The new format is probably Hypermodern, where you can only use cards with the M15 frame onwards.
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These days, some wizards are finding they have a little too much deck left at the end of their $$$.
MTG finance guy- follow me on Twitter@RichArschmann or RichardArschmann on Reddit
I've been looking around the forum and this is the closest thread I found about this topic. I think it could lead to a good discussion now, since the announcement of Eternal Masters.
Do you think EMA may be a sign that Wizards is actually thinking to create a new "controllable" format aside from Legacy with all the Reserved List cards gone? I'm not talking about banning the Reserved List, but to create a whole new format that coexist with the current ones.
If this topic is being treated in another thread I apologize in advance, I couldn't find the discussion.
Cheers
I started a thread on Magic General if you're interested.
Anyway, I think a lot of people are missing the point of Saffron's article. He's not suggesting that Legacy be replaced with this new non reserved list version right now. It's merely a suggestion of what to do when Legacy starts to become out of reach for the vast majority of players. Legacy minus duals might be worse than Legacy with them, but Legacy minus duals is still better than no Legacy at all.
Lets put it this way, if you had to choose between Legacy without the reserved cards and Modern, what would you choose?
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Current Modern decks BGW Junk / URB Grixis Shadow / RGB Lantern Control / WUBCBant Eldrazi
Current Legacy decks BUG Shardless BUG / UWR Predict Miracles / RUG Canadian Thresh / WRBG 4c Loam UB Reanimator
One of the biggest reasons to play Legacy is dual lands. So you can have three coloured decks without shocking yourself out of the game. It would also be competitive enough to take on 2 colour decks but not super broken that you can't die to wasteland.
Modern has turned into a linear aggro fest solely due to fetch/shocks (even before Eldrazi.dec). I'm not interested in seeing turn 1 Wild Nacatls and Kird Apes in Legacy.
Although, if they do implement another constructed format, it would be hard to not test it out. Legacy minus the reserved list would kill Legacy, no doubt, so it might be the only place to play.
I'm not interested in seeing turn 1 Wild Nacatls and Kird Apes in Legacy.
I'm only quoting you because in 2010, "zoo" was a very large percentage of legacy.
If you showed up now at our SNM legacy with a zoo deck, you wouldn't win many matches.
A friend went pretty far at a SCG legacy event with shocks instead of duals. He almost made day 2.
He was playing miracles and he got lots of interesting looks when he would play shocks but then win the match.
Saying you can't play legacy without duals is a straw-man, red herring argument.
The same friend that played miracles with shocks, built oops all spells for $300 and did OK (better than me) at another SCG event.
The amount of mono-colored decks that you could play in legacy is nothing to scoff at and you're wasteland protected!
If you did want to play multi-color and played shocks, the amount of games you would lose by one life is negligible.
But to be fair, there would be a few games where you lost because you shocked yourself.
Of course you can play Legacy with Shocks but you're just putting yourself at a disadvantage. It's hard to get people exicted about a format when they know they'll never be able to build an optimal deck.
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Current Modern decks BGW Junk / URB Grixis Shadow / RGB Lantern Control / WUBCBant Eldrazi
Current Legacy decks BUG Shardless BUG / UWR Predict Miracles / RUG Canadian Thresh / WRBG 4c Loam UB Reanimator
It was there working fine the day they announced Eternal Masters. I pulled up the reserve list that day of the announcement. But the past two days the link has been a dud. Using the search bar doesn't help either. If they are doing away with it 'no reserve list legacy' is nothing to worry about.
Thoughts? I know its not related to the topic, but its interesting.
It was there working fine the day they announced Eternal Masters. I pulled up the reserve list that day of the announcement. But the past two days the link has been a dud. Using the search bar doesn't help either. If they are doing away with it 'no reserve list legacy' is nothing to worry about.
Thoughts? I know its not related to the topic, but its interesting.
I wrote about this on market street. Here are my thoughts: Either the costs of Dual Lands and the rest of the reserve list cards are killing Legacy or they're not, it's that simple.
If the reason that people can't get into legacy is because duals are too pricey then Wizards should simply reprint the rest of the non-reserve list legacy into oblivion, offsetting the costs of legacy. Legacy becomes cheap. Wizards maintains the Reserve List promise. This is very valuable because Wizards get to keep their word.
Why is the reserve list so awful? The allegation is because it increases the price of cards by X, where X is a large number.
My solution: Ok, well decrease the price of the non-reserve list cards by X.
In fact, if you decrease the price of non-reserve list cards by X, you'll probably make modern a good deal more affordable in the meantime as well.
I wouldn't say a while, but yes, probably a glitch.
Anyway... I would play no-reserved list legacy, although I wouldn't be happy about it, the lands are really necessary. Lets face it, I been playing this stupid game since Portal, and I'm sure many of you too. No matter what changes ill still be a whore and by into it because I still enjoy it.
I am afraid it might be too much like modern if that happens but who knows.
