I'd like to discuss the future of the direction of Magic. I'm doing this in the Legacy forum since this is my primary format and the format that I feel best encompasses what I feel "Magic: The Gathering" to be.
I have been a MTG player since 1994. I've collected cards heavily and slowly over time, played competitively and casually and generally had a good time with what has been a great game for over 20 years. However, I've noticed a distinct trend over the last several standard expansions, since the "New World Order" went into effect: Magic is now a game almost entirely about creatures and removal. While that is an over-simplification of the issue, I feel like every new set that's been spoiled since Return to Ravnica has offered very little in playable cards for Legacy. That isn't my only concern, the cards that are playable aren't powerful spell effects, they are powerful creatures and spells that support them. I find this style of play incredibly boring and uninteresting. It doesn't seem like "Magic", at least not the Magic I started playing in 1994.
I haven't had the urge to play Standard in a VERY long time. I really don't buy sealed product because none of it is appealing at all. I used to buy at least a fatpack of the sets I thought looked cool and offered some decent cards for Legacy, but I haven't bought one since Return to Ravnica and I don't forsee myself buying another any time soon.
What is my value to Wizards of the Coast as a long-time player and someone who has invested heavily into the game over so many years? I truthfully don't know. WotC seems to be dropping support for eternal formats in every aspect. Tournaments, cards, promos, pre-cons and everything else is now so focused on "creatures and removal" and the "Standard" player of Magic that older players like me seem like an afterthought.
I guess I don't want to sound like another "Magic is dying" alarmist, but I wanted to say something about my disappointment with how things have been going the last few years. I'm not spending my money on this game anymore and maybe that's a good thing, but WotC has lost a long-time customer. I feel that trend will continue.
I'd like to discuss the future of the direction of Magic. I'm doing this in the Legacy forum since this is my primary format and the format that I feel best encompasses what I feel "Magic: The Gathering" to be.
I have been a MTG player since 1994. I've collected cards heavily and slowly over time, played competitively and casually and generally had a good time with what has been a great game for over 20 years. However, I've noticed a distinct trend over the last several standard expansions, since the "New World Order" went into effect: Magic is now a game almost entirely about creatures and removal. While that is an over-simplification of the issue, I feel like every new set that's been spoiled since Return to Ravnica has offered very little in playable cards for Legacy. That isn't my only concern, the cards that are playable aren't powerful spell effects, they are powerful creatures and spells that support them. I find this style of play incredibly boring and uninteresting. It doesn't seem like "Magic", at least not the Magic I started playing in 1994.
I haven't had the urge to play Standard in a VERY long time. I really don't buy sealed product because none of it is appealing at all. I used to buy at least a fatpack of the sets I thought looked cool and offered some decent cards for Legacy, but I haven't bought one since Return to Ravnica and I don't forsee myself buying another any time soon.
What is my value to Wizards of the Coast as a long-time player and someone who has invested heavily into the game over so many years? I truthfully don't know. WotC seems to be dropping support for eternal formats in every aspect. Tournaments, cards, promos, pre-cons and everything else is now so focused on "creatures and removal" and the "Standard" player of Magic that older players like me seem like an afterthought.
Unfortunately, your value to WotC as a long-time player is zero. I don't say that to be disrespectful, but it's the truth.
For the most part, WotC makes all of its money by selling packs. They aren't in the market of selling singles (although with preconstructed decks and special sets like Modern Masters, this may someday become debatable). This means that eternal players who are invested enough to not buy much sealed product aren't actually supporting WotC.
Although you feel like a longtime customer, you're not in their target market. In fact, based on your particular spending habits, you're probably not in their market at all. (Again, not meant to be disrespectful, but it's still the truth.)
WotC is a business. For better or worse, they operate like a business. Their primary goal isn't to provide an optimal play environment for the players; their primary goal is to provide an optimal play environment for them to make money. On the surface, it may not seem like these two things conflict, but they do, and especially so when it comes to Legacy.
From WotC's perspective, there are several problems with Legacy. In no particular order:
1) The reserved list. Because the reserved list continues to be honored, WotC can't sell the necessary reprints to make any money off of the Legacy market. Periodically, they introduce Legacy cards in Commanderproducts, but they can't reprint the dual lands, which are necessary to the format. At best, they could print "better" versions of already existing cards, but the power level in Legacy would get that much farther out of hand, and there would still be a play advantage for those people who own the originals (for example, if you made a non-funtional reprint of The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, many decks would run one of both, which is preferable to running two of the functional reprint).
The point is that WotC can't easily make money off of the Legacy market, and the reserved list is a big part of why that's the case. But as a business, WotC doesn't have incentive to endorse Legacy by providing tournament support for the format.
2) The color imbalance. Blue is the support color in Legacy. There isn't a second option. The interaction between Brainstorm, Ponder, and the fetchlands is too powerful to ignore, and so a disproportionate number of decks run those cards. And because you're already in blue, and the combo decks in Legacy are so fast, you throw in the two bestcounterspells in the format, because it's not too far out of your way. To be fair, those cards don't dictate the design of your deck; you can throw them in tempo decks (BUG Delver), control decks (Miracles), and combo decks (Ad Nauseum). However, historically speaking, WotC has had trouble balancing the power level of blue cards, and unless WotC uses the ban list to change what is legal in Legacy, WotC is stuck with that power imbalance.
The point is that WotC doesn't like the color imbalance in Legacy, and supporting the format means perpetuating that color imbalance. They would rather fix their (early) mistakes than have to live with them forever, and so they have reason to move away from Legacy.
3) The "unfun" decks. Many of Legacy's hallmark strategies (including strong control decks and fast combo decks), are considered "unfun" by WotC market research. For the most part, no one wants to sit across from Belcher on the draw, and lose because they didn't have a Force of Will in hand. The concept of "bad matchups" is something that Legacy players get used to. In some sense, Legacy players take pride in having bad matchups, because it shows just how diverse the format really is. However, it's still disheartening to newer players, who feel like they never stood a chance in the game.
The point is that WotC doesn't want to endorse a format with problematic decks, because those decks limit how much the format can grow. Endorsing Legacy would only alienate those players who can't have a good time playing against Stasis (which is actually a large number of people).
In order for WotC to overcome all of these problems, WotC needed a few things. WotC needed:
1) A format not held back by the reserved list. This way, WotC can continue to make money off of the non-rotating constructed market, and make sure that the cards are more accessible to everyone that wants to play.
2) A format where WotC can control the metagame. WotC only has two tools at their disposal to do this: they can either use the ban list, or they can print new cards. Controlling the metagame means that colors won't become unbalanced over time, and that "unfun" strategies won't be a threat to the growth of the format.
Enter Modern.
Modern is the format that aims to "solve" all of things that WotC doesn't like about Legacy:
1) WotC can reprint the necessary staples, which makes them more money.
2) WotC doesn't have to feel badly about providing tournament support, because cards shouldn't be too scarce or expensive for players to acquire.
3) WotC can easily control the color balance, because their early imbalance issues don't have to haunt them forever.
4) WotC can control the metagame by placing "unfun" cards on the ban list, and by not printing any cards beyond a Modern-appropriate power level.
5) WotC can let its market research drive the format. Because WotC can control the metagame, they can appeal to what players think is fun, which increased their sealed product sales.
As a business decision, WotC made the right move by creating Modern instead of supporting Legacy. Modern is the future of non-rotating, constructed Magic.
As a huge fan of Legacy, I find that disappointing, but I can respect their decision. Many of the things that I appreciate about Legacy, are the same things that newer players don't like.
Again, WotC is a business, and New World Order design philosophies have opened them up to bigger markets. The value of your typical Legacy-only player to the WotC business model is, in fact, zero. I would try to look on the bright side: Magic is growing. It's becoming less taboo, and WotC's business decisions are ensuring the future of Magic for a long time to come. It may not be the type of Magic that you and I are used to, but in some sense, more players in any given format is better for every single format.
I guess I don't want to sound like another "Magic is dying" alarmist, but I wanted to say something about my disappointment with how things have been going the last few years. I'm not spending my money on this game anymore and maybe that's a good thing, but WotC has lost a long-time customer. I feel that trend will continue.
For the most part, Legacy is supported by Magic purists. As long as there are cards in existence and people that enjoy the game, Legacy will never die.
However, I understand your disappointment. WotC is intentionally pushing "spells with legs" and combat interaction, because players don't like feeling as though they never stood a chance in any given game. WotC is trying to build a format that essentially requires players to interact with each other (and they're only having mixed success). A lot of potential design space has gone unused in recent years, and it's a little painful to watch that design space go to waste.
My advice is to realize that Modern is only four years old, and that WotC is still trying to work out the kinks. There is no guarantee that the old strategies will make a comeback, but I would be surprised if, over time, the archetype and deck diversity in Modern didn't improve. That isn't necessarily something that's going to help you now, but it's better than nothing.
I can't tell you how to spend your money (and whether or not to remain a WotC customer), but I can tell you that Legacy was holding Magic back from larger mainstream success. Again, as a Legacy player, I find that very disappointing, but the numbers just don't lie. It isn't because Modern is "preferable" to Legacy; it's because Modern is a non-rotating format with reprinted staples, tournament support, and it appeals to newer players.
Not surprisingly, I'm going to encourage you to stick with Magic. Keep playing Legacy. Keep supporting your local gaming community. And try your hardest to understand that good business decisions for WotC, are good for Magic as a whole. That's not always an easy thing to do, but as long as WotC is healthy, Magic will continue to have a future.
Playing millions of cards every turn... Slowly and systematically obliterating any chance my opponent has of winning... Clicking the multitude of locking mechanisms into place... Not even trying to win myself until turn 10+ once I have nigh absolute control... Watching my opponent desperately trying to navigate the labyrinthine prison that I've constructed... Seeing the light of hope fade and ultimately extinguished in an excruciatingly slow manner... THAT'S fun Magic.
