Definitely not. Starcity games already knows this, that's why they're not giving it camera time anymore except 3 times a year. Sorry man. Not even SCG believes in SCG enough to give dedicate an entire day for it anymore. It's Standard, Limited and Modern from here on out. And even Modern isn't even as much love as it should. Mainly by Wizard. If it ever does, you can bet your ass, Legacy will start to disappear. I live in a very populate area and I don't even see Legacy firing anymore in at Black Diamond Games or Endgame in Oakland. I heard Eudomonia still does it but its not worth the drive/money for me to go there. Parking is too expensive.
Definitely not. Starcity games already knows this, that's why they're not giving it camera time anymore except 3 times a year. Sorry man. Not even SCG believes in SCG enough to give dedicate an entire day for it anymore. It's Standard, Limited and Modern from here on out. And even Modern isn't even as much love as it should. Mainly by Wizard. If it ever does, you can bet your ass, Legacy will start to disappear. I live in a very populate area and I don't even see Legacy firing anymore in at Black Diamond Games or Endgame in Oakland. I heard Eudomonia still does it but its not worth the drive/money for me to go there. Parking is too expensive.
The parking analysis was better than the format analysis.
legacy in 2020 will have the same popularity as vintage today, blame the reserve list.
It's more likely that 2020 Modern will have the same popularity as Vintage. Legacy has proven for years that it can thrive with grassroots support, and minimal official support; Modern has not. Modern essentially replaced Extended, and it's quite likely that WotC will one day phase Modern out in favor of the next version of Extended, which will only involve the recent frame with Holos.
legacy in 2020 will have the same popularity as vintage today, blame the reserve list.
It's more likely that 2020 Modern will have the same popularity as Vintage. Legacy has proven for years that it can thrive with grassroots support, and minimal official support; Modern has not. Modern essentially replaced Extended, and it's quite likely that WotC will one day phase Modern out in favor of the next version of Extended, which will only involve the recent frame with Holos.
reserve list is a bottleneck to its health, do you think vintage is a boring or bad format? no, its a format that have a high barrier and legacy is going to fall under the same destiny.
denial all you want, but SCG is already dropping the legacy support (they are smart, doing slowly), and is not because is a bad or boring format, the problem is the F*** reserve list.
yeah modern could die, but at least it dont have the "reserve list" cancer.
i would love to see a non rotation format from invasion+.
reserve list is a bottleneck to its health, do you think vintage is a boring or bad format? no, its a format that have a high barrier and legacy is going to fall under the same destiny.
denial all you want, but SCG is already dropping the legacy support (they are smart, doing slowly), and is not because is a bad or boring format, the problem is the F*** reserve list.
yeah modern could die, but at least it dont have the "reserve list" cancer.
i would love to see a non rotation format from invasion+.
Lordofthepit23 answers your claims very well in an article, so I'll just quote him:
1. Legacy can probably support at least one hundred times as many players as Vintage with the existing card pool.
The Power 9 are cited as the most limiting factor for entry into Vintage; the dual lands are the Legacy analogue. However, given the known print runs for Alpha, Beta, Unlimited, and Revised, we know that there are roughly 30000 of each A/B/U rare. The print run for Revised (even after adjusting for the larger set size) was more than 10 times that of A/B/U combined. Moreover, the dual lands were printed in German, French, and Italian in both FBB and FWB forms, although as far as I know, Crystal Keep does not contain information about the size of these print runs. Thus, using these data alone, we can estimate that there were between 20-50 times as many Underground Seas as Black Lotuses.
Moreover, Power 9 are much more iconic as collector items as dual lands, and as such, are more likely to be sequestered away in a display case or in a BGS/PSA slab. Even if one were to generously allow the highly unlikely assumption that in terms of raw numbers, as many Underground Seas as Black Lotuses reside in such collections, this would represent a much larger proportion of the available supply of Power 9 being restricted (i.e. 10000 Black Lotuses in the hands of collectors represents 33% of the original print run, whereas 10000 Underground Seas probably represents 1% of the print run).
Finally, Power 9 are more significant bottlenecks in Vintage than dual lands are in Legacy since many more archetypes have the same convergent requirements in Vintage. That is to say, almost every deck in Vintage besides Dredge would benefit immensely from a Black Lotus (and I've seen Dredge lists that also include a Lotus). Conversely, the need for any particular dual land is lower in Legacy, since many different color combinations are viable. Moreover, there are plenty of viable decks that do not typically run dual lands (Merfolk, Goblins, Death and Taxes, MUD, Dredge, etc.).
