even jund? because those decks don't want to be doing that. They have better things to cast within their plan. If brainstorm really was THAT broken, everyone would be splashing blue just for that card.

Well actually you have an exact blue counterpart for almost all those decks:

Maverick becomes Bant aggro or Vial Bant
DnT becomes UW tempo
Jund becomes Brug.

So yeah, Bs (alongside Fow) is a good enough reason for splashing Blue as a third or fourth colour, and lots of players are already doing it generating new/different arhetypes ( obviously new doesn't necessarily imply better here).