We have 2-3 users that are dramatically making this thread incomprehensible and non-productive for anyone else to possibly join in the discussion. This needs to change.
Every time I see [ktkenshinx] post in here, I get the impression of a stern dad walking in on a bunch of kids trying to do something dumb and just shaking his head in disappointment.
Near Mint: The same as Slightly Played, but we threw some Altoids in the box we stored it in to cover up the scent of dead mice. Slightly Played: The base condition for all MTG cards. This card looks OK, but there’s one minor annoying ding in it that will always irritate and distract you whenever you draw it. Moderately Played: This card looks like it survived the Tet Offensive tucked inside the waistband of GI underwear. It may smell like it, too. Heavily Played: This card looks like the remains of Mohammed Atta’s passport after 9/11. It may be playable if you double-sleeve it to stop the chunks from falling out. The condition formerly known as "Washing Machine Grade" Damaged: This card is the unfortunate victim of a Mirrorweave/March of the Machines/Chaos Confetti/Mindslaver combo.
[M]aking counterfeit cards is the absolute height of dishonesty. Ask yourself this question: Since most people...are totally cool with the use of proxies...what purpose do [high] quality counterfeit cards serve?
I would argue that you don't have to buy packs to support WotC. Attending tournaments at an LGS supports WotC while not directly does so indirectly as typically stores holding tournaments means multiple things namely they're in business and selling items/staying in business. If LGS's did not exist WotC would be in a heap of trouble if their only way of turning a profit was by selling packs to walmart and other big box stores. Not to mention the GP/PT scene would be desolate as all of those are hosted by LGS's like Cascade Games, Channel Fireball, StarCityGames, Legion Events, etc. etc.
I agree completely with the notion that sets printed like dragons of tarkir and theros are abysmal design wise in that they really do just care about creatures and removal. Not to mention removal is being toned down significantly like 3BB: Destroy target creature isn't THAT odd to see regularly but in terms of efficient removal? How about no. I'm not going to get started on countermagic, land destruction, or combo cards.
Long term customers have lots of value. I've given WotC thousands over the years. I would give them thousands more if they printed sets like time spiral, original ravnica, odyssey, etc. etc. so yes I do matter to them. Right now they're making very little off of me when they could be making much, much more. The notion that the past does not matter is ridiculous as the amount of knowledge that can be gained from the past is vast in terms of what can be done to increase profit margins for WotC. Ignoring it completely is a colossal mistake that could ultimately spell the end of the game as a whole, something that would be downright catastrophic for WotC and by extension Hasbro as Hasbro really, really needs MTG to continue to do well to continue turning a profit each year/quarter.
Modern certainly isn't getting any better. The restrictions they have imposed on the format with the cardpool available are too great. I wouldn't be remotely surprised to see modern dead in 10 years with some new format to replace it. And honestly WotC doesn't care THAT much about modern as in comparison to standard and limited the revenue is a joke. They simply have it there so as to have a third format and that's just what is is, number three in terms of importance to them with limited being number 1 and standard number 2. Legacy doesn't matter to them hell I would argue that legacy is as important to them as vintage and we all know how much they care about vintage.
WotC can easily do number 2 for legacy in your list of problems with legacy Charon. I would point to green sun's zenith as a way to alter the landscape of legacy without making it more blue as GSZ in blue decks is pretty poor. They could design more cards for legacy that are good outside blue strategies by thinking outside of the box as that is their job as card designers. It's only the reserved list that is holding legacy back.
'Bad matchup' is a universal magic term for every format not just legacy. Never stood a chance? There are standard and modern decks just like that where there's some 90-10 matchups that are basically unwinnable for deck B in regards to how it stacks up against deck A.
Color imbalance is inevitable regardless of format not just legacy. Is standard 20% blue, 20% red, 20% black, 20% white, and 20% green? No sir. Neither is modern. No format in the history of the game has been like that. But that's okay because it is nigh mathematically impossible to make a format like that in the time WotC is given to design sets hell even if WotC spent 10 years to try to make a standard environment like the one I just proposed I doubt they could ever pull it off for a multitude of reasons.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Yawgmoth," Freyalise whispered as she set the bomb, "now you will pay for your treachery."
I would argue that you don't have to buy packs to support WotC. Attending tournaments at an LGS supports WotC while not directly does so indirectly as typically stores holding tournaments means multiple things namely they're in business and selling items/staying in business. If LGS's did not exist WotC would be in a heap of trouble if their only way of turning a profit was by selling packs to walmart and other big box stores. Not to mention the GP/PT scene would be desolate as all of those are hosted by LGS's like Cascade Games, Channel Fireball, StarCityGames, Legion Events, etc. etc.
I agree with you, although Legacy isn't accessible enough as a format (due to the price and scarcity of staples) for it to be the preferred option for LGS tournaments. It will vary from store to store, but why would any store host a Legacy tournament, when it could be making more money by hosting Standard and Modern tournaments?
In general though, I agree with the idea that participating in tournaments at a LGS helps support WotC, although I think that help ultimately manifests itself in the form of additional sealed product sales.
Long term customers have lots of value. I've given WotC thousands over the years. I would give them thousands more if they printed sets like time spiral, original ravnica, odyssey, etc. etc. so yes I do matter to them. Right now they're making very little off of me when they could be making much, much more.
In principle, the only thing that matters to a business is the average amount of money that a customer gives to the business over the "lifetime" of the customer (customer lifetime is often much shorter than an actual lifetime, because businesses need profits sooner, rather than later). In essence, total profit = number of customers * profit per customer.
In practice, this is much more complicated, for the reason that you point out. Dedicated customers, although small in number, skew the average profit significantly. By far, repeat customers are the most important part of sustaining profits in most industries.
For WotC, this becomes a cost-benefit analysis: how much money they can potentially make by catering to a new market (which increases the number of customers, who presumably spend less money on average than dedicated ones) versus how much money they stand to lose by eliminating their currently dedicated customers from their target market (this decreases the amount of money that dedicated customers spend).
There would be two BIG reasons to prefer a newer, larger market to WotC's current set of dedicated customers. First, by increasing the number of new customers, WotC potentially creates more dedicated customers in the long run. Those customers have a different set of player (and purchasing) preferences, but there is no reason to believe that the new Modern players of today will spend any less money in the future than the Legacy players do now. And second, dedicated customers tend to just like playing Magic. The risk of monetary loss doesn't encompass all Legacy players, because many Legacy players will still play Modern. The only customers that WotC is missing, are those customers who won't play any other format than Legacy, and if you're in that position to begin with, you're probably not contributing that much money to WotC's bottom line in the first place.
The notion that the past does not matter is ridiculous as the amount of knowledge that can be gained from the past is vast in terms of what can be done to increase profit margins for WotC. Ignoring it completely is a colossal mistake that could ultimately spell the end of the game as a whole, something that would be downright catastrophic for WotC and by extension Hasbro as Hasbro really, really needs MTG to continue to do well to continue turning a profit each year/quarter.
I'm not sure what I said that made you think I meant to imply that the "past does not matter", but the past matters. Specifically, it's taught WotC what not to do. With Modern, it's pretty clear that they won't repeat the color balance issues that Legacy has (for example, Ponder and Preordain are banned), and it's also clear that "unfun" strategies won't receive support (for example, traditional control strategies in Modern are non-existent, and the noncreature combo decks are powered down).
Unless changes are made to the reserved list policy and WotC's market research starts yielding more support for the Legacy format, WotC will never be able to make as much money off of Legacy as it does off of Modern.
Modern certainly isn't getting any better. The restrictions they have imposed on the format with the cardpool available are too great. I wouldn't be remotely surprised to see modern dead in 10 years with some new format to replace it. And honestly WotC doesn't care THAT much about modern as in comparison to standard and limited the revenue is a joke. They simply have it there so as to have a third format and that's just what is is, number three in terms of importance to them with limited being number 1 and standard number 2.
I agree with this assessment, except that Modern is a non-rotating format that WotC can actually profit from, unlike Legacy. The $10 MSRP for MM2015 packs should be telling enough. It may not make as much money as Standard or Limited, but it's certainly more than the very little money that WotC makes off of Legacy or Vintage.
WotC can easily do number 2 for legacy in your list of problems with legacy Charon. I would point to green sun's zenith as a way to alter the landscape of legacy without making it more blue as GSZ in blue decks is pretty poor. They could design more cards for legacy that are good outside blue strategies by thinking outside of the box as that is their job as card designers.
I agree with this too, although there is certain design space that WotC just doesn't like to use. For example, nonblue stack interactions. Like Legacy, Modern also has offcolorcounterspells. But for better or worse, WotC doesn't like doing this sort of thing.
So I agree with you, but short of criticizing WotC employees for having trouble doing their jobs as card designers, I'm not sure what to say.
'Bad matchup' is a universal magic term for every format not just legacy. Never stood a chance? There are standard and modern decks just like that where there's some 90-10 matchups that are basically unwinnable for deck B in regards to how it stacks up against deck A.
Every format has bad matchups, including Modern. However, the bad matchups in Modern are much more winnable than they are in Legacy. If I'm playing Legacy Lands and my opponent is playing Storm combo, I'm probably going to lose. But in Modern, even the Storm decks take 4 turns to go off (or 3, occasionally). Everybody is playing by the same (arbitrarily imposed) clock.
Color imbalance is inevitable regardless of format not just legacy. Is standard 20% blue, 20% red, 20% black, 20% white, and 20% green? No sir. Neither is modern. No format in the history of the game has been like that. But that's okay because it is nigh mathematically impossible to make a format like that in the time WotC is given to design sets hell even if WotC spent 10 years to try to make a standard environment like the one I just proposed I doubt they could ever pull it off for a multitude of reasons.