I'm going to define the saturation of a card as the number of copies in which it appears in a subset of qualifying decklists (i.e. top 8s from large tournaments), divided by the maximum number of copies of that card allowed. For instance, Brainstorm is generally the most played card in Legacy, appearing almost exclusively as a 4-of in all decks in which it appears, in anywhere between 50-75% of the top-placing lists, based on historical analysis of large tournaments (mostly from SCG, since they hold large events so regularly and their decklists are publicly available). Thus, it has a 50-75% saturation. Using data on TCDecks, the most played dual lands in Legacy (which vary from month to month) are typically present at 30% of that of Brainstorm. Thus, the saturation of the top dual lands (in recent months, Volcanic Island, but I've seen all four blue duals, as well as Savannah and Taiga represented at various points in the last 3 years) is about 15-20% in Legacy (and by definition, lower for the other dual lands). This is compared to the near 100% saturation of Black Lotus among top Vintage decklists.
Given all these factors, I estimate that Legacy can probably support a player base more than one hundred times that of Vintage, and I consider that a conservative estimate. It is therefore no wonder that Vintage tournaments were so rarely found outside of Europe and the Northeastern United States, which is a shame because I could appreciate that it was a fantastically exciting and skill-intensive format even without being fortunate enough to play it. As a consequence, many Vintage tournaments were held as unsanctioned events in which proxies were allowed. Because this undermined the fundamental business model of the local game stores, it is altogether unsurprising that most stores no longer hold Vintage tournaments.
However, given the relative abundance of Legacy staples such as dual lands compared to their Vintage counterparts, Legacy can support a very large player base and local game stores can continue to hold such tournaments. It is therefore exceedingly unlikely Legacy is condemned to the same fate as Vintage.
To add on, I'd obviously love the Reserved List to be gone; I'd be overjoyed to have 500k (made up number) Legacy players instead of 100k (made up number). However, that 100k, is not suddenly turning into 10k. It's not like Vintage ever had numbers on this scale, and then lost them all.
As for SCG, they are not dropping Legacy support; they are reverting to the prize support they had a few years ago. The very same prize support that existed for a very healthy period in Legacy, and a period after a long period of Legacy before that. And in the not-happening scenario of SCG dropping Legacy entirely? Legacy would still have a ton of people playing it, just like people did before SCG. Because they love the format and don't require official subsidization.
To say nothing of the litany of LGS running weekly tournaments (some of which are in the link in my signature) and medium-sized big events, these are some Legacy tournaments this year not run by Wizards or SCG (not that Wizards or SCG tourneys should be discounted, as they're meeting demand as well as helping create demand) that got 200 people:
March 30, 2014. Evil 10 - Padova - Tarmogeddon 9. 205 players
April 19, 2014. Super Legacy - Arcanis 20k. 203 players
May 2, 2014. Bazaar of Moxen 9. 535 players.
August 2, 2014. Tales of Adventure Eternal Extravaganza. 266 players
September 7, 2014. Evil 1 - Padova - Tarmogeddon 10. 209 Players
October 4, 2014. Ovinogeddon 9. 476 Players
November 11, 2014. Eternal Festival Tokyo - 2014. 330 Players
Much like any "grassroots" communities/games (like Smash Bros. Melee), it'll survive so long as there are people playing and promoting it. Also much like "grassroots" communities, sometimes there are plenty of legacy players that "hide." Some people that play Legacy also have jobs that perhaps take up much of their time, or say, they don't play as much as they could/would like to. But they're still around. It's just getting them to come out; sometimes a big tournament is what it takes.
Reprints the one card that people point to when saying that art objectifies women.
Well done Wizards.
Liliana does not objectify women in any way at all. We have gotten to a point in our society that every single picture of a women must be objectifying a women in some negative way......blah blah blah.. That is not the case. (((Sarcasm)))Picture of a girl drinking a milk shake, must be sex related and putting women down, picture of girl sitting on a beach, picture of a girl driving a car, picture of a girl on the moon at a new space station.)))
You have a picture of an attractive strong power women who girls dress up as for anime conventions. What more do you want? The picture is fine, happy to see a reprint. Sick of of seeing people claim that everything in existence must be putting women down. Then all I have to do is replace the word "women" with anything else to get the same mentality; fish, cats, arabs, blacks, jews, men, environment, whites, chinese, old people, etc. It doesn't matter what word I put in. Stop sucking life out of everything man. That artwork of her is awesome. Stop putting stuff down man. Just stop. If the picture was really as negative as you claim she would totally nude, in a kitchen, making sandwiches and giving blow jobs. Her abilities would be horrible as well. +1 do nothing -2 do nothing -6 do nothing. Instead liliana of the veil is an amazing planeswalker comparable to jace, the mind sculpter with great art to appreciate.
My suggestion listen to some comedy radio for a while, pandora is free, youtube is free there is something out there for you. ***** go make fun of somebody. The whole world is so serious and campaigning for some cause, or someones rights, everything is a hate crime, racist, sexist. blah blah blah.