I'm just getting into Legacy, but according to MTG Top8, the balance between aggro, control, and combo is almost perfect. Banning the RL looks like it would significantly slow many combo decks down, notably ANT and Sneak and Show, while keeping around FoW, Daze, and the other police cards in the format. I don't see a reason to do this, at all. If people are worried that legacy is dying, just look at whats going on right now. Prices on all Legacy cards are up, responding to both current and future demand. Wizards is putting out a reprint of a bunch of Legacy staples, probably knowing it would sell well due to the format's popularity. Why ruin a format that looks so successful?
Because as soon as the hype dies down we'll remember there aren't enough Bayous for everyone who wants to play Shardless, Maverick, Deathblade, and whatever dozen different BGx Commander decks all around the world.
Nobody wants Legacy to stop existing or for the valuable and cherished RL cards to be rendered useless, but all the people who can't play because enough RL cards DO NOT EXIST AND NEVER WILL, desserve a powerful format where they can play and brew with some of the best, most fun cards ever. Without the lack of avaliability of Vintage and Legacy or the banlist meddling for PT "diversity's sake" of Modern.
And now I'm sure someone will come out and whine about how people aren't "entitled" to play your big boy format, well I hope you can put $18k where your mouth is because I own Oath, and I get to play it an amazing TWO times a year because there's extremely few people who can afford to play Vintage. If everyone of us had been as resistant to other people getting to play with "our cards" as you people are now when 1.5 was first discussed, Legacy wouldn't exist.
So please take your "entitlement" arguments down a notch and realize that having a new RL-free Eternal format (Modern is not Eternal) that would pretty much ammount to a normal deckbuilding version of Commander, would do notthing but good for players and deck brewers.
Wizards can always make a special exception to take the dual lands out of the "reserved list". But I think they are too wussy not to.
anytime they touch the reserve list, the collectors start screaming. I'm all for the removal of the reserve list, or banning every card on it. But I've been playing since Alpha, I know why the reserve list was created, and it was understandable at the time. But MtG isn't going anywhere now, it's firmly established as one of the 3 go to CCGs in existence due to its longevity.
As I said about screaming, remember Karn and Sliver Queen? I do. I remember when they removed uncommons like Mana Drain and Karakas from the reserve list as well. And the self same collectors screamed about Vintage Masters even though it was digital only.
However, the reserve list is sort of a promise they made, and if they break their promise... Let's just say their reputation is at stake. Or so they believe... It's a proven fact that reprints of Tarmogoyfs has actually increasedd their value, not dropped it.
If they were to reprint duals, I'd think that dual lands would double their current price, if not triple... As more people are able to play and enjoy a format I love. I can't afford vintage, it's like 10 paces, turn, and fire until your opponent falls or drops their weapon. Legacy, it's great. Two fencers with rapiers. Modern's great too... Standard, playground bullies. kindergarten stuff... Wish people could understand how true this statement is.
I think banning dual lands would piss off nearly all of the existing Legacy players to no end, the ones that worked hard in one way or another for years in some cases to get the cards to build the decks to play a format they love. To change the format at such a fundamental level would anger the community that keeps Legacy alive.
Dual lands are not expensive due to their rarity, they're expensive due to their demand, with Commander doing nothing to help that situation. The recent spikes are all reflective of anticipated interest in Legacy growing thanks to Eternal Masters. Until Eternal Masters there was a degree of equilibrium that existed. It was possible this time a year ago to go to a GP, do some trading, and pick up blue duals at $160-$190 for decent condition or better. A pile of hot standard staples from FNM winnings and trades was enough to get you two or so. Players joining Legacy and leaving the game created reasonably stable pricing, with the additional expense of the older cardboard justifiable to some extent based on the fact that it wasn't ever going to rotate. Sure, people grumbled about the price a little, but the counterpoint stood that you never have to worry about Tundra going out of rotation or getting banned and losing 85% of its value.
The gouging occurring will quash its own prices; eternal masters won't drive any additional demand for reserve list cards if the pricing of those cards is in the stratosphere. Vendors will have to come down if they want to capitalize on Eternal Masters. But if they don't, and cardboard actually ends up selling at this price, then the demand justifies the cost, outrageous as it may be. And if people are willing to buy duals at $300+ to play Legacy, then I don't see that as a dying format, I see that as a format people are willing to sell their cars to get into.
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If they were to reprint duals, I'd think that dual lands would double their current price, if not triple.......
I see things from an online (MTGO) perspective, so take this with a pinch (rock?) of salt. The announcement of EMA drove legacy staples up. Including the two cards already announced as re-prints. This is certainly not new players buying into the format on the promise of EMA, its speculators buying into the certainty that EMA, if done right and not a la MM2, will drive interest up and consequently the price of cards. The reprint policy of raising, sometimes significantly, the rarity of reprints causes this.