I didn't mean to imply that Modern has totally fixed the color balance issues. It will never be 20% in each of the five colors. However, it's easy to see that Modern is less dependent on a single color than Legacy is. According to MTG Goldfish, Brainstorm appears as a 4-of in 80% of decks in Legacy. Even if you want to disagree with their methodology for calculating the metagame, it's pretty clear that Modern doesn't have a similar problem.
Playing millions of cards every turn... Slowly and systematically obliterating any chance my opponent has of winning... Clicking the multitude of locking mechanisms into place... Not even trying to win myself until turn 10+ once I have nigh absolute control... Watching my opponent desperately trying to navigate the labyrinthine prison that I've constructed... Seeing the light of hope fade and ultimately extinguished in an excruciatingly slow manner... THAT'S fun Magic.
We have 2-3 users that are dramatically making this thread incomprehensible and non-productive for anyone else to possibly join in the discussion. This needs to change.
Every time I see [ktkenshinx] post in here, I get the impression of a stern dad walking in on a bunch of kids trying to do something dumb and just shaking his head in disappointment.
Near Mint: The same as Slightly Played, but we threw some Altoids in the box we stored it in to cover up the scent of dead mice. Slightly Played: The base condition for all MTG cards. This card looks OK, but there’s one minor annoying ding in it that will always irritate and distract you whenever you draw it. Moderately Played: This card looks like it survived the Tet Offensive tucked inside the waistband of GI underwear. It may smell like it, too. Heavily Played: This card looks like the remains of Mohammed Atta’s passport after 9/11. It may be playable if you double-sleeve it to stop the chunks from falling out. The condition formerly known as "Washing Machine Grade" Damaged: This card is the unfortunate victim of a Mirrorweave/March of the Machines/Chaos Confetti/Mindslaver combo.
[M]aking counterfeit cards is the absolute height of dishonesty. Ask yourself this question: Since most people...are totally cool with the use of proxies...what purpose do [high] quality counterfeit cards serve?
I disagree that bad matchups in modern are winnable. Modern sideboard cards are far too effective in what they accomplish. Stony silence, blood moon, canonist, etc. etc. if you resolve some of those cards against a certain deck the deck folds to it. There's a reason pro's hate modern as a format. It has some gigantic issues in fact I would argue the issues with modern are far more pronounced than the issues with legacy despite the fact that we have 2U put griselbrand into play, black lotus as a 4 of, entomb, etc. etc. the issues with modern rival if not outnumber the issues with legacy reserved list aside.
I meant the tournament/LGS support as eventual WotC product sales. Product sales make everyone happy as the LGS continues to turn a profit as does WotC and Timmy gets some random cards out of the deal.
WotC can profit off legacy. If a set has thoughtseize, vendilion clique, tarmogoyf, and other such chase rares that legacy players want legacy players can and do purchase product. Return to ravnica for example. Lots of legacy playables in there. I know I bought a lot of RTR product personally same with innistrad. Then there are the dragons mazes, theros, and other crappy eternal sets that mean squat to me. Then KTK came along. I bought multiple boxes of product for fetches alone but the other playable cards certainly helped that like swiftspear and dig through time.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Yawgmoth," Freyalise whispered as she set the bomb, "now you will pay for your treachery."
I disagree that bad matchups in modern are winnable. Modern sideboard cards are far too effective in what they accomplish. Stony silence, blood moon, canonist, etc. etc. if you resolve some of those cards against a certain deck the deck folds to it.
If I'm playing Legacy Lands, and someone resolves a Blood Moon against me, I'm still probably going to lose.
It isn't that the sideboard cards are more effective in Modern, it's that you have up to four turns to use them. So I agree with what you're suggesting, the sideboard cards are more relevant in Modern, but it's because you have more time to play them.
EDIT: it's also because your sideboard cards can't be stopped by a Force of Will
WotC can profit off legacy. If a set has thoughtseize, vendilion clique, tarmogoyf, and other such chase rares that legacy players want legacy players can and do purchase product. Return to ravnica for example. Lots of legacy playables in there. I know I bought a lot of RTR product personally same with innistrad. Then there are the dragons mazes, theros, and other crappy eternal sets that mean squat to me. Then KTK came along. I bought multiple boxes of product for fetches alone but the other playable cards certainly helped that like swiftspear and dig through time.
I agree with this assessment, except that Modern is a non-rotating format that WotC can actually profit from, unlike Legacy. The $10 MSRP for MM2015 packs should be telling enough. It may not make as much money as Standard or Limited, but it's certainly more than the very little money that WotC makes off of Legacy or Vintage.
was really poorly phrased. You're right. WotC can profit off of Legacy and Vintage.
But WotC can't profit as much off of Legacy and Vintage as they can off of Modern. The reserved list prevents people from entering Legacy and Vintage in the first place, so the number of players interested in purchasing a "Legacy Masters" set is limited. If WotC's stance on the reserved list ever changed, things might be different.
Playing millions of cards every turn... Slowly and systematically obliterating any chance my opponent has of winning... Clicking the multitude of locking mechanisms into place... Not even trying to win myself until turn 10+ once I have nigh absolute control... Watching my opponent desperately trying to navigate the labyrinthine prison that I've constructed... Seeing the light of hope fade and ultimately extinguished in an excruciatingly slow manner... THAT'S fun Magic.
We have 2-3 users that are dramatically making this thread incomprehensible and non-productive for anyone else to possibly join in the discussion. This needs to change.
Every time I see [ktkenshinx] post in here, I get the impression of a stern dad walking in on a bunch of kids trying to do something dumb and just shaking his head in disappointment.
Near Mint: The same as Slightly Played, but we threw some Altoids in the box we stored it in to cover up the scent of dead mice. Slightly Played: The base condition for all MTG cards. This card looks OK, but there’s one minor annoying ding in it that will always irritate and distract you whenever you draw it. Moderately Played: This card looks like it survived the Tet Offensive tucked inside the waistband of GI underwear. It may smell like it, too. Heavily Played: This card looks like the remains of Mohammed Atta’s passport after 9/11. It may be playable if you double-sleeve it to stop the chunks from falling out. The condition formerly known as "Washing Machine Grade" Damaged: This card is the unfortunate victim of a Mirrorweave/March of the Machines/Chaos Confetti/Mindslaver combo.
[M]aking counterfeit cards is the absolute height of dishonesty. Ask yourself this question: Since most people...are totally cool with the use of proxies...what purpose do [high] quality counterfeit cards serve?
Great points! Thanks for your articulated responses.
Let me emphasize something again: I was previously buying standard cards and playing in standard events while I found the card design appealing. That hasn't been the case since Time Spiral. These are all post-reserved list sets. I find that the WotC philosophy on set design that says Magic has to be different from sets from that era to be dissappointing and the reason I'm not buying sealed product anymore.
I think everything you've said as your reasons why are likely true, but I think WotC is making a mistake. They COULD be earning my long-time customer dollars but they've decided it's not in their best interest.
Unfortunately, your value to WotC as a long-time player is zero. I don't say that to be disrespectful, but it's the truth.
For the most part, WotC makes all of its money by selling packs. They aren't in the market of selling singles (although with preconstructed decks and special sets like Modern Masters, this may someday become debatable). This means that eternal players who are invested enough to not buy much sealed product aren't actually supporting WotC.
This is false. They do make money with precons and I'm pretty sure they turn a profit from GPs and stuff like that. Eternal players do pay for sealed precons like commander products or planechase so they can get the 1 uncommon 40$ card (shardless agent, baleful strix). WotC knows, and does it on purpose. Receently there was conspiracy which is a new foray into such territories.
Although you feel like a longtime customer, you're not in their target market. In fact, based on your particular spending habits, you're probably not in their market at all. (Again, not meant to be disrespectful, but it's still the truth.)
WotC is a business. For better or worse, they operate like a business. Their primary goal isn't to provide an optimal play environment for the players; their primary goal is to provide an optimal play environment for them to make money. On the surface, it may not seem like these two things conflict, but they do, and especially so when it comes to Legacy.
I hear this argument all the time and people still seem to buy it but it's just rubbish.
People want to play legacy, people want to buy old cards, people would pay 20$ or more for a pack of legacy masters. WotC is a business and can make profit from whatever the hell format they want. For some reason, they are extremely careful with legacy, this doesn't mean it's because they think it's not profitable.
From WotC's perspective, there are several problems with Legacy. In no particular order:
1) The reserved list. Because the reserved list continues to be honored, WotC can't sell the necessary reprints to make any money off of the Legacy market.
But they do. They have been doing so with magic online for a while now. Think about it, think about what it means in a business perspective.
The point is that WotC can't easily make money off of the Legacy market, and the reserved list is a big part of why that's the case. But as a business, WotC doesn't have incentive to endorse Legacy by providing tournament support for the format.
False. Once again, they do so, online.
2) The color imbalance. Blue is the support color in Legacy. There isn't a second option. The interaction between Brainstorm, Ponder, and the fetchlands is too powerful to ignore, and so a disproportionate number of decks run those cards. And because you're already in blue, and the combo decks in Legacy are so fast, you throw in the two bestcounterspells in the format, because it's not too far out of your way. To be fair, those cards don't dictate the design of your deck; you can throw them in tempo decks (BUG Delver), control decks (Miracles), and combo decks (Ad Nauseum). However, historically speaking, WotC has had trouble balancing the power level of blue cards, and unless WotC uses the ban list to change what is legal in Legacy, WotC is stuck with that power imbalance.