"O no mcdonalds must be slandering a hate crime against skinny people every time they make a big mac." hahaha jeeze You're just someone perpetuating another groups negative perspective that they've made you believe is correct. Look at the picture for a hour and tell me what's wrong with it? I don't see anything.
I have heard vague rumors of a moustache-dispensing vending machine in a distant laundromat, across the street from a tattoo parlor. However, this information is shaky, and time is of the essence.
Definitely not. Starcity games already knows this, that's why they're not giving it camera time anymore except 3 times a year. Sorry man. Not even SCG believes in SCG enough to give dedicate an entire day for it anymore. It's Standard, Limited and Modern from here on out. And even Modern isn't even as much love as it should. Mainly by Wizard. If it ever does, you can bet your ass, Legacy will start to disappear. I live in a very populate area and I don't even see Legacy firing anymore in at Black Diamond Games or Endgame in Oakland. I heard Eudomonia still does it but its not worth the drive/money for me to go there. Parking is too expensive.
Curious, did Legacy fire at Black Diamond on Nov thirty? Last I played there, there were six players
I don't have time to post the details right now, but I would say that Legacy has not gained popularity (as measured by player attendance) in the past six months on the SCG circuit, but that at the Grand Prix and local levels (at least in Seattle), it has been gaining popularity. I'll have more detailed data to support these statements later, but unfortunately, I need to learn how to play Standard by this Friday.
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Due to real-life obligations, I am taking a long break from Magic which may include missing the local Legacy GP. Apologies for not being able to keep my threads updated.
I don't have time to post the details right now, but I would say that Legacy has not gained popularity (as measured by player attendance) in the past six months on the SCG circuit, but that at the Grand Prix and local levels (at least in Seattle), it has been gaining popularity. I'll have more detailed data to support these statements later, but unfortunately, I need to learn how to play Standard by this Friday.
Do you have a minute for me to talk to you about our lord and savior, Siege Rhino? If you accept him into your heart, many blessings will come your way...in standard.
Back on topic, I don't know that it's gaining popularity right now, but if the skyrocketing prices are any indication, the demand for Legacy cards has drastically increased over the last couple years. At their current rates though, it will be very difficult for most players to buy in who aren't already part of the community.
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Currently playing:
Standard: I, for one, welcome our new rhinoceros overlords
Modern: Pod's dead, Bob's back.
Legacy: Lands, Deathblade, Death and Taxes, Elves, MUD
Retired Legacy: Merfolk, Goblins, Jund, Delver, Reanimator
I don't have time to post the details right now, but I would say that Legacy has not gained popularity (as measured by player attendance) in the past six months on the SCG circuit, but that at the Grand Prix and local levels (at least in Seattle), it has been gaining popularity. I'll have more detailed data to support these statements later, but unfortunately, I need to learn how to play Standard by this Friday.
Here are the details. I'm pretty sure everyone's well-aware of the huge attendance numbers from the most recent GP Edison, as well as other successful ones in D.C. and Paris, so I haven't created graphs for those, but here's how the situation looks on the SCG circuit:
As you can see, there was pretty steady growth of Legacy from 2012 to mid-2014 in terms of player attendance, even relative to the steadily increasing numbers for Standard. The increase in Legacy Open participants halted after the Modern Premier IQs started running concurrently, since it's not surprising that these events would take away some number of players that would normally play Legacy. Here's a closer look at the events since then:
There are always going to be some players that prefer Modern to Legacy, some players that would rather play in the 10 am Modern event rather than the 9 am Legacy event, as well as some that prefer the better EV of Modern (at $30 entry for $5k in prizes, the break-even point for Modern PIQ is 167 players, which it has rarely hit, whereas at $40 entry for $10k in prizes, the break-even point for the old Legacy Opens is 250 players, which it usually met).
There were some people who speculated that the Modern PIQs would soon be better attended than the Legacy Opens, but this has not been remotely true on any single weekend. Legacy Open attendance numbers have not been increasing since SCG introduced Sunday Modern PIQs, but it hasn't been decreasing either, and it certainly hasn't been losing players to Modern yet: in fact, if anything, there was a slight downward trend in Modern PIQ numbers from the July Baltimore weekend to the December Portland one (i.e. the entire timeframe during which there was a Saturday Standard Open, a Sunday Legacy Open, and a Sunday Modern PIQ), with the first event (Baltimore) representing the highest Modern attendance (205) and the last event (Portland) representing the lowest (77). I've personally begun playing occasional Modern events myself, and while I admit that Legacy is still my favorite format by far, I can say with no bias whatsoever that Legacy has not been losing players to Modern over time, other than the sudden, one-time drop you would expect from when the Modern PIQs were introduced.