Anyway, I think a lot of people are missing the point of Saffron's article. He's not suggesting that Legacy be replaced with this new non reserved list version right now. It's merely a suggestion of what to do when Legacy starts to become out of reach for the vast majority of players. Legacy minus duals might be worse than Legacy with them, but Legacy minus duals is still better than no Legacy at all.
Lets put it this way, if you had to choose between Legacy without the reserved cards and Modern, what would you choose?
The RL isn't just duals, and its removal immediately kills decks.
If RL cards disappear from legacy, I don't play the format, I just move to EDH fully, and play out all my wacky LED shenanigans there.
STATISTICS.
All of these "Let's eliminate bad cards" crusades are simply ignorant. And when they start to devolve into "WotC is conspiring to give us crappy cards," they just become embarrassing. MATH is conspiring to give you crappy cards.
Wizards can always make a special exception to take the dual lands out of the "reserved list". But I think they are too wussy not to.
anytime they touch the reserve list, the collectors start screaming. I'm all for the removal of the reserve list, or banning every card on it. But I've been playing since Alpha, I know why the reserve list was created, and it was understandable at the time. But MtG isn't going anywhere now, it's firmly established as one of the 3 go to CCGs in existence due to its longevity.
As I said about screaming, remember Karn and Sliver Queen? I do. I remember when they removed uncommons like Mana Drain and Karakas from the reserve list as well. And the self same collectors screamed about Vintage Masters even though it was digital only.
However, the reserve list is sort of a promise they made, and if they break their promise... Let's just say their reputation is at stake. Or so they believe... It's a proven fact that reprints of Tarmogoyfs has actually increasedd their value, not dropped it.
If they were to reprint duals, I'd think that dual lands would double their current price, if not triple... As more people are able to play and enjoy a format I love. I can't afford vintage, it's like 10 paces, turn, and fire until your opponent falls or drops their weapon. Legacy, it's great. Two fencers with rapiers. Modern's great too... Standard, playground bullies. kindergarten stuff... Wish people could understand how true this statement is.
The subjective and unprovable claim that their reputation would be damaged by getting rid of the Reserved List can be refuted by the equally subjective and unprovable claim that their reputation will be benefited by removing the Reserved List. I don't know anybody who actually wants the Reserved List to stick around, and if that is actually a prevalent mentality, their reputation has nowhere to go but up from such an action.
The other item in your post I'd like to comment on is prices. Yes, reprinting Tarmogoyf in MM and MM15 increased its price. But that's because it was printed as Mythic in a very limited print run. And those sets drove demand for Modern up by quite a bit. Those 3 things - 1. Mythic, 2. Limited Run, 3. Increased Demand all contributed. WOTC has direct control over numbers 1 and 2 should they ever decide to reprint ABUR Duals.
I wrote about this on market street. Here are my thoughts: Either the costs of Dual Lands and the rest of the reserve list cards are killing Legacy or they're not, it's that simple.
If the reason that people can't get into legacy is because duals are too pricey then Wizards should simply reprint the rest of the non-reserve list legacy into oblivion, offsetting the costs of legacy. Legacy becomes cheap. Wizards maintains the Reserve List promise. This is very valuable because Wizards get to keep their word.
Why is the reserve list so awful? The allegation is because it increases the price of cards by X, where X is a large number.
My solution: Ok, well decrease the price of the non-reserve list cards by X.
In fact, if you decrease the price of non-reserve list cards by X, you'll probably make modern a good deal more affordable in the meantime as well.
Reprinting all Legacy staples to the ground but not reprinting Reserved List cards will drastically increase demand in the format. That includes demand in the reserved list cards. That increased demand will result in prices skyrocketing.
I think if you surveyed the Magic community as a whole, the general consensus would be happy if the reserve list were removed. However, if you only surveyed Legacy players, I think you'd get a substantial difference of opinion. For every Legacy player that says "yes, let's get rid of it, I'd love to have more people to play Legacy against!" there's going to be another person that says "man, I just spent 3 years acquiring the expensive cards needed to build my Legacy deck and be able to play, what do you mean everything I just spent is now worth a fraction of what I paid for it? WoTC promised everyone the reserve list was not going anywhere multiple times!"
Look, I know we all would like to say that "hey, it's a game, not meant to be an investment", and this is true to some extent, and was probably much truer many years ago, but the fact of the matter is that some people love the game and want to play at its most competitive levels that they are willing to put forth a ton of time and effort, not as an investment, but so they can have a legit, competitive deck for a format that requires a fair amount of dedication to enter and play effectively. People treating Magic exclusively as an investment I have no pity for, there's always risk associated with any kind of investment, be it the stock market or MtG. I can't necessarily blame people for using Magic as an "investment;" I've got a lot of cardboard that has outperformed wall street consistently, but if it crashed and burned, I'd have only myself to blame for it.