The point is that WotC doesn't like the color imbalance in Legacy, and supporting the format means perpetuating that color imbalance. They would rather fix their (early) mistakes than have to live with them forever, and so they have reason to move away from Legacy.
I don't see this as a dealbreaker. Yes, blue is stronger than other colors, but legacy is still playable, fun and diverse. Nothing prevents them from printing new stronger stuff in other colors anyway.
3) The "unfun" decks. Many of Legacy's hallmark strategies (including strong control decks and fast combo decks), are considered "unfun" by WotC market research. For the most part, no one wants to sit across from Belcher on the draw, and lose because they didn't have a Force of Will in hand. The concept of "bad matchups" is something that Legacy players get used to. In some sense, Legacy players take pride in having bad matchups, because it shows just how diverse the format really is. However, it's still disheartening to newer players, who feel like they never stood a chance in the game.
The point is that WotC doesn't want to endorse a format with problematic decks, because those decks limit how much the format can grow. Endorsing Legacy would only alienate those players who can't have a good time playing against Stasis (which is actually a large number of people).
Fun is a relative concept. The guy playing belcher sure has fun. And the market research thing is a bunch of made up stuff, I could do my own market research and make it say the very opposite...Anyway, go play modern affinity and face a T2 stony silence, you'll see that very narrow hate cards are as unfun as fast combo.
Great points! Thanks for your articulated responses.
Let me emphasize something again: I was previously buying standard cards and playing in standard events while I found the card design appealing. That hasn't been the case and has increasingly been the case since Time Spiral. These are all post-reserved list sets. I find that the WotC philosophy on set design that says Magic has to be different from sets from that era to be dissappointing and the reason I'm not buying sealed product anymore.
I think everything you've said as your reasons why are likely true, but I think WotC is making a mistake. They COULD be earning my long-time customer dollars but they've decided it's not in their best interest.
As much as I agree with the sentiment in your post, the bolded part is something I often see people say in a variety of settings and is rarely true. Yes it would be ideal if WotC appealed to both eternal format players and the masses of standard players, but in terms of actual financial interests there just isn't much of one. They make far more money off of the rotating, play it for a year or so then drop it, group then they do off long-term players. We really aren't the target market and it doesn't make sense for them to try to make us the target market.
As much as I agree with the sentiment in your post, the bolded part is something I often see people say in a variety of settings and is rarely true. Yes it would be ideal if WotC appealed to both eternal format players and the masses of standard players, but in terms of actual financial interests there just isn't much of one. They make far more money off of the rotating, play it for a year or so then drop it, group then they do off long-term players. We really aren't the target market and it doesn't make sense for them to try to make us the target market.
I'm tired of seeing this reply all the time. There is ample proof that there's money to be made, that there is demand, that this is what players want.
Just look at the story of commander. WotC embraced a fan made format and made tons of money off it. A format that is eternal and that was essentially custom made for long-term players. And people are happy for it. Same could happen to legacy and vintage and it will, in time. Just very, very slowly...
I'm not sure I'd be quite this pessimistic - the last three blocks have all had reasons to be creature-centric; it's not clear that this will necessarily be the case indefinitely. And surely the single most important addition to Legacy from any of these blocks wasn't a creature at all, although it was a card most useful against creatures?
Ravnica as a setting favours creatures, because there isn't an even split between control-based two-colour combinations (UB, UW, UR) and creature-focused ones (all the rest).
An enchantment block doesn't have to be creature-based, but it is obviously going to be based around permanents and auras are a big subset of enchantments. Making an enchantment block without a heavy commitment to creature support is pretty difficult, and the route they ended up taking ended up with a block more creature-heavy than either RtR or Khans/Dragons; every major mechanic in the set either directly relied on creatures (bestow, heroic, strive) or would be hard to execute without them (constellation, devotion).
Tarkir was - before wedges, dragons, allied colours or anything else - built around its draft structure, and so all sets had to be geared towards Limited play where creatures are king. Despite that, I think it gives the lie to the idea that there's a straight progression through time towards more creature-based sets as many of its strongest cards are noncreature spells and there are even a few creature-light decks currently in Standard, including a top-performing BUG control deck that runs no maindeck creatures.
From looking at the latest set, the only creature I can imagine having any place in Legacy is Dragonlord Atarka and then only in a reanimator shell, while there are two or three others that may make the cut. Although one functions as a creature and another is a creature support spell, this should be seen in the context of what is explicitly a dragon theme set, so creatures are obviously going to be a major focus.
I got back into Magic recently after an absence of several years, and most of my Legacy-era cards are of no value in the format because they and the strategies they support have been superseded by an influx of Modern-era cards, relatively few of which are creatures and many of which are basic utility cantrips and the like. From that perspective I don't really see Legacy becoming creature-dominated or having a lower influx of strong noncreature cards, but Wizards has an explicit long-term goal to bring creatures and spells into line power level-wise, and their ideal for Legacy would probably be a format roughly evenly divided between creature and non-creature decks.
At this point I think they're starting to overcompensate, with creatures about where they should be for long-term playability and spells still getting weaker, when they should be at the same level or a bit stronger. Much of the blame for the latter, I think, rests with Modern, since with the introduction of that format Wizards is more reluctant to print spells at a Legacy power level than it was when only a rotating Standard format needed to be considered.
Unfortunately, Modern is a cross between combo hell and the worse excesses of creature-heavy Standard, and Wizards deliberately curtails tools that improve deck consistency - which as well as making for games that are simply too random to be fun, hits control decks hard. If Modern decks want ever more powerful creatures and ever weaker consistency tools, chances are that's going to characterise the majority of what gets printed since Wizards is now actively courting the Modern playerbase with its Masters products and targeted reprints of Modern-valued cards like fetchlands and Thoughtseize in recent large sets.
Modern is the format that aims to "solve" all of things that WotC doesn't like about Legacy:
1) WotC can reprint the necessary staples, which makes them more money.
2) WotC doesn't have to feel badly about providing tournament support, because cards shouldn't be too scarce or expensive for players to acquire.
3) WotC can easily control the color balance, because their early imbalance issues don't have to haunt them forever.
4) WotC can control the metagame by placing "unfun" cards on the ban list, and by not printing any cards beyond a Modern-appropriate power level.
5) WotC can let its market research drive the format. Because WotC can control the metagame, they can appeal to what players think is fun, which increased their sealed product sales.
As a business decision, WotC made the right move by creating Modern instead of supporting Legacy. Modern is the future of non-rotating, constructed Magic.
As a huge fan of Legacy, I find that disappointing, but I can respect their decision. Many of the things that I appreciate about Legacy, are the same things that newer players don't like.
I'd find this a lot easier to stomach personally if Modern had more of the Legacy characteristics that aren't offputting to newer players; Standard has better tools for deck consistency, and better options for control, than Modern does. Though there certainly is a subset of Modern players who either don't mind random matches or actively prize variance and lack of consistency, I doubt they're the majority. Right now Modern doesn't so much avoid bad matchups as provide an environment so random than even badly-positioned decks can win with a good draw.
And I don't really feel there's a good prospect of colour balance in Modern - they seem more or less to have surrendered to the idea that, if it's not combo, it's Gxx, and usually GBx. When the default police cards are Thoughtseize and Abrupt Decay, you've got exactly the same issue you have in Legacy when they're blue cards like Force of Will.
I think Legacy is just something WotC does not want to be a thing. It carries a stigma of turn one wins, LD/prison locks, noninteractive games, and too much blue. People will never learn better unless they try it (moe than just once - enough to actually undetstsnd it).
WotC does not want this as the poster child for non rotating Magic. They want Standard players to see a format more like Modern as their ultimate destination, and they don't need Legacy competing for that position.
You can say you don't "like" the argument. But it's an established fact that WotC have all but forsaken Legacy support. This is Hasbro, so we can safely assume they have a very good reason as pat of a sound marketing strategy. Assuming we know Hasbro's business better than Hasbro is a bit niave.
I do feel for you. Anytime a previously niche product is successfully pushed into the mainstream, that product undergoes changes so as to appeal to a wider demographic. That's capitalism for you! In a Star Trek like society, MTG design and direction would be 100% controlled by the devoted players who love the game - most likely devoted players would be the target audience.
With Hasbro in charge, they are more interested in increasing g profit than in catering to their most devoted fans. You may have spent hundreds (or thousands) of dollars on product in the 1990s, but from their perspective you got what you paid for and they owe you nothing further.
Without wanting to derail the thread, I am almost exclusively an MTGO player due to a total lack of time to go to my LGS (family time) and I LOVE Legacy. I think Legacy has some of its best years ahead of it, only those years for the format to flourish will happen online. Vintage Masters was a huge success and even a noob like yours truly got to play some Vintage, and even with some of the power nine. Now I crack Legacy packs online and build noob decks with the cards. Thoughts?
I think Legacy has some of its best years ahead of it, only those years for the format to flourish will happen online.?
Unfortunately, playing online doesn't satisfy everyone (in this case, me). No small part of Magic is in HOW you play, not merely WHAT you play, but you just don't get the same interaction online. It's much harder to bluff online, and as a result you see fewer lines of play as players are rewarded for playing against the cards on the table and statistical probabilities rather than actively trying to "feel out" what cards the opponent might have in hand and adjusting from statistically optimal plays in favor of making game specific plays. Much like playing Poker online, playing Magic online is an entirely different experience. It might still be fun, but it is different.
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I think Legacy has some of its best years ahead of it, only those years for the format to flourish will happen online.?