What I find most optimistic is the most recent time point in Seattle, the first one with the new format with the $20k two-day (Standard) Open and two concurrent PIQs on Sunday (Legacy and Modern). Despite there being an Invitational that weekend (which typically results in drastically more players for the Opens on that weekend), attendance numbers for the $20k Open were pretty low, well behind what SCG might have expected for a Saturday one-day Open in Seattle with half the prize support:
While many Legacy detractors would tell you that Legacy is a dying format and the SCG Open was the only reason anyone still played it, attendance numbers from Seattle would suggest otherwise. With literally the same exact support as Modern has received in the form of $5k PIQ (and despite an earlier 9 am start time), note that there were still significantly more Legacy players at the very first PIQ than there were for any Modern PIQ to date. That's not to say Modern can't grow, and it certainly can grow at a faster rate than Legacy moving forward, but even in a region where SCG has pretty much "abandoned" their support of the format, Legacy players still came out in droves.
I do find the relatively poor showing for the first $20k Standard Open vindication for a controversial prediction I made on the Source:
The Standard $20K Opens are a pretty exciting change if you're a hardcore Standard player, and it might induce Standard grinders to travel slightly longer distances to attend events they otherwise wouldn't. But any increased attendance SCG might get at these new Opens would be offset by plenty of other factors including:
- Casual Standard players who are unable or unwilling to commit to two days
- Casual Standard players who are hardcore Legacy or Modern players who would no longer play in the Saturday event if you have to play Day 2 to even have a shot of prizing
- Grinders who are competitive in Standard, but strongly prefer playing Legacy (or Modern), and would consider skipping the former despite the increased prestige SCG is trying to manufacture
The vast majority of players at the current Standard Opens are casual players who think it's pretty cool that the SCG is in town, and while I imagine many of them would still play in the $20K Open, some of them will have schedule conflicts. In addition, keep in mind that SCG had already experimented with "Double Standard" events in 2012, and they were an unmitigated disaster, with the Sunday Standard Open having 38-52% fewer players than the Saturday one (in other words, comparable to what the attendance would have been with a Legacy format). It is unsure whether this can be attributed to scheduling conflicts (Sundays are generally more inconvenient) or player fatigue (a lot of players are probably put off by playing Standard for two straight days), but in any case, both these problems will plague the new proposed setup.
In addition, you have players like myself who absolutely love Legacy and don't find Standard very appealing, but might have otherwise considered playing in Standard on Saturday to get some practice for the Invitational or to just hang out with friends. But to pay $50 to play a format that I don't even like, with the understanding that I have to play (and probably do reasonably well) on Day 2 to even min cash?! I would snap-drop from Standard to play Legacy on Sunday regardless of how I was doing, so there's simply no reason for me to register for the Saturday event anymore, since the practice simply isn't worth $50. I know I am far from the only player in my circle of friends who feels this way, and I imagine the sentiment is shared at least by some Modern players as well.
Keep in mind that while the player base of Legacy and Modern players is significantly smaller than that of Standard players, the proportion of hardcore players in those formats (especially in Legacy) is significantly higher than the corresponding proportion among Standard players, and as a result, the total number of dedicated players in each format is more comparable than one might think. This is a large reason why attendance numbers for Legacy and Modern GPs are consistently higher than those for Standard GPs, so I don't think SCG's effort to emulate the Grand Prix model with their new Open series will be as successful as they would hope. There are a ton of Standard GPs within driving distance even in the often-neglected West Coast, and none of them have ever been appealing beyond the possibility of having a sweet Legacy side event.
I must admit that I would be enthusiastic about these changes if the new Open Series schedule included a majority of Legacy Opens, rather than Standard, but that is only from my perspective as a hardcore Legacy fan. I still stand by the points I made that the entire concept of a two-day Open is a mistake for SCG, regardless of the choice of format for these Opens.
Not sure if this will hold up, but it would not surprise me if the eventual Legacy or Modern $20k Opens draw attendance just as strong as the Standard Opens.
Finally, I also said that attendance numbers has been strong locally, at least where I live. With the opening of the new Mox Boarding House, Seattle area now has two Legacy weeklies that frequently draw 30-40 players:
Hopefully the local scene is as awesome whereever you are!
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Yeah when people say legacy is dying and I hear it's flourishing in South America that's a gigantic strike against legacy dying. South America is not exactly a magic stronghold as far as I know but drawing that many players for weekly legacy is pretty insane at least to me. The data coming from Seattle props to lordofthepit for the graphs and information is also great, great news. I have a friend who used to go to Seattle for work years back for training and in 2008 legacy was very dead and people were very hyped over talara's battalion/pile of trash. People there would have loved nothing more than to trade volcanic island for sarkhan vol straight up as standard was THE format there in terms of constructed and legacy was nowhere to be found.