So where am I going with all of this? Hypothetically speaking, if the reserve list were to be axed, here's how I think this would pan out. First and foremost, within the Legacy community itself, I think you'd see a lot of pissed off people that chose to buy into the format because they felt like since this was a safe investment into the game itself, not their 401k. I myself could not see dropping the cash I did to play a format where cards could be reprinted and plummet in value from the price I paid at any time. The reserve list and wizard's stance on it is the ONLY reason I felt comfortable acquiring the cards I have now. I think a lot of legacy players could say the same, and indeed, the non-rotating format always held the argument that while the upfront cost is more expensive, the format, overall, is cheaper than a rotating format like standard. Would they quit playing? Hard to say, but I'd expect a decent chunk of them would. But wouldn't the huge influx of players suddenly able to afford Legacy cards entering make up for them? Maybe, maybe not. Let's look at a staple modern card, Tarmogoyf and look at how its multiple reprints have affected the price. You would need to print a very sizeable amount of Tarmogoyfs for the supply to cause the price to fall; hell, the new art actually made the reprint more valuable than the future sight one. So if dual lands and all these other expensive cards are suddenly reprintable, exactly how many do you need to print to get the cards down to modern level-esque pricing, which I'm sure people will still whine about? We're not talking just one or two sets, no, you'd have to print the absolute CRAP out of reserve list stuff for it to drive the price down. And if you're going to do all of that, then why does modern need to exist as a format? Wouldn't all the modern players, tired of bolting themselves when they fetch a shock, just move to a format that is just as affordable as modern, but gets to play superior versions of the cards they're already playing? Ok, so now Modern will have a huge exodus and become a "dying format". How do all the modern players feel about that?
So Wizards prints a metric butt ton of reserve list cardboard and Legacy is thriving and exploding and the pissed off players have left the game and dual lands for all and it's all unicorns and rainbows and sunshine, right? Well, with all the people surging to Legacy (and I can't count how often I see people say "I would LOVE to play Legacy but it's too expensive", what happens to the price of the duals and Tabernacles and such? They get pushed RIGHT back up. In order for Wizards to accomplish what people hope the abolishment of the reserve list would, not only do you have to remove the reserve list, but you also have to actually print those cards. And you'd have to overprint them on a Chronicles-esque scale in order for supply to exceed demand and drive down prices to reasonable levels. And then you know what you have? The market volatility of frikking YuGiOh, across the board. Printing powerhouse cards on the scale needed to meet the demand surge would shake confidence in even Standard format, if that's even still a thing. People play standard because modern is inaccessible to them. People play modern because legacy in inaccessible. And if all of us Legacy players had Black Lotuses and P9, you can bet we'd be playing vintage tournaments. I'm not saying these are the ONLY reasons people play the formats they do, but it's a big one for a lot of players.
So is this kind of apocalyptic printing really necessary? Would the surge in Legacy play be so great it would require unparalleled print runs in order to accomplish what the reserve list being removed wanted to achieve? Well, let's look at what happened at the announcement of EMA. Reserve list cards skyrocketed upon the mere anticipationof renewed interest in them in the hopes that reprinting a few non reserve list legacy staples will bring. Honestly, the huge pricing surge probably has just negated any hopes people had of using EMA to help get into Legacy, and for that reaction, I blame the vendors, not WoTC.
The long and short of it is that if WoTC announced tomorrow that they were reprinting reserve list cards, they would either do so on such a small scale (like MMA) that its impact on prices is negligible and only succeed in pissing off a chunk of players that DO value the reserve list (which, by far and away are primarily the players of the format that they're doing this to try and save), or they overprint it to the point it jeopardizes all other formats and the secondary market/game itself, which is the EXACT reason the list was created to begin with.
So is Legacy a dying format that needs to be saved? There's a lot of talk about this subject, so let me address it real quick.
The first thing we need to understand about Legacy's reserve list cards is that their value does NOT come from their supply, despite the fact that the cards are reserve list. Their price is driven by demand. Vintage cards like Lotus and Moxen have very little in the way of demand placed on them for play use, their price is driven by their iconic nature, and incredibly diminished print runs, having only been printed in A/B/U. Even their play use is restricted (literally) to 1. Their price is primarily determined by their collectibility, not playability. With the exception of, perhaps Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, nearly all other reserve list cards were printed in revised or later, having an astronomically higher print run. IF we consider that Alpha's print run was 2.6 million, beta was 7.3, and Unlimited is estimated to have a print run of 40,000,000 (for a total of about 50,000,000) and revised has a print run of about 100,000,000, then that means that duals (not only having been printed in revised, but also in ABU) have been printed about 3x as much as an ABU card (a dual land is part of a 150,000,000 print run vs an ABU card being part of a 50,000,000 print run). This is NOT including FBB and FWB revised editions to my knowledge.
So what does this mean? It means there's not really a shortage of duals like there is of power, dual land printings are massive, at least 3x as large if not more. If you got to a GP, you'll see tons of dealers with plentiful stock of duals, but when it comes to power, while present, it's MUCH less present, with some booths not handling it at all. So why the pricetag?