Unfortunately, playing online doesn't satisfy everyone (in this case, me). No small part of Magic is in HOW you play, not merely WHAT you play, but you just don't get the same interaction online. It's much harder to bluff online, and as a result you see fewer lines of play as players are rewarded for playing against the cards on the table and statistical probabilities rather than actively trying to "feel out" what cards the opponent might have in hand and adjusting from statistically optimal plays in favor of making game specific plays. Much like playing Poker online, playing Magic online is an entirely different experience. It might still be fun, but it is different.
Fair point, but as the Legacy staples that cannot be reprinted are a fixed and even slightly decreasing number via damage, the physical game has a supply issue that has been solved in the digital format, no matter how stunted or restricting the digital experience may be. Yes, you are renting 1's and 0's from Wizards, and that is quite the limitation, but the cards can be played for as long as you are wiling to rent them.
I would gladly play legacy and vintage online if the client wasn't bat***** awful. Same is true of many people I imagine as v4 is one of the crappiest pieces of software I have ever seen with ease. Things I can think of that are worse: Windows Millenium Edition. I'd rather play a DOS based game than magic online v4, that's how awful it is.
I agree with KoboldCleric on bluffing and such in paper versus online. Online you could be cackling maniacally and the opponent doesn't know. Bluffing? Yeah good luck with that via chatbox. There is also zero social interaction. Oh and you get the oh so nice people who lose and say things they would never say IRL without getting punched in the face, kicked out of the venue, etc. etc.
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I completely agree with you frogczar. I have played off and on since the beginning, and for quite some time haven't liked where this game is going. I continue to play more out of habit, than because i have any real interest left in it. I think it's just a sign of the times, wizards gets sold to a toy company, product gets dumbed down and more geared to children. I've little doubt it will look like pokemon in another ten years.
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The answer is purple because ice cream has no bones.
WotC are definitely moving their support for Vintage and Legacy to MTGO, which has issues but less than paper does.
They do however very much profit from the formats in paper. The Commander decks (and Conspiracy), with Legacy staples (TNN, Containment Priest, Flusterstorm, Toxic Deluge, Shardless Agent) or even just cards with Legacy potential that never got there (Edric, Will of the Council) were huge hits.
Even the Legacy oriented reprints (Stifle, Misdirection) were popular, and the former is very much not a casual card.
What WotC need to do is print a Legacy Masters set that respects the letter of the Official Reprint Policy - by reprinting the Reserve List cards but in a form that is not legal for tournament play. WotC can print as many Black Lotuses as they want tomorrow as long as they do not have a black or white border. This won't add more cards to the pool of tournament-legal Legacy cards, but will dramatically boost the availability of legitimate cards for casual players. Many a casual player will trade off their Legends Tabernacle for a non-tourney legal version and a lot of $$$, and this will free up space for more sanctioned Legacy events.
WotC are definitely moving their support for Vintage and Legacy to MTGO, which has issues but less than paper does.
They do however very much profit from the formats in paper. The Commander decks (and Conspiracy), with Legacy staples (TNN, Containment Priest, Flusterstorm, Toxic Deluge, Shardless Agent) or even just cards with Legacy potential that never got there (Edric, Will of the Council) were huge hits.
Even the Legacy oriented reprints (Stifle, Misdirection) were popular, and the former is very much not a casual card.
What WotC need to do is print a Legacy Masters set that respects the letter of the Official Reprint Policy - by reprinting the Reserve List cards but in a form that is not legal for tournament play. WotC can print as many Black Lotuses as they want tomorrow as long as they do not have a black or white border. This won't add more cards to the pool of tournament-legal Legacy cards, but will dramatically boost the availability of legitimate cards for casual players. Many a casual player will trade off their Legends Tabernacle for a non-tourney legal version and a lot of $$$, and this will free up space for more sanctioned Legacy events.
What's the point of cards that can't be used in tournaments? I can print my own proxies, thanks
I do love the supplementary products though and if you expand the list of playable cards we got from them to Cube that list gets even sweeter. As long as Wizards keeps messing up and printing "mistakes" (DRS, Stoneforge, Delve) and keeps printing interesting cards in these supplementary products we will keep getting good cards. It's nice to know someone out there in WotC Land loves us :3
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"Listen closely as your radio plays
a program of a slightly different strain.
Tonight my listeners, a new power will rise,
unleashed upon you all in this musical disguise.
Your cities turn to ash, for the broadcast is cursed.
The signal is peaking and can't be reversed.
If you choose my children, you can try to hide.
But I strongly suggest you run for your life."
-The Sermon 2, The Creepshow
Without wanting to derail the thread, I am almost exclusively an MTGO player due to a total lack of time to go to my LGS (family time) and I LOVE Legacy. I think Legacy has some of its best years ahead of it, only those years for the format to flourish will happen online. Vintage Masters was a huge success and even a noob like yours truly got to play some Vintage, and even with some of the power nine. Now I crack Legacy packs online and build noob decks with the cards. Thoughts?
I had a similar goal, but seeing how the v4 client progressed and went to be released, I kinda lost interest. Also, I might be becoming old and grumpy but people double queueing is the absolute worse turn off for me.
Without wanting to derail the thread, I am almost exclusively an MTGO player due to a total lack of time to go to my LGS (family time) and I LOVE Legacy. I think Legacy has some of its best years ahead of it, only those years for the format to flourish will happen online. Vintage Masters was a huge success and even a noob like yours truly got to play some Vintage, and even with some of the power nine. Now I crack Legacy packs online and build noob decks with the cards. Thoughts?
I had a similar goal, but seeing how the v4 client progressed and went to be released, I kinda lost interest. Also, I might be becoming old and grumpy but people double queueing is the absolute worse turn off for me.
I wish you and many others gave MTGO Legacy another try. It gets really lonely sometimes when I try to play Legacy, and even when there are people on, its a small enough group that I recognize many of the user names.
I played casual paper during lunch breaks at school in the early 2000's but these days my only method is digital for several reasons.
While modo is a depressing program to have to play with it is at least functional. The reserved list greatly restricts paper options for wizards but online is another story. There is support for the older formats (as witnessed by last years vintage masters). Sure they're just looking to cash in but they massively opened up in particular legacy with the crashing in price of many staples (LED from 185 to 10 as one extreme example). The current most played modo deck Grixis Delver is less than 500 to build yet on paper is costs an extra 2000 for the pleasure.
Sure it doesn't offer the same experience being able to read opponents or just generally interact with them but at the same time there are other upsides. You're not spending half the time shuffling decks, you're able to have a quick 30 minute game if it's 4am or 4pm and can build new decks as you wish without having to go out your way to source them or wait days to order them in.
I don't see myself ever going back to paper simply due to the initial buy in cost of legacy or even modern and the fact I dislike the creature on creature format standard has become.
As the years go by and prices continue to rise while stocks of duals go down (accidental damage, loss etc) there will come a point where the only way to play these older formats in a big way will be online.
What's the point of cards that can't be used in tournaments? I can print my own proxies, thanks
If they have proper backs, WotC could in the future retro-actively make them legal. This would circumvent the RL, as at no point would WotC have actually printed tournament legal cards.
1) NWO has nothing to do with the fact that creatures are better now then they used to be. NWO is about complexity at common. Ancestral Recall would be a perfectly fine common in terms of complexity; Balduvian Shaman wouldn't.
2) They still print plenty of powerful, legacy-playable cards in recent sets. Indeed, one warped the metagame so badly that it got banned in legacy and restricted in vintage.
3) The powerful cards they print aren't always creatures; far from it. What have recent blocks contributed to legacy?
Khans block: Treasure Cruise (banned); Dig Through Time; Swiftspear; Tasigur; Jeskai Ascendency, Murderous Cut.
Theros block: Brimaz? Kinda? Spirit of the Labyrinth I guess? Theros sucked
RTR: Deathrite Shaman; Abrupt Decay; Thespian's Stage; Supreme verdict, Enter the Infinite, Electrickery, Wear//Tear, the Oops All Spells guys.
Innistrad: Delver; Liliana; Griselbrand; Miracles; Past in Flames; Grafdigger's cage, Rest In Peace, Thalia, Snapcaster Mage.
Other sets since then: Flusterstorm, True-Name Nemesis, Young Pyromancer, Shardless Agent, Omniscience, Containment Priest, Council's judgment, Toxic Deluge
I'm seeing some very impactful cards here, and it's a good mix of spells and creatures. Sure, some of the spells are creature removal, but the most influential one is abrupt decay, and it's so good because it kills everything, including super strong noncreature permanents (Counterbalance, Jitte, Liliana). There's combo cards (PiF, Omniscience, Thespian's stage, Griseldad), draw spells, control cards, hate cards that have seen no play except in legacy because they're obviously tailored for that format. Hell, there's even a counterspell in there, despite how strong the already existing counterspells are.
4) Beyond just the distribution of impactful cards, I'd argue that the mere existence of Treasure Cruise (and, to a lesser extent DTT) show that wizards is entirely willing to take risks on noncreature spells and/or blue cards, contrary to the opinions above. They were fully aware they were printing a powerful card drawing spell in older formats. Now, banning it was probably the correct choice, and given that they might have wanted to make it slightly less strong just so it could stay unbanned, but it still means they think there is space for powerful spells that don't involve creatures in any way.
5) As for their interest in the health and survival of the format, I think they're kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. By and large, legacy players I know consider their legacy cards as safe "investments" (despite beings bits of cardboard with no intrinsic value). That's partly because of the reserve list, and partly because they feel safe that wizards will never reprint strong legacy cards that aren't on it (like Wasteland and Force of Will) outside of tiny releases like judge promos. If they were to massively reprint these cards, it would make the format more accessible, but I'm convinced it would piss off a lot of players who would feel like they wasted money on cards that would lose a lot of their value. This is even truer of cards actually on the reserve list.