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"Yawgmoth," Freyalise whispered as she set the bomb, "now you will pay for your treachery."
Hopefully the local scene is as awesome whereever you are!
First off, thanks for all the data. It's always nice to have this sort of stuff for all the detractors.
With that said, unfortunately I no longer live in an area with a vibrant Legacy community. We get enough to fire events, but not huge events like I was used to in Madison, WI (which is known as a pretty healthy MTG community).
Ironically enough, I am in Seattle for the holidays, but didn't bring my Legacy deck -_-;;. I am always nervous bringing a $2000 - $3000 deck across the country.
Wow that is a lot of players do you have really good prizes, and is the meta diverse?
The prizes are actually trivial, 4-2-1 packs for the first 3 places, but the entrance is quite cheap. Both the owner of the LGS and the legacy players know themselves since forever I believe (I started attending this year) so there's a lot of trust in lending cards, even duals, so the meta is quite diverse. I've seen even Storm decks with Grim Tutors to 12-post with Candelabras, to Imperial Painter, to classical decks like Elves or BUG Delver.
Also, a lot of Legacy players go to play fútbol together afterwards, so overall you get a nice ambient.
It's truly much more of a social event than actually competitive (although the decks are)
My area has started to do Legacy. Not large events, but still Legacy.
A willing population with a couple of people owning multiple decks/big collections is all you need to get double figures. People will travel a bit for small Legacy events.
I asked on the ban thread if there is a difference between Europe and the US, the responses I got said yes, there were. People indicated that in the US it was more blue, in Europe people were more interested in playing their Legacy deck.
UR delver may win 65% (made up number) of its matches. Pox (one of my adopted decks) may win 40% (made up number again). Over a 4/5 round event for a few packs it won't make much difference when you take into account meta variations. If I choose to play UR delver and my opponent borrows tier 2 Soldier Stompy (sol lands/mox/cavern of souls) and drops a first turn uncounterable Thalia or Chalice set to 1 that 65% win ratio won't be doing me much good.
All of the above does not have much relevance to GPs or SCGs.
FWIW I do not think wizards will upset Legacy players by discontinuing support, especially when they are buying commander sets with each year's TNN.
Will Legacy die? Not as long as people find the format healthy. Modern is a very different format, and truth be told they will attract a crossover audience. Standard will be a midrange slugfest forever, Modern will go that way and be midrange or combo eventually as a consequence. Legacy will remain home to decks you can't play elsewhere.
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People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
I wonder if it would be possible for WotC to errata the shocklands to remove the "Pay 2 life" clause, at least for Legacy.
That would be huge.
Or, they could create a new type of dual, Legendary duals with "gain 2 life" that could make paying life for shocks less of a deal-killer. There are many things they could do to ease the burden of paying for the ABU duals. But they won't, because it won't make them money and they don't care about Legacy.
I would say that it would be nearly impossible for that to happen that is the only difference between a alpha/beta dual land and a shock land the shock part.
But yes legacy would gain a lot of popularity if that were to happen but it never will or you might as well call modern legacy with a smaller card pool.
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[center][color=Blue]
U/R Delver
Edric Spy and die
Azami the lady of the draw
Naya Zoo
Past decks
Orloro
sharuum the hegemond
Mono black control
splinter twin
December 27 was the last time was the last Legacy weekly of the 2014 year in the LGS i attend and it exploded of people. Next saturday is the first for 2015 (owner went on vacation + prereleases). Luckily the big numbers of last year will remain the same or bigger.
Around my neck of the woods, Legacy is one of the $$ makers at the LGS. There's a lot of big names who attend all the big events around the country where I play. That brings in some players who have previous experience with the format. Most of the rest have been playing Legacy for years (myself included). IMHO, Legacy is alive, but suffering from a "chronic condition". Let me explain:
Legacy is one of (if not THE) best format for diversity and cool interactions. But, it's suffering. Initial prices are huge turn-offs for aspiring cardboard-slingers. Now I'm no wolf on wall street or anything, but this inflation is most likely due to demand increasing or speculators trying to make a quick buck (most likely the former). This tidbit of information is bittersweet for our patient, Legacy. It shows that interest is there, but the segue into the format is the real problem, thus decreasing the flow of new Legacy players into the scene. So less players = less $$ flow into the market, despite interest levels being high. Legacy for a player starting at absolute zero is like window shopping. They see all the fancy cool toys and gizmos, but keep moving down the aisle when they catch a glimpse of the price tag. It's quite sad really, having to drop a couple K to buy into the Tier 1 proven decks. That's why I haven't seen a newer* Legacy player at my LGS for many many months, despite Legacy being the breadwinner format of the area.