Demand.
Some people are flat out willing to pay these prices to play Legacy. Most, are not. To me, these prices, because they are based out of demand, indicate a strong format with dedicated players. No, it's not as large as standard or modern, but I doubt very many people would be willing to pay $250 for a playset of the hottest standard card, though Jace, the Mind Sculptor got to like $145 at one point and that was considered a travesty. There are enough people willing to pay $200 for a dual land that the price is sustainable (and a large factor into those people's decisions is the protection offered by the reserve list). There are less people, but still some, willing to pay $300 for the same dual. And apparently, vendors are thinking that EMA will push people over the $350 mark. If they are wrong, then the prices will correct after EMA and settle back down, but if they are right, then you're talking about a format that people are willing to buy multiple copies of a $300 card to play. And if that's sustainable, it may not be very "fair", but I don't think it indicates a dying format by any means. It just means it's accessible to fewer people, but there's still enough interest in the format to find buyers at that price. Vendors are not going to leave their prices at $300 if they're not selling merch at that price point, the card isn't worth that as a collectible, it's only worth that as a game piece. While duals were printed much more heavily than ABU cards, there is a finite supply, and people playing these cards need multiples. There is enough interest in legacy, and combined with EDH's demand, this is the price where supply and demand for a game piece (not a collectible) meet. Unfortunately, this means a lot of Magic players, now more than ever, are indeed priced out of this format. This is partially due to the overwhelming growth surge of Magic in the last few years, with an interest in the game such as we've never seen. It is only natural that players discovering Magic would be drawn to its history of before they started playing and want to enjoy the older, more powerful formats. However, if we didn't have the player base that we do now, we wouldn't have nearly as many people with the extra cash to buy $300 game pieces, and the demand would fall, as would the pricetags.
The TLDR of this I've already stated: Given the playerbase that would rejoice in the abolishment of the reserve list and the renewed interest in Legacy it would cause, if WoTC were to abolish the reserve list, they would either print too little and thus no real impact on price other than the natural price drop that would occur with the loss of protection these cards enjoy, or they would have to overprint it to the point we'd have Chronicles all over again, but for different reasons. Also, Modern would probably wind up as a format that no one has any real interest in, why play Hallowed Fountain when you can play Tundra? Anyway, in either scenario, Wizards would accomplish a few things no matter what the print run: they'd piss off the secondary market by devaluing their inventories with no real gain, they'd at least damage modern and standard formats, and we haven't gotten to the players who actually play Legacy that would not enjoy their years of work $3,000 decks turning to a fraction of what its worth. And this is if Wizards SUCCEEDED in reducing cardboard prices to affordable levels. If they didn't succeed, then nothing really changed except the public breaking of a promise, the legal vulnerabilities that might be opened up, and the pissing off of at least a sizeable chunk of the playerbase of the format you're trying to "help."
The reserve list, like it or not, is a necessary evil at this point. And even if you disagree with that statement, it's not going anywhere. And if it does, it does so with MAJOR ramifications, some of which even advocates for its removal might not be able to like (or foresee) for that matter.
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MTG finance guy- follow me on Twitter@RichArschmann or RichardArschmann on Reddit
I started a thread on Magic General if you're interested.
Anyway, I think a lot of people are missing the point of Saffron's article. He's not suggesting that Legacy be replaced with this new non reserved list version right now. It's merely a suggestion of what to do when Legacy starts to become out of reach for the vast majority of players. Legacy minus duals might be worse than Legacy with them, but Legacy minus duals is still better than no Legacy at all.
Lets put it this way, if you had to choose between Legacy without the reserved cards and Modern, what would you choose?
BGW Junk / URB Grixis Shadow / RGB Lantern Control / WUBCBant Eldrazi
Current Legacy decks
BUG Shardless BUG / UWR Predict Miracles / RUG Canadian Thresh / WRBG 4c Loam
UB Reanimator
Although, if they do implement another constructed format, it would be hard to not test it out. Legacy minus the reserved list would kill Legacy, no doubt, so it might be the only place to play.
I'm only quoting you because in 2010, "zoo" was a very large percentage of legacy.
If you showed up now at our SNM legacy with a zoo deck, you wouldn't win many matches.
A friend went pretty far at a SCG legacy event with shocks instead of duals. He almost made day 2.
He was playing miracles and he got lots of interesting looks when he would play shocks but then win the match.
Saying you can't play legacy without duals is a straw-man, red herring argument.
The same friend that played miracles with shocks, built oops all spells for $300 and did OK (better than me) at another SCG event.
The amount of mono-colored decks that you could play in legacy is nothing to scoff at and you're wasteland protected!
If you did want to play multi-color and played shocks, the amount of games you would lose by one life is negligible.
But to be fair, there would be a few games where you lost because you shocked yourself.