Meanwhile, they can't sponsor too many Legacy Grand Prix because the pool of players who own the cards is relatively small. Of course, Right now legacy GPs are gigantic, but that's only because it happens once a year, and so every legacy player on the continent rushes to it. If there were more (say, as many as standard GPs), I guarantee they'd plummet in size.
6) MTGO is a steaming pile of crap, but it's still the best thing eternal magic has got going for it. Especially vintage, what with vintage masters and all; prices on paper power has exploded just because now the format exists in a semi-affordable way online. This means there's more interest for the format in general because of the online surge.
I have been a MTG player since 1994. I've collected cards heavily and slowly over time, played competitively and casually and generally had a good time with what has been a great game for over 20 years. However, I've noticed a distinct trend over the last several standard expansions, since the "New World Order" went into effect: Magic is now a game almost entirely about creatures and removal. While that is an over-simplification of the issue, I feel like every new set that's been spoiled since Return to Ravnica has offered very little in playable cards for Legacy. That isn't my only concern, the cards that are playable aren't powerful spell effects, they are powerful creatures and spells that support them. I find this style of play incredibly boring and uninteresting. It doesn't seem like "Magic", at least not the Magic I started playing in 1994.
I haven't had the urge to play Standard in a VERY long time. I really don't buy sealed product because none of it is appealing at all. I used to buy at least a fatpack of the sets I thought looked cool and offered some decent cards for Legacy, but I haven't bought one since Return to Ravnica and I don't forsee myself buying another any time soon.
What is my value to Wizards of the Coast as a long-time player and someone who has invested heavily into the game over so many years? I truthfully don't know. WotC seems to be dropping support for eternal formats in every aspect. Tournaments, cards, promos, pre-cons and everything else is now so focused on "creatures and removal" and the "Standard" player of Magic that older players like me seem like an afterthought.
I guess I don't want to sound like another "Magic is dying" alarmist, but I wanted to say something about my disappointment with how things have been going the last few years. I'm not spending my money on this game anymore and maybe that's a good thing, but WotC has lost a long-time customer. I feel that trend will continue.
My Kamigawa cube.
My Mirage Cube
Unfortunately, your value to WotC as a long-time player is zero. I don't say that to be disrespectful, but it's the truth.
For the most part, WotC makes all of its money by selling packs. They aren't in the market of selling singles (although with preconstructed decks and special sets like Modern Masters, this may someday become debatable). This means that eternal players who are invested enough to not buy much sealed product aren't actually supporting WotC.
Although you feel like a longtime customer, you're not in their target market. In fact, based on your particular spending habits, you're probably not in their market at all. (Again, not meant to be disrespectful, but it's still the truth.)
WotC is a business. For better or worse, they operate like a business. Their primary goal isn't to provide an optimal play environment for the players; their primary goal is to provide an optimal play environment for them to make money. On the surface, it may not seem like these two things conflict, but they do, and especially so when it comes to Legacy.
From WotC's perspective, there are several problems with Legacy. In no particular order:
1) The reserved list. Because the reserved list continues to be honored, WotC can't sell the necessary reprints to make any money off of the Legacy market. Periodically, they introduce Legacy cards in Commander products, but they can't reprint the dual lands, which are necessary to the format. At best, they could print "better" versions of already existing cards, but the power level in Legacy would get that much farther out of hand, and there would still be a play advantage for those people who own the originals (for example, if you made a non-funtional reprint of The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, many decks would run one of both, which is preferable to running two of the functional reprint).
The point is that WotC can't easily make money off of the Legacy market, and the reserved list is a big part of why that's the case. But as a business, WotC doesn't have incentive to endorse Legacy by providing tournament support for the format.
2) The color imbalance. Blue is the support color in Legacy. There isn't a second option. The interaction between Brainstorm, Ponder, and the fetchlands is too powerful to ignore, and so a disproportionate number of decks run those cards. And because you're already in blue, and the combo decks in Legacy are so fast, you throw in the two best counterspells in the format, because it's not too far out of your way. To be fair, those cards don't dictate the design of your deck; you can throw them in tempo decks (BUG Delver), control decks (Miracles), and combo decks (Ad Nauseum). However, historically speaking, WotC has had trouble balancing the power level of blue cards, and unless WotC uses the ban list to change what is legal in Legacy, WotC is stuck with that power imbalance.
The point is that WotC doesn't like the color imbalance in Legacy, and supporting the format means perpetuating that color imbalance. They would rather fix their (early) mistakes than have to live with them forever, and so they have reason to move away from Legacy.
3) The "unfun" decks. Many of Legacy's hallmark strategies (including strong control decks and fast combo decks), are considered "unfun" by WotC market research. For the most part, no one wants to sit across from Belcher on the draw, and lose because they didn't have a Force of Will in hand. The concept of "bad matchups" is something that Legacy players get used to. In some sense, Legacy players take pride in having bad matchups, because it shows just how diverse the format really is. However, it's still disheartening to newer players, who feel like they never stood a chance in the game.
The point is that WotC doesn't want to endorse a format with problematic decks, because those decks limit how much the format can grow. Endorsing Legacy would only alienate those players who can't have a good time playing against Stasis (which is actually a large number of people).
In order for WotC to overcome all of these problems, WotC needed a few things. WotC needed:
1) A format not held back by the reserved list. This way, WotC can continue to make money off of the non-rotating constructed market, and make sure that the cards are more accessible to everyone that wants to play.
2) A format where WotC can control the metagame. WotC only has two tools at their disposal to do this: they can either use the ban list, or they can print new cards. Controlling the metagame means that colors won't become unbalanced over time, and that "unfun" strategies won't be a threat to the growth of the format.
Enter Modern.
Modern is the format that aims to "solve" all of things that WotC doesn't like about Legacy:
1) WotC can reprint the necessary staples, which makes them more money.
2) WotC doesn't have to feel badly about providing tournament support, because cards shouldn't be too scarce or expensive for players to acquire.
3) WotC can easily control the color balance, because their early imbalance issues don't have to haunt them forever.
4) WotC can control the metagame by placing "unfun" cards on the ban list, and by not printing any cards beyond a Modern-appropriate power level.
5) WotC can let its market research drive the format. Because WotC can control the metagame, they can appeal to what players think is fun, which increased their sealed product sales.
As a business decision, WotC made the right move by creating Modern instead of supporting Legacy. Modern is the future of non-rotating, constructed Magic.
As a huge fan of Legacy, I find that disappointing, but I can respect their decision. Many of the things that I appreciate about Legacy, are the same things that newer players don't like.
Again, WotC is a business, and New World Order design philosophies have opened them up to bigger markets. The value of your typical Legacy-only player to the WotC business model is, in fact, zero. I would try to look on the bright side: Magic is growing. It's becoming less taboo, and WotC's business decisions are ensuring the future of Magic for a long time to come. It may not be the type of Magic that you and I are used to, but in some sense, more players in any given format is better for every single format.
For the most part, Legacy is supported by Magic purists. As long as there are cards in existence and people that enjoy the game, Legacy will never die.
However, I understand your disappointment. WotC is intentionally pushing "spells with legs" and combat interaction, because players don't like feeling as though they never stood a chance in any given game. WotC is trying to build a format that essentially requires players to interact with each other (and they're only having mixed success). A lot of potential design space has gone unused in recent years, and it's a little painful to watch that design space go to waste.
My advice is to realize that Modern is only four years old, and that WotC is still trying to work out the kinks. There is no guarantee that the old strategies will make a comeback, but I would be surprised if, over time, the archetype and deck diversity in Modern didn't improve. That isn't necessarily something that's going to help you now, but it's better than nothing.
I can't tell you how to spend your money (and whether or not to remain a WotC customer), but I can tell you that Legacy was holding Magic back from larger mainstream success. Again, as a Legacy player, I find that very disappointing, but the numbers just don't lie. It isn't because Modern is "preferable" to Legacy; it's because Modern is a non-rotating format with reprinted staples, tournament support, and it appeals to newer players.
Not surprisingly, I'm going to encourage you to stick with Magic. Keep playing Legacy. Keep supporting your local gaming community. And try your hardest to understand that good business decisions for WotC, are good for Magic as a whole. That's not always an easy thing to do, but as long as WotC is healthy, Magic will continue to have a future.
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I agree completely with the notion that sets printed like dragons of tarkir and theros are abysmal design wise in that they really do just care about creatures and removal. Not to mention removal is being toned down significantly like 3BB: Destroy target creature isn't THAT odd to see regularly but in terms of efficient removal? How about no. I'm not going to get started on countermagic, land destruction, or combo cards.
Long term customers have lots of value. I've given WotC thousands over the years. I would give them thousands more if they printed sets like time spiral, original ravnica, odyssey, etc. etc. so yes I do matter to them. Right now they're making very little off of me when they could be making much, much more. The notion that the past does not matter is ridiculous as the amount of knowledge that can be gained from the past is vast in terms of what can be done to increase profit margins for WotC. Ignoring it completely is a colossal mistake that could ultimately spell the end of the game as a whole, something that would be downright catastrophic for WotC and by extension Hasbro as Hasbro really, really needs MTG to continue to do well to continue turning a profit each year/quarter.
Modern certainly isn't getting any better. The restrictions they have imposed on the format with the cardpool available are too great. I wouldn't be remotely surprised to see modern dead in 10 years with some new format to replace it. And honestly WotC doesn't care THAT much about modern as in comparison to standard and limited the revenue is a joke. They simply have it there so as to have a third format and that's just what is is, number three in terms of importance to them with limited being number 1 and standard number 2. Legacy doesn't matter to them hell I would argue that legacy is as important to them as vintage and we all know how much they care about vintage.