So, in a nutshell, Legacy is alive but is undoing itself gradually due to the high initial costs of the format. Interpret my book how you will. The autograph line starts at the back . I bet at least a few of you are pounding the keyboard as to how ignorant I am on the format as a whole. That's alright, my body is ready!
*Newer in this case is meant as a player who has never seen the format before and wants to get into it, by gleaning the needed cards bit by bit, week by week.
With the recent Modern Bannings, I expect Legacy to become even more flooded with players. I know one guy at my LGS who went non-stop about birthing pod and it's deck. He had the one Modern deck, and 2 Legacy decks but never played them because of Birthing Pod. Well I can tell you know he would probally be completely hung up on Modern. Modern ruins people's fun for banning "their" cards. The reason why I quit Modern and moved to Legacy was because of Bloodbraid Elf being banned.
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Modern: U Merfolk | GR Tron | WUR Jeskai Control | WBG Abzan Company
With the recent Modern Bannings, I expect Legacy to become even more flooded with players. I know one guy at my LGS who went non-stop about birthing pod and it's deck. He had the one Modern deck, and 2 Legacy decks but never played them because of Birthing Pod. Well I can tell you know he would probally be completely hung up on Modern. Modern ruins people's fun for banning "their" cards. The reason why I quit Modern and moved to Legacy was because of Bloodbraid Elf being banned.
I put together a Pod deck as my first Modern deck after sitting out of the format for years and got one tournament in before it got banned. There are no other decks in Modern that I like. Never again.
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The parking analysis was better than the format analysis.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/legacy-type-1-5/661941-list-of-stores-that-support-legacy
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?28892-Compilation-Of-Legacy-Streams
You know, it's funny. That's what people were saying in 2007.
Just recently we had the largest Legacy GP in history.
So much for the death of Legacy.
It's more likely that 2020 Modern will have the same popularity as Vintage. Legacy has proven for years that it can thrive with grassroots support, and minimal official support; Modern has not. Modern essentially replaced Extended, and it's quite likely that WotC will one day phase Modern out in favor of the next version of Extended, which will only involve the recent frame with Holos.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/legacy-type-1-5/661941-list-of-stores-that-support-legacy
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?28892-Compilation-Of-Legacy-Streams
reserve list is a bottleneck to its health, do you think vintage is a boring or bad format? no, its a format that have a high barrier and legacy is going to fall under the same destiny.
denial all you want, but SCG is already dropping the legacy support (they are smart, doing slowly), and is not because is a bad or boring format, the problem is the F*** reserve list.
yeah modern could die, but at least it dont have the "reserve list" cancer.
i would love to see a non rotation format from invasion+.
Lordofthepit23 answers your claims very well in an article, so I'll just quote him:
To add on, I'd obviously love the Reserved List to be gone; I'd be overjoyed to have 500k (made up number) Legacy players instead of 100k (made up number). However, that 100k, is not suddenly turning into 10k. It's not like Vintage ever had numbers on this scale, and then lost them all.
As for SCG, they are not dropping Legacy support; they are reverting to the prize support they had a few years ago. The very same prize support that existed for a very healthy period in Legacy, and a period after a long period of Legacy before that. And in the not-happening scenario of SCG dropping Legacy entirely? Legacy would still have a ton of people playing it, just like people did before SCG. Because they love the format and don't require official subsidization.
To say nothing of the litany of LGS running weekly tournaments (some of which are in the link in my signature) and medium-sized big events, these are some Legacy tournaments this year not run by Wizards or SCG (not that Wizards or SCG tourneys should be discounted, as they're meeting demand as well as helping create demand) that got 200 people:
March 30, 2014. Evil 10 - Padova - Tarmogeddon 9. 205 players
April 19, 2014. Super Legacy - Arcanis 20k. 203 players
May 2, 2014. Bazaar of Moxen 9. 535 players.
August 2, 2014. Tales of Adventure Eternal Extravaganza. 266 players
September 7, 2014. Evil 1 - Padova - Tarmogeddon 10. 209 Players
October 4, 2014. Ovinogeddon 9. 476 Players
November 11, 2014. Eternal Festival Tokyo - 2014. 330 Players
One store slacks? The slack'll get picked up.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/legacy-type-1-5/661941-list-of-stores-that-support-legacy
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?28892-Compilation-Of-Legacy-Streams
Curious, did Legacy fire at Black Diamond on Nov thirty? Last I played there, there were six players
Legacy
UWR Miracles UWR
GWB Maverick GWB
GB Elves GB
UBR ANT UBR
RG Combo Lands RG
Vintage
BUG BUG Fish BUG
Modern
GBW
Junk PodMagic: the BuylistingDo you have a minute for me to talk to you about our lord and savior, Siege Rhino? If you accept him into your heart, many blessings will come your way...in standard.