BGW Junk / URB Grixis Shadow / RGB Lantern Control / WUBCBant Eldrazi
Current Legacy decks
BUG Shardless BUG / UWR Predict Miracles / RUG Canadian Thresh / WRBG 4c Loam
UB Reanimator
On the Wizards web page, when I try to pull up their "reprint policy" and/or "reserve list" the page comes up with ERROR 404: Page not found.
Try the link: EDIT: You might want to copy and paste it, I may not have applied it correctly so it is clickable.
http://magic.wizards.com/go/tcg/article.aspx?x=magic/products/reprintpolicy
It was there working fine the day they announced Eternal Masters. I pulled up the reserve list that day of the announcement. But the past two days the link has been a dud. Using the search bar doesn't help either. If they are doing away with it 'no reserve list legacy' is nothing to worry about.
Thoughts? I know its not related to the topic, but its interesting.
It's a glitch. It's been down for a while now.
If the reason that people can't get into legacy is because duals are too pricey then Wizards should simply reprint the rest of the non-reserve list legacy into oblivion, offsetting the costs of legacy. Legacy becomes cheap. Wizards maintains the Reserve List promise. This is very valuable because Wizards get to keep their word.
Why is the reserve list so awful? The allegation is because it increases the price of cards by X, where X is a large number.
My solution: Ok, well decrease the price of the non-reserve list cards by X.
In fact, if you decrease the price of non-reserve list cards by X, you'll probably make modern a good deal more affordable in the meantime as well.
Anyway... I would play no-reserved list legacy, although I wouldn't be happy about it, the lands are really necessary. Lets face it, I been playing this stupid game since Portal, and I'm sure many of you too. No matter what changes ill still be a whore and by into it because I still enjoy it.
I am afraid it might be too much like modern if that happens but who knows.
My H/W list
Nobody wants Legacy to stop existing or for the valuable and cherished RL cards to be rendered useless, but all the people who can't play because enough RL cards DO NOT EXIST AND NEVER WILL, desserve a powerful format where they can play and brew with some of the best, most fun cards ever. Without the lack of avaliability of Vintage and Legacy or the banlist meddling for PT "diversity's sake" of Modern.
And now I'm sure someone will come out and whine about how people aren't "entitled" to play your big boy format, well I hope you can put $18k where your mouth is because I own Oath, and I get to play it an amazing TWO times a year because there's extremely few people who can afford to play Vintage. If everyone of us had been as resistant to other people getting to play with "our cards" as you people are now when 1.5 was first discussed, Legacy wouldn't exist.
So please take your "entitlement" arguments down a notch and realize that having a new RL-free Eternal format (Modern is not Eternal) that would pretty much ammount to a normal deckbuilding version of Commander, would do notthing but good for players and deck brewers.
anytime they touch the reserve list, the collectors start screaming. I'm all for the removal of the reserve list, or banning every card on it. But I've been playing since Alpha, I know why the reserve list was created, and it was understandable at the time. But MtG isn't going anywhere now, it's firmly established as one of the 3 go to CCGs in existence due to its longevity.
As I said about screaming, remember Karn and Sliver Queen? I do. I remember when they removed uncommons like Mana Drain and Karakas from the reserve list as well. And the self same collectors screamed about Vintage Masters even though it was digital only.
However, the reserve list is sort of a promise they made, and if they break their promise... Let's just say their reputation is at stake. Or so they believe... It's a proven fact that reprints of Tarmogoyfs has actually increasedd their value, not dropped it.
If they were to reprint duals, I'd think that dual lands would double their current price, if not triple... As more people are able to play and enjoy a format I love. I can't afford vintage, it's like 10 paces, turn, and fire until your opponent falls or drops their weapon. Legacy, it's great. Two fencers with rapiers. Modern's great too... Standard, playground bullies. kindergarten stuff... Wish people could understand how true this statement is.
Dual lands are not expensive due to their rarity, they're expensive due to their demand, with Commander doing nothing to help that situation. The recent spikes are all reflective of anticipated interest in Legacy growing thanks to Eternal Masters. Until Eternal Masters there was a degree of equilibrium that existed. It was possible this time a year ago to go to a GP, do some trading, and pick up blue duals at $160-$190 for decent condition or better. A pile of hot standard staples from FNM winnings and trades was enough to get you two or so. Players joining Legacy and leaving the game created reasonably stable pricing, with the additional expense of the older cardboard justifiable to some extent based on the fact that it wasn't ever going to rotate. Sure, people grumbled about the price a little, but the counterpoint stood that you never have to worry about Tundra going out of rotation or getting banned and losing 85% of its value.
The gouging occurring will quash its own prices; eternal masters won't drive any additional demand for reserve list cards if the pricing of those cards is in the stratosphere. Vendors will have to come down if they want to capitalize on Eternal Masters. But if they don't, and cardboard actually ends up selling at this price, then the demand justifies the cost, outrageous as it may be. And if people are willing to buy duals at $300+ to play Legacy, then I don't see that as a dying format, I see that as a format people are willing to sell their cars to get into.