WotC can easily do number 2 for legacy in your list of problems with legacy Charon. I would point to green sun's zenith as a way to alter the landscape of legacy without making it more blue as GSZ in blue decks is pretty poor. They could design more cards for legacy that are good outside blue strategies by thinking outside of the box as that is their job as card designers. It's only the reserved list that is holding legacy back.
'Bad matchup' is a universal magic term for every format not just legacy. Never stood a chance? There are standard and modern decks just like that where there's some 90-10 matchups that are basically unwinnable for deck B in regards to how it stacks up against deck A.
Color imbalance is inevitable regardless of format not just legacy. Is standard 20% blue, 20% red, 20% black, 20% white, and 20% green? No sir. Neither is modern. No format in the history of the game has been like that. But that's okay because it is nigh mathematically impossible to make a format like that in the time WotC is given to design sets hell even if WotC spent 10 years to try to make a standard environment like the one I just proposed I doubt they could ever pull it off for a multitude of reasons.
Currently Playing:
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I agree with you, although Legacy isn't accessible enough as a format (due to the price and scarcity of staples) for it to be the preferred option for LGS tournaments. It will vary from store to store, but why would any store host a Legacy tournament, when it could be making more money by hosting Standard and Modern tournaments?
In general though, I agree with the idea that participating in tournaments at a LGS helps support WotC, although I think that help ultimately manifests itself in the form of additional sealed product sales.
In principle, the only thing that matters to a business is the average amount of money that a customer gives to the business over the "lifetime" of the customer (customer lifetime is often much shorter than an actual lifetime, because businesses need profits sooner, rather than later). In essence, total profit = number of customers * profit per customer.
In practice, this is much more complicated, for the reason that you point out. Dedicated customers, although small in number, skew the average profit significantly. By far, repeat customers are the most important part of sustaining profits in most industries.
For WotC, this becomes a cost-benefit analysis: how much money they can potentially make by catering to a new market (which increases the number of customers, who presumably spend less money on average than dedicated ones) versus how much money they stand to lose by eliminating their currently dedicated customers from their target market (this decreases the amount of money that dedicated customers spend).
There would be two BIG reasons to prefer a newer, larger market to WotC's current set of dedicated customers. First, by increasing the number of new customers, WotC potentially creates more dedicated customers in the long run. Those customers have a different set of player (and purchasing) preferences, but there is no reason to believe that the new Modern players of today will spend any less money in the future than the Legacy players do now. And second, dedicated customers tend to just like playing Magic. The risk of monetary loss doesn't encompass all Legacy players, because many Legacy players will still play Modern. The only customers that WotC is missing, are those customers who won't play any other format than Legacy, and if you're in that position to begin with, you're probably not contributing that much money to WotC's bottom line in the first place.
I'm not sure what I said that made you think I meant to imply that the "past does not matter", but the past matters. Specifically, it's taught WotC what not to do. With Modern, it's pretty clear that they won't repeat the color balance issues that Legacy has (for example, Ponder and Preordain are banned), and it's also clear that "unfun" strategies won't receive support (for example, traditional control strategies in Modern are non-existent, and the noncreature combo decks are powered down).
Unless changes are made to the reserved list policy and WotC's market research starts yielding more support for the Legacy format, WotC will never be able to make as much money off of Legacy as it does off of Modern.
I agree with this assessment, except that Modern is a non-rotating format that WotC can actually profit from, unlike Legacy. The $10 MSRP for MM2015 packs should be telling enough. It may not make as much money as Standard or Limited, but it's certainly more than the very little money that WotC makes off of Legacy or Vintage.
I agree with this too, although there is certain design space that WotC just doesn't like to use. For example, nonblue stack interactions. Like Legacy, Modern also has off color counterspells. But for better or worse, WotC doesn't like doing this sort of thing.
So I agree with you, but short of criticizing WotC employees for having trouble doing their jobs as card designers, I'm not sure what to say.
Every format has bad matchups, including Modern. However, the bad matchups in Modern are much more winnable than they are in Legacy. If I'm playing Legacy Lands and my opponent is playing Storm combo, I'm probably going to lose. But in Modern, even the Storm decks take 4 turns to go off (or 3, occasionally). Everybody is playing by the same (arbitrarily imposed) clock.
I didn't mean to imply that Modern has totally fixed the color balance issues. It will never be 20% in each of the five colors. However, it's easy to see that Modern is less dependent on a single color than Legacy is. According to MTG Goldfish, Brainstorm appears as a 4-of in 80% of decks in Legacy. Even if you want to disagree with their methodology for calculating the metagame, it's pretty clear that Modern doesn't have a similar problem.
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I meant the tournament/LGS support as eventual WotC product sales. Product sales make everyone happy as the LGS continues to turn a profit as does WotC and Timmy gets some random cards out of the deal.
WotC can profit off legacy. If a set has thoughtseize, vendilion clique, tarmogoyf, and other such chase rares that legacy players want legacy players can and do purchase product. Return to ravnica for example. Lots of legacy playables in there. I know I bought a lot of RTR product personally same with innistrad. Then there are the dragons mazes, theros, and other crappy eternal sets that mean squat to me. Then KTK came along. I bought multiple boxes of product for fetches alone but the other playable cards certainly helped that like swiftspear and dig through time.
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If I'm playing Legacy Lands, and someone resolves a Blood Moon against me, I'm still probably going to lose.
It isn't that the sideboard cards are more effective in Modern, it's that you have up to four turns to use them. So I agree with what you're suggesting, the sideboard cards are more relevant in Modern, but it's because you have more time to play them.
EDIT: it's also because your sideboard cards can't be stopped by a Force of Will
Okay, this statement:
was really poorly phrased. You're right. WotC can profit off of Legacy and Vintage.
But WotC can't profit as much off of Legacy and Vintage as they can off of Modern. The reserved list prevents people from entering Legacy and Vintage in the first place, so the number of players interested in purchasing a "Legacy Masters" set is limited. If WotC's stance on the reserved list ever changed, things might be different.
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Let me emphasize something again: I was previously buying standard cards and playing in standard events while I found the card design appealing. That hasn't been the case since Time Spiral. These are all post-reserved list sets. I find that the WotC philosophy on set design that says Magic has to be different from sets from that era to be dissappointing and the reason I'm not buying sealed product anymore.
I think everything you've said as your reasons why are likely true, but I think WotC is making a mistake. They COULD be earning my long-time customer dollars but they've decided it's not in their best interest.
My Kamigawa cube.
My Mirage Cube
This is false. They do make money with precons and I'm pretty sure they turn a profit from GPs and stuff like that. Eternal players do pay for sealed precons like commander products or planechase so they can get the 1 uncommon 40$ card (shardless agent, baleful strix). WotC knows, and does it on purpose. Receently there was conspiracy which is a new foray into such territories.
I hear this argument all the time and people still seem to buy it but it's just rubbish.
People want to play legacy, people want to buy old cards, people would pay 20$ or more for a pack of legacy masters. WotC is a business and can make profit from whatever the hell format they want. For some reason, they are extremely careful with legacy, this doesn't mean it's because they think it's not profitable.
But they do. They have been doing so with magic online for a while now. Think about it, think about what it means in a business perspective.
False. Once again, they do so, online.
I don't see this as a dealbreaker. Yes, blue is stronger than other colors, but legacy is still playable, fun and diverse. Nothing prevents them from printing new stronger stuff in other colors anyway.
Fun is a relative concept. The guy playing belcher sure has fun. And the market research thing is a bunch of made up stuff, I could do my own market research and make it say the very opposite...Anyway, go play modern affinity and face a T2 stony silence, you'll see that very narrow hate cards are as unfun as fast combo.
As much as I agree with the sentiment in your post, the bolded part is something I often see people say in a variety of settings and is rarely true. Yes it would be ideal if WotC appealed to both eternal format players and the masses of standard players, but in terms of actual financial interests there just isn't much of one. They make far more money off of the rotating, play it for a year or so then drop it, group then they do off long-term players. We really aren't the target market and it doesn't make sense for them to try to make us the target market.
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I'm tired of seeing this reply all the time. There is ample proof that there's money to be made, that there is demand, that this is what players want.
Just look at the story of commander. WotC embraced a fan made format and made tons of money off it. A format that is eternal and that was essentially custom made for long-term players. And people are happy for it. Same could happen to legacy and vintage and it will, in time. Just very, very slowly...
Ravnica as a setting favours creatures, because there isn't an even split between control-based two-colour combinations (UB, UW, UR) and creature-focused ones (all the rest).
An enchantment block doesn't have to be creature-based, but it is obviously going to be based around permanents and auras are a big subset of enchantments. Making an enchantment block without a heavy commitment to creature support is pretty difficult, and the route they ended up taking ended up with a block more creature-heavy than either RtR or Khans/Dragons; every major mechanic in the set either directly relied on creatures (bestow, heroic, strive) or would be hard to execute without them (constellation, devotion).
Tarkir was - before wedges, dragons, allied colours or anything else - built around its draft structure, and so all sets had to be geared towards Limited play where creatures are king. Despite that, I think it gives the lie to the idea that there's a straight progression through time towards more creature-based sets as many of its strongest cards are noncreature spells and there are even a few creature-light decks currently in Standard, including a top-performing BUG control deck that runs no maindeck creatures.
From looking at the latest set, the only creature I can imagine having any place in Legacy is Dragonlord Atarka and then only in a reanimator shell, while there are two or three others that may make the cut. Although one functions as a creature and another is a creature support spell, this should be seen in the context of what is explicitly a dragon theme set, so creatures are obviously going to be a major focus.
I got back into Magic recently after an absence of several years, and most of my Legacy-era cards are of no value in the format because they and the strategies they support have been superseded by an influx of Modern-era cards, relatively few of which are creatures and many of which are basic utility cantrips and the like. From that perspective I don't really see Legacy becoming creature-dominated or having a lower influx of strong noncreature cards, but Wizards has an explicit long-term goal to bring creatures and spells into line power level-wise, and their ideal for Legacy would probably be a format roughly evenly divided between creature and non-creature decks.