Back on topic, I don't know that it's gaining popularity right now, but if the skyrocketing prices are any indication, the demand for Legacy cards has drastically increased over the last couple years. At their current rates though, it will be very difficult for most players to buy in who aren't already part of the community.
Standard: I, for one, welcome our new rhinoceros overlords
Modern: Pod's dead, Bob's back.
Legacy: Lands, Deathblade, Death and Taxes, Elves, MUD
Retired Legacy: Merfolk, Goblins, Jund, Delver, Reanimator
[center][color=Blue]
Edric Spy and die
Azami the lady of the draw
Naya Zoo
Past decks
Orloro
sharuum the hegemond
Mono black control
splinter twin
Here are the details. I'm pretty sure everyone's well-aware of the huge attendance numbers from the most recent GP Edison, as well as other successful ones in D.C. and Paris, so I haven't created graphs for those, but here's how the situation looks on the SCG circuit:
As you can see, there was pretty steady growth of Legacy from 2012 to mid-2014 in terms of player attendance, even relative to the steadily increasing numbers for Standard. The increase in Legacy Open participants halted after the Modern Premier IQs started running concurrently, since it's not surprising that these events would take away some number of players that would normally play Legacy. Here's a closer look at the events since then:
There are always going to be some players that prefer Modern to Legacy, some players that would rather play in the 10 am Modern event rather than the 9 am Legacy event, as well as some that prefer the better EV of Modern (at $30 entry for $5k in prizes, the break-even point for Modern PIQ is 167 players, which it has rarely hit, whereas at $40 entry for $10k in prizes, the break-even point for the old Legacy Opens is 250 players, which it usually met).
There were some people who speculated that the Modern PIQs would soon be better attended than the Legacy Opens, but this has not been remotely true on any single weekend. Legacy Open attendance numbers have not been increasing since SCG introduced Sunday Modern PIQs, but it hasn't been decreasing either, and it certainly hasn't been losing players to Modern yet: in fact, if anything, there was a slight downward trend in Modern PIQ numbers from the July Baltimore weekend to the December Portland one (i.e. the entire timeframe during which there was a Saturday Standard Open, a Sunday Legacy Open, and a Sunday Modern PIQ), with the first event (Baltimore) representing the highest Modern attendance (205) and the last event (Portland) representing the lowest (77). I've personally begun playing occasional Modern events myself, and while I admit that Legacy is still my favorite format by far, I can say with no bias whatsoever that Legacy has not been losing players to Modern over time, other than the sudden, one-time drop you would expect from when the Modern PIQs were introduced.
What I find most optimistic is the most recent time point in Seattle, the first one with the new format with the $20k two-day (Standard) Open and two concurrent PIQs on Sunday (Legacy and Modern). Despite there being an Invitational that weekend (which typically results in drastically more players for the Opens on that weekend), attendance numbers for the $20k Open were pretty low, well behind what SCG might have expected for a Saturday one-day Open in Seattle with half the prize support:
While many Legacy detractors would tell you that Legacy is a dying format and the SCG Open was the only reason anyone still played it, attendance numbers from Seattle would suggest otherwise. With literally the same exact support as Modern has received in the form of $5k PIQ (and despite an earlier 9 am start time), note that there were still significantly more Legacy players at the very first PIQ than there were for any Modern PIQ to date. That's not to say Modern can't grow, and it certainly can grow at a faster rate than Legacy moving forward, but even in a region where SCG has pretty much "abandoned" their support of the format, Legacy players still came out in droves.
I do find the relatively poor showing for the first $20k Standard Open vindication for a controversial prediction I made on the Source:
Not sure if this will hold up, but it would not surprise me if the eventual Legacy or Modern $20k Opens draw attendance just as strong as the Standard Opens.
Finally, I also said that attendance numbers has been strong locally, at least where I live. With the opening of the new Mox Boarding House, Seattle area now has two Legacy weeklies that frequently draw 30-40 players:
Hopefully the local scene is as awesome whereever you are!
Legacy
UWR Miracles UWR
GWB Maverick GWB
GB Elves GB
UBR ANT UBR
RG Combo Lands RG
Vintage
BUG BUG Fish BUG
Modern
GBW
Junk PodMagic: the BuylistingCurrently Playing:
Retired
First off, thanks for all the data. It's always nice to have this sort of stuff for all the detractors.
With that said, unfortunately I no longer live in an area with a vibrant Legacy community. We get enough to fire events, but not huge events like I was used to in Madison, WI (which is known as a pretty healthy MTG community).
Ironically enough, I am in Seattle for the holidays, but didn't bring my Legacy deck -_-;;. I am always nervous bringing a $2000 - $3000 deck across the country.