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
I see things from an online (MTGO) perspective, so take this with a pinch (rock?) of salt. The announcement of EMA drove legacy staples up. Including the two cards already announced as re-prints. This is certainly not new players buying into the format on the promise of EMA, its speculators buying into the certainty that EMA, if done right and not a la MM2, will drive interest up and consequently the price of cards. The reprint policy of raising, sometimes significantly, the rarity of reprints causes this.
The RL isn't just duals, and its removal immediately kills decks.
If RL cards disappear from legacy, I don't play the format, I just move to EDH fully, and play out all my wacky LED shenanigans there.
The other item in your post I'd like to comment on is prices. Yes, reprinting Tarmogoyf in MM and MM15 increased its price. But that's because it was printed as Mythic in a very limited print run. And those sets drove demand for Modern up by quite a bit. Those 3 things - 1. Mythic, 2. Limited Run, 3. Increased Demand all contributed. WOTC has direct control over numbers 1 and 2 should they ever decide to reprint ABUR Duals.
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
Look, I know we all would like to say that "hey, it's a game, not meant to be an investment", and this is true to some extent, and was probably much truer many years ago, but the fact of the matter is that some people love the game and want to play at its most competitive levels that they are willing to put forth a ton of time and effort, not as an investment, but so they can have a legit, competitive deck for a format that requires a fair amount of dedication to enter and play effectively. People treating Magic exclusively as an investment I have no pity for, there's always risk associated with any kind of investment, be it the stock market or MtG. I can't necessarily blame people for using Magic as an "investment;" I've got a lot of cardboard that has outperformed wall street consistently, but if it crashed and burned, I'd have only myself to blame for it.
So where am I going with all of this? Hypothetically speaking, if the reserve list were to be axed, here's how I think this would pan out. First and foremost, within the Legacy community itself, I think you'd see a lot of pissed off people that chose to buy into the format because they felt like since this was a safe investment into the game itself, not their 401k. I myself could not see dropping the cash I did to play a format where cards could be reprinted and plummet in value from the price I paid at any time. The reserve list and wizard's stance on it is the ONLY reason I felt comfortable acquiring the cards I have now. I think a lot of legacy players could say the same, and indeed, the non-rotating format always held the argument that while the upfront cost is more expensive, the format, overall, is cheaper than a rotating format like standard. Would they quit playing? Hard to say, but I'd expect a decent chunk of them would. But wouldn't the huge influx of players suddenly able to afford Legacy cards entering make up for them? Maybe, maybe not. Let's look at a staple modern card, Tarmogoyf and look at how its multiple reprints have affected the price. You would need to print a very sizeable amount of Tarmogoyfs for the supply to cause the price to fall; hell, the new art actually made the reprint more valuable than the future sight one. So if dual lands and all these other expensive cards are suddenly reprintable, exactly how many do you need to print to get the cards down to modern level-esque pricing, which I'm sure people will still whine about? We're not talking just one or two sets, no, you'd have to print the absolute CRAP out of reserve list stuff for it to drive the price down. And if you're going to do all of that, then why does modern need to exist as a format? Wouldn't all the modern players, tired of bolting themselves when they fetch a shock, just move to a format that is just as affordable as modern, but gets to play superior versions of the cards they're already playing? Ok, so now Modern will have a huge exodus and become a "dying format". How do all the modern players feel about that?
So Wizards prints a metric butt ton of reserve list cardboard and Legacy is thriving and exploding and the pissed off players have left the game and dual lands for all and it's all unicorns and rainbows and sunshine, right? Well, with all the people surging to Legacy (and I can't count how often I see people say "I would LOVE to play Legacy but it's too expensive", what happens to the price of the duals and Tabernacles and such? They get pushed RIGHT back up. In order for Wizards to accomplish what people hope the abolishment of the reserve list would, not only do you have to remove the reserve list, but you also have to actually print those cards. And you'd have to overprint them on a Chronicles-esque scale in order for supply to exceed demand and drive down prices to reasonable levels. And then you know what you have? The market volatility of frikking YuGiOh, across the board. Printing powerhouse cards on the scale needed to meet the demand surge would shake confidence in even Standard format, if that's even still a thing. People play standard because modern is inaccessible to them. People play modern because legacy in inaccessible. And if all of us Legacy players had Black Lotuses and P9, you can bet we'd be playing vintage tournaments. I'm not saying these are the ONLY reasons people play the formats they do, but it's a big one for a lot of players.
So is this kind of apocalyptic printing really necessary? Would the surge in Legacy play be so great it would require unparalleled print runs in order to accomplish what the reserve list being removed wanted to achieve? Well, let's look at what happened at the announcement of EMA. Reserve list cards skyrocketed upon the mere anticipationof renewed interest in them in the hopes that reprinting a few non reserve list legacy staples will bring. Honestly, the huge pricing surge probably has just negated any hopes people had of using EMA to help get into Legacy, and for that reaction, I blame the vendors, not WoTC.