At this point I think they're starting to overcompensate, with creatures about where they should be for long-term playability and spells still getting weaker, when they should be at the same level or a bit stronger. Much of the blame for the latter, I think, rests with Modern, since with the introduction of that format Wizards is more reluctant to print spells at a Legacy power level than it was when only a rotating Standard format needed to be considered.
Unfortunately, Modern is a cross between combo hell and the worse excesses of creature-heavy Standard, and Wizards deliberately curtails tools that improve deck consistency - which as well as making for games that are simply too random to be fun, hits control decks hard. If Modern decks want ever more powerful creatures and ever weaker consistency tools, chances are that's going to characterise the majority of what gets printed since Wizards is now actively courting the Modern playerbase with its Masters products and targeted reprints of Modern-valued cards like fetchlands and Thoughtseize in recent large sets.
I'd find this a lot easier to stomach personally if Modern had more of the Legacy characteristics that aren't offputting to newer players; Standard has better tools for deck consistency, and better options for control, than Modern does. Though there certainly is a subset of Modern players who either don't mind random matches or actively prize variance and lack of consistency, I doubt they're the majority. Right now Modern doesn't so much avoid bad matchups as provide an environment so random than even badly-positioned decks can win with a good draw.
And I don't really feel there's a good prospect of colour balance in Modern - they seem more or less to have surrendered to the idea that, if it's not combo, it's Gxx, and usually GBx. When the default police cards are Thoughtseize and Abrupt Decay, you've got exactly the same issue you have in Legacy when they're blue cards like Force of Will.
WotC does not want this as the poster child for non rotating Magic. They want Standard players to see a format more like Modern as their ultimate destination, and they don't need Legacy competing for that position.
You can say you don't "like" the argument. But it's an established fact that WotC have all but forsaken Legacy support. This is Hasbro, so we can safely assume they have a very good reason as pat of a sound marketing strategy. Assuming we know Hasbro's business better than Hasbro is a bit niave.
I do feel for you. Anytime a previously niche product is successfully pushed into the mainstream, that product undergoes changes so as to appeal to a wider demographic. That's capitalism for you! In a Star Trek like society, MTG design and direction would be 100% controlled by the devoted players who love the game - most likely devoted players would be the target audience.
With Hasbro in charge, they are more interested in increasing g profit than in catering to their most devoted fans. You may have spent hundreds (or thousands) of dollars on product in the 1990s, but from their perspective you got what you paid for and they owe you nothing further.
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Modern:UX MUD
Standard: N/A
Fair point, but as the Legacy staples that cannot be reprinted are a fixed and even slightly decreasing number via damage, the physical game has a supply issue that has been solved in the digital format, no matter how stunted or restricting the digital experience may be. Yes, you are renting 1's and 0's from Wizards, and that is quite the limitation, but the cards can be played for as long as you are wiling to rent them.
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I agree with KoboldCleric on bluffing and such in paper versus online. Online you could be cackling maniacally and the opponent doesn't know. Bluffing? Yeah good luck with that via chatbox. There is also zero social interaction. Oh and you get the oh so nice people who lose and say things they would never say IRL without getting punched in the face, kicked out of the venue, etc. etc.
Currently Playing:
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They do however very much profit from the formats in paper. The Commander decks (and Conspiracy), with Legacy staples (TNN, Containment Priest, Flusterstorm, Toxic Deluge, Shardless Agent) or even just cards with Legacy potential that never got there (Edric, Will of the Council) were huge hits.
Even the Legacy oriented reprints (Stifle, Misdirection) were popular, and the former is very much not a casual card.
What WotC need to do is print a Legacy Masters set that respects the letter of the Official Reprint Policy - by reprinting the Reserve List cards but in a form that is not legal for tournament play. WotC can print as many Black Lotuses as they want tomorrow as long as they do not have a black or white border. This won't add more cards to the pool of tournament-legal Legacy cards, but will dramatically boost the availability of legitimate cards for casual players. Many a casual player will trade off their Legends Tabernacle for a non-tourney legal version and a lot of $$$, and this will free up space for more sanctioned Legacy events.
What's the point of cards that can't be used in tournaments? I can print my own proxies, thanks
I do love the supplementary products though and if you expand the list of playable cards we got from them to Cube that list gets even sweeter. As long as Wizards keeps messing up and printing "mistakes" (DRS, Stoneforge, Delve) and keeps printing interesting cards in these supplementary products we will keep getting good cards. It's nice to know someone out there in WotC Land loves us :3
a program of a slightly different strain.
Tonight my listeners, a new power will rise,
unleashed upon you all in this musical disguise.
Your cities turn to ash, for the broadcast is cursed.
The signal is peaking and can't be reversed.
If you choose my children, you can try to hide.
But I strongly suggest you run for your life."
-The Sermon 2, The Creepshow
I had a similar goal, but seeing how the v4 client progressed and went to be released, I kinda lost interest. Also, I might be becoming old and grumpy but people double queueing is the absolute worse turn off for me.
I wish you and many others gave MTGO Legacy another try. It gets really lonely sometimes when I try to play Legacy, and even when there are people on, its a small enough group that I recognize many of the user names.
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While modo is a depressing program to have to play with it is at least functional. The reserved list greatly restricts paper options for wizards but online is another story. There is support for the older formats (as witnessed by last years vintage masters). Sure they're just looking to cash in but they massively opened up in particular legacy with the crashing in price of many staples (LED from 185 to 10 as one extreme example). The current most played modo deck Grixis Delver is less than 500 to build yet on paper is costs an extra 2000 for the pleasure.
Sure it doesn't offer the same experience being able to read opponents or just generally interact with them but at the same time there are other upsides. You're not spending half the time shuffling decks, you're able to have a quick 30 minute game if it's 4am or 4pm and can build new decks as you wish without having to go out your way to source them or wait days to order them in.
I don't see myself ever going back to paper simply due to the initial buy in cost of legacy or even modern and the fact I dislike the creature on creature format standard has become.
As the years go by and prices continue to rise while stocks of duals go down (accidental damage, loss etc) there will come a point where the only way to play these older formats in a big way will be online.
If they have proper backs, WotC could in the future retro-actively make them legal. This would circumvent the RL, as at no point would WotC have actually printed tournament legal cards.
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1) NWO has nothing to do with the fact that creatures are better now then they used to be. NWO is about complexity at common. Ancestral Recall would be a perfectly fine common in terms of complexity; Balduvian Shaman wouldn't.
2) They still print plenty of powerful, legacy-playable cards in recent sets. Indeed, one warped the metagame so badly that it got banned in legacy and restricted in vintage.
3) The powerful cards they print aren't always creatures; far from it. What have recent blocks contributed to legacy?
Khans block: Treasure Cruise (banned); Dig Through Time; Swiftspear; Tasigur; Jeskai Ascendency, Murderous Cut.
Theros block: Brimaz? Kinda? Spirit of the Labyrinth I guess? Theros sucked
RTR: Deathrite Shaman; Abrupt Decay; Thespian's Stage; Supreme verdict, Enter the Infinite, Electrickery, Wear//Tear, the Oops All Spells guys.
Innistrad: Delver; Liliana; Griselbrand; Miracles; Past in Flames; Grafdigger's cage, Rest In Peace, Thalia, Snapcaster Mage.
Other sets since then: Flusterstorm, True-Name Nemesis, Young Pyromancer, Shardless Agent, Omniscience, Containment Priest, Council's judgment, Toxic Deluge
I'm seeing some very impactful cards here, and it's a good mix of spells and creatures. Sure, some of the spells are creature removal, but the most influential one is abrupt decay, and it's so good because it kills everything, including super strong noncreature permanents (Counterbalance, Jitte, Liliana). There's combo cards (PiF, Omniscience, Thespian's stage, Griseldad), draw spells, control cards, hate cards that have seen no play except in legacy because they're obviously tailored for that format. Hell, there's even a counterspell in there, despite how strong the already existing counterspells are.
4) Beyond just the distribution of impactful cards, I'd argue that the mere existence of Treasure Cruise (and, to a lesser extent DTT) show that wizards is entirely willing to take risks on noncreature spells and/or blue cards, contrary to the opinions above. They were fully aware they were printing a powerful card drawing spell in older formats. Now, banning it was probably the correct choice, and given that they might have wanted to make it slightly less strong just so it could stay unbanned, but it still means they think there is space for powerful spells that don't involve creatures in any way.
5) As for their interest in the health and survival of the format, I think they're kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. By and large, legacy players I know consider their legacy cards as safe "investments" (despite beings bits of cardboard with no intrinsic value). That's partly because of the reserve list, and partly because they feel safe that wizards will never reprint strong legacy cards that aren't on it (like Wasteland and Force of Will) outside of tiny releases like judge promos. If they were to massively reprint these cards, it would make the format more accessible, but I'm convinced it would piss off a lot of players who would feel like they wasted money on cards that would lose a lot of their value. This is even truer of cards actually on the reserve list.
Meanwhile, they can't sponsor too many Legacy Grand Prix because the pool of players who own the cards is relatively small. Of course, Right now legacy GPs are gigantic, but that's only because it happens once a year, and so every legacy player on the continent rushes to it. If there were more (say, as many as standard GPs), I guarantee they'd plummet in size.
6) MTGO is a steaming pile of crap, but it's still the best thing eternal magic has got going for it. Especially vintage, what with vintage masters and all; prices on paper power has exploded just because now the format exists in a semi-affordable way online. This means there's more interest for the format in general because of the online surge.