My Trade Thread
Current Decks:
Legacy:
GWR Punishing Maverick
UW Miracles
UR Sneak and Show
GWB Enchantress
The prizes are actually trivial, 4-2-1 packs for the first 3 places, but the entrance is quite cheap. Both the owner of the LGS and the legacy players know themselves since forever I believe (I started attending this year) so there's a lot of trust in lending cards, even duals, so the meta is quite diverse. I've seen even Storm decks with Grim Tutors to 12-post with Candelabras, to Imperial Painter, to classical decks like Elves or BUG Delver.
Also, a lot of Legacy players go to play fútbol together afterwards, so overall you get a nice ambient.
It's truly much more of a social event than actually competitive (although the decks are)
A willing population with a couple of people owning multiple decks/big collections is all you need to get double figures. People will travel a bit for small Legacy events.
I asked on the ban thread if there is a difference between Europe and the US, the responses I got said yes, there were. People indicated that in the US it was more blue, in Europe people were more interested in playing their Legacy deck.
UR delver may win 65% (made up number) of its matches. Pox (one of my adopted decks) may win 40% (made up number again). Over a 4/5 round event for a few packs it won't make much difference when you take into account meta variations. If I choose to play UR delver and my opponent borrows tier 2 Soldier Stompy (sol lands/mox/cavern of souls) and drops a first turn uncounterable Thalia or Chalice set to 1 that 65% win ratio won't be doing me much good.
All of the above does not have much relevance to GPs or SCGs.
FWIW I do not think wizards will upset Legacy players by discontinuing support, especially when they are buying commander sets with each year's TNN.
Will Legacy die? Not as long as people find the format healthy. Modern is a very different format, and truth be told they will attract a crossover audience. Standard will be a midrange slugfest forever, Modern will go that way and be midrange or combo eventually as a consequence. Legacy will remain home to decks you can't play elsewhere.
That would be huge.
Or, they could create a new type of dual, Legendary duals with "gain 2 life" that could make paying life for shocks less of a deal-killer. There are many things they could do to ease the burden of paying for the ABU duals. But they won't, because it won't make them money and they don't care about Legacy.
But yes legacy would gain a lot of popularity if that were to happen but it never will or you might as well call modern legacy with a smaller card pool.
[center][color=Blue]
Edric Spy and die
Azami the lady of the draw
Naya Zoo
Past decks
Orloro
sharuum the hegemond
Mono black control
splinter twin
Legacy changes because of new innovations.
Modern changes because of banlists.
Legacy is one of (if not THE) best format for diversity and cool interactions. But, it's suffering. Initial prices are huge turn-offs for aspiring cardboard-slingers. Now I'm no wolf on wall street or anything, but this inflation is most likely due to demand increasing or speculators trying to make a quick buck (most likely the former). This tidbit of information is bittersweet for our patient, Legacy. It shows that interest is there, but the segue into the format is the real problem, thus decreasing the flow of new Legacy players into the scene. So less players = less $$ flow into the market, despite interest levels being high. Legacy for a player starting at absolute zero is like window shopping. They see all the fancy cool toys and gizmos, but keep moving down the aisle when they catch a glimpse of the price tag. It's quite sad really, having to drop a couple K to buy into the Tier 1 proven decks. That's why I haven't seen a newer* Legacy player at my LGS for many many months, despite Legacy being the breadwinner format of the area.
So, in a nutshell, Legacy is alive but is undoing itself gradually due to the high initial costs of the format. Interpret my book how you will. The autograph line starts at the back . I bet at least a few of you are pounding the keyboard as to how ignorant I am on the format as a whole. That's alright, my body is ready!
*Newer in this case is meant as a player who has never seen the format before and wants to get into it, by gleaning the needed cards bit by bit, week by week.
BG Spanish Inquisition BG
RG Belcher RG
Modern
UBRG Necrotic Ooze ComboUBRG
Standard
Ha Ha!
Pauper
B Suicide B
EDH
UG Momir Vig, Simic Visionary UG
Casual
BURW Tokens BURW
UR Grand Affinity UR
Tiny Leaders
W Rune-Tail Soul Sisters W
U Merfolk | GR Tron | WUR Jeskai Control | WBG Abzan Company
EDH:
G Ezuri, Renegade Leader, Fighting for Rivendell
WU Brago, King Eternal, Long Live the King
WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon, Worship the Dragon
I put together a Pod deck as my first Modern deck after sitting out of the format for years and got one tournament in before it got banned. There are no other decks in Modern that I like. Never again.
Legacy
UWR Miracles UWR
GWB Maverick GWB
GB Elves GB
UBR ANT UBR
RG Combo Lands RG
Vintage
BUG BUG Fish BUG
Modern
GBW
Junk PodMagic: the Buylisting