The long and short of it is that if WoTC announced tomorrow that they were reprinting reserve list cards, they would either do so on such a small scale (like MMA) that its impact on prices is negligible and only succeed in pissing off a chunk of players that DO value the reserve list (which, by far and away are primarily the players of the format that they're doing this to try and save), or they overprint it to the point it jeopardizes all other formats and the secondary market/game itself, which is the EXACT reason the list was created to begin with.
So is Legacy a dying format that needs to be saved? There's a lot of talk about this subject, so let me address it real quick.
The first thing we need to understand about Legacy's reserve list cards is that their value does NOT come from their supply, despite the fact that the cards are reserve list. Their price is driven by demand. Vintage cards like Lotus and Moxen have very little in the way of demand placed on them for play use, their price is driven by their iconic nature, and incredibly diminished print runs, having only been printed in A/B/U. Even their play use is restricted (literally) to 1. Their price is primarily determined by their collectibility, not playability. With the exception of, perhaps Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, nearly all other reserve list cards were printed in revised or later, having an astronomically higher print run. IF we consider that Alpha's print run was 2.6 million, beta was 7.3, and Unlimited is estimated to have a print run of 40,000,000 (for a total of about 50,000,000) and revised has a print run of about 100,000,000, then that means that duals (not only having been printed in revised, but also in ABU) have been printed about 3x as much as an ABU card (a dual land is part of a 150,000,000 print run vs an ABU card being part of a 50,000,000 print run). This is NOT including FBB and FWB revised editions to my knowledge.
So what does this mean? It means there's not really a shortage of duals like there is of power, dual land printings are massive, at least 3x as large if not more. If you got to a GP, you'll see tons of dealers with plentiful stock of duals, but when it comes to power, while present, it's MUCH less present, with some booths not handling it at all. So why the pricetag?
Demand.
Some people are flat out willing to pay these prices to play Legacy. Most, are not. To me, these prices, because they are based out of demand, indicate a strong format with dedicated players. No, it's not as large as standard or modern, but I doubt very many people would be willing to pay $250 for a playset of the hottest standard card, though Jace, the Mind Sculptor got to like $145 at one point and that was considered a travesty. There are enough people willing to pay $200 for a dual land that the price is sustainable (and a large factor into those people's decisions is the protection offered by the reserve list). There are less people, but still some, willing to pay $300 for the same dual. And apparently, vendors are thinking that EMA will push people over the $350 mark. If they are wrong, then the prices will correct after EMA and settle back down, but if they are right, then you're talking about a format that people are willing to buy multiple copies of a $300 card to play. And if that's sustainable, it may not be very "fair", but I don't think it indicates a dying format by any means. It just means it's accessible to fewer people, but there's still enough interest in the format to find buyers at that price. Vendors are not going to leave their prices at $300 if they're not selling merch at that price point, the card isn't worth that as a collectible, it's only worth that as a game piece. While duals were printed much more heavily than ABU cards, there is a finite supply, and people playing these cards need multiples. There is enough interest in legacy, and combined with EDH's demand, this is the price where supply and demand for a game piece (not a collectible) meet. Unfortunately, this means a lot of Magic players, now more than ever, are indeed priced out of this format. This is partially due to the overwhelming growth surge of Magic in the last few years, with an interest in the game such as we've never seen. It is only natural that players discovering Magic would be drawn to its history of before they started playing and want to enjoy the older, more powerful formats. However, if we didn't have the player base that we do now, we wouldn't have nearly as many people with the extra cash to buy $300 game pieces, and the demand would fall, as would the pricetags.
The TLDR of this I've already stated: Given the playerbase that would rejoice in the abolishment of the reserve list and the renewed interest in Legacy it would cause, if WoTC were to abolish the reserve list, they would either print too little and thus no real impact on price other than the natural price drop that would occur with the loss of protection these cards enjoy, or they would have to overprint it to the point we'd have Chronicles all over again, but for different reasons. Also, Modern would probably wind up as a format that no one has any real interest in, why play Hallowed Fountain when you can play Tundra? Anyway, in either scenario, Wizards would accomplish a few things no matter what the print run: they'd piss off the secondary market by devaluing their inventories with no real gain, they'd at least damage modern and standard formats, and we haven't gotten to the players who actually play Legacy that would not enjoy their years of work $3,000 decks turning to a fraction of what its worth. And this is if Wizards SUCCEEDED in reducing cardboard prices to affordable levels. If they didn't succeed, then nothing really changed except the public breaking of a promise, the legal vulnerabilities that might be opened up, and the pissing off of at least a sizeable chunk of the playerbase of the format you're trying to "help."
The reserve list, like it or not, is a necessary evil at this point. And even if you disagree with that statement, it's not going anywhere. And if it does, it does so with MAJOR ramifications, some of which even advocates for its removal might not be able to like (or foresee) for that matter.
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave