While I have only been back in the game a few years since leaving back in 1999, I feel compelled to add my 2 cents on this topic. Legacy is a format that is not for everyone. Many are getting back into MTG after having grown up, having attained a career, and after having possibly retained much of their collection. Now, time is more of an issue for me than the resources.
There are plenty of enthusiasts who have an interest in Legacy; and as Modern is simply not expansive enough to play the older cards and decks using them, Legacy will trump the other closest format. I would place my bets on Legacy sticking around for a long time. I agree, the demise is greatly exaggerated.
While I have only been back in the game a few years since leaving back in 1999, I feel compelled to add my 2 cents on this topic. Legacy is a format that is not for everyone. Many are getting back into MTG after having grown up, having attained a career, and after having possibly retained much of their collection. Now, time is more of an issue for me than the resources.
There are plenty of enthusiasts who have an interest in Legacy; and as Modern is simply not expansive enough to play the older cards and decks using them, Legacy will trump the other closest format. I would place my bets on Legacy sticking around for a long time. I agree, the demise is greatly exaggerated.
This is an excellent post. Time is the biggest barrier to play. Time to travel to shops, time spent traveling to events, time spent looking for the best deals on 3rd party websites, etc.
Let us also not forget that Magic wasn't designed as a child's game, otherwise how do you account for ante cards as a design concept? Barrier costs do exist, but they exist in every hobby. Obviously a child who has no income cannot buy into Legacy, but people who have an income, and have Magic (Legacy Magic) as their hobby, can reasonably, over a period of time, acquire the means to play the format at any level.
Legacy in the long run is the cheapest format (along with Modern) due to the fact that once the staples are obtained, deck maintenance is cheaper than that of standard, as you will only be replacing a few cards in a few decks every year, as opposed to half or more of your deck every year.
Who remembers pogs and the "ante" that went on there? That's how you can account for "gambling" in a kids game.
In any case I think time is the key concept that epitomizes legacy. Putting time into the format yeilds experience, a good collection, higher understanding of the game, etc. everything around us seems to be trying to speed up and yet legacy continues at its own pace. It fixes its own problems, it adapts to change, it flows; This all takes time. A format like standard wants you all in right away shunning the time it perhaps should take for a more immediate return. Legacy lets you get your feet wet.
Needless to say this line of thought could go on for a while, but the time concept is legacy. How else could you leave a legacy if it weren't for time?
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------------------- Keep Abiding or Get Mangled ------------------
Due to real-life obligations, I am taking a long break from Magic which may include missing the local Legacy GP. Apologies for not being able to keep my threads updated.
I think it'd be interesting if you had a trend line for the overall (all regions) graph. Everyone knows there will be oscillations, but with a trend line, you can see that the attendance is still gradually increasing throughout 2013. You can still sort of see it, but a visual line would be nice.
A scary thought has occurred to me. We've often claimed throughout this thread that Legacy, while in danger of stagnant growth, is big enough already that it doesn't need to grow in order to thrive.
However, if Legacy stops growing and the only people playing are the already established player base, why would a LGS want to host? LGSs usually don't make much off their events - if anything they turn entry fees into purchases by giving prizes as credit. I think most of their incentive is bringing in players who drop money on Legacy staples. If this drys up, they might as well just spread Standard and/or Modern.
I guess the way to keep these events strong is to (when staples reach Vintage level cost and obscurity) encourage the house to take a hefty rake out of the pot; and encourage the players to not begrudge the house take. Something maybe we should keep in mind over the coming years - those of us still lucky enough to have vibrant local scenes.
I think it'd be interesting if you had a trend line for the overall (all regions) graph. Everyone knows there will be oscillations, but with a trend line, you can see that the attendance is still gradually increasing throughout 2013. You can still sort of see it, but a visual line would be nice.
I'll keep that in mind. It's actually not trivial to get a trend line in there, since I'm using a Python script to make the graphs and I'll have to make some changes to do a regression with time points. I also need to decide whether a linear regression, an exponential, or perhaps a LOESS is most appropriate.
However, if Legacy stops growing and the only people playing are the already established player base, why would a LGS want to host? LGSs usually don't make much off their events - if anything they turn entry fees into purchases by giving prizes as credit. I think most of their incentive is bringing in players who drop money on Legacy staples. If this drys up, they might as well just spread Standard and/or Modern.
We'll probably worry more about this once it gets there, but I think even if the player base stops growing, that doesn't mean the player base is stagnant. In Seattle, the Legacy scene has gone from big to huge in the last two years, but probably half of the players from 2011 have stopped playing (and have been more than replaced by new blood). In addition, even players with large collections continue to buy cards. Probably as importantly, stores like having a large, competitive Legacy scene to encourage players to constantly build new decks (and to improve existing ones), as well as to have opportunities to buy cards from players.
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Due to real-life obligations, I am taking a long break from Magic which may include missing the local Legacy GP. Apologies for not being able to keep my threads updated.
To be fair, Mythic Madness was probably a large contributor to this (both that players got it for entering, and that all the excess was given to the top placers).
However, if Legacy stops growing and the only people playing are the already established player base, why would a LGS want to host? LGSs usually don't make much off their events - if anything they turn entry fees into purchases by giving prizes as credit. I think most of their incentive is bringing in players who drop money on Legacy staples. If this drys up, they might as well just spread Standard and/or Modern.
They want bodies in their store, so a zero cost tournament has no downside other than it's opportunity cost, which isn't much if no other event is scheduled.
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What's the big deal? You could have played multiple Righteous Avengers for years now.
I have no problem with that. I hope the store makes profit from these tournaments and want more of them!
Agreed. I think most Legacy players in my area don't even care about the prize support. We just want to play. At the same time, my LGS has very good support and I almost always walk out ahead of my entry fee ($5) with more store credit afterwards, which is nice. I usually just save it for more Legacy staples.
I am a new player, playing for only about half a year.
I have built a few decks: some EDH, one modern, one standard (for next block).
I am working on a RUG Delver list, and have acquired the non-money cards as well as a playset of Force of Will.
Lots of these cards have a high cost, and that high cost makes me reluctant to get into legacy, because I don't want to see my cards crash in value when I've only just had them. That being said, I worry about it other formats too.
I am a new player, playing for only about half a year.
I have built a few decks: some EDH, one modern, one standard (for next block).
I am working on a RUG Delver list, and have acquired the non-money cards as well as a playset of Force of Will.
Lots of these cards have a high cost, and that high cost makes me reluctant to get into legacy, because I don't want to see my cards crash in value when I've only just had them. That being said, I worry about it other formats too.
Youll learn that only standard cards crash in value. Legacy is the land of $14 cards becoming $50 cards overnight, not the other way around.
As an aside, you should never build a deck for "post-rotation", because it's a completely unknown format. You don't know what cards you have to beat, and you don't know what will have synergy with your cards. You might as well build a deck for two blocks ahead.
It is like building a modern deck if you've never seen a single card out of standard and refuse to look at them. (I.e., it's not a modern deck. It's a standard deck.)
All you are doing is playing a block deck against standard decks.
Youll learn that only standard cards crash in value. Legacy is the land of $14 cards becoming $50 cards overnight, not the other way around.
Exactly. The whole reason I've stopped playing standard is because it costs nearly the same for a deck, but I'm not actually getting great cards. Oh, Bonfire was $40? Then Sphinx's Revelation? Then Voice of Resurgence? What next? Maybe I should just buy some Taigas or something...
Yes, I realize that Legacy cards tend to go up, but I am vaguely worried that my cards value will go down. Although, I don't imagine this will actually be the case. People have been saying that they expect Force of Will in FTV:20, but that doesn't sound likely.
I'm not concerned about stuff on the reserved list.
Anyway, I guess I shouldn't be worrying about the value of cards dropping. I do want to get into this format, so I should just go for it. I'm thinking of trading FoW for Lion's Eye, because at the very least I can put that in my almost complete dredge deck, so I can actually play.
(As for standard: I'm not too serious about standard because I don't like the price fluctuations. I built a RG beatdown deck using no INN block/M13 cards so I can play standard and do OK. I refuse to spend more than $20 on a card that's just for standard, and in practice I haven't paid more than $10 for standard cards outside of Deathrite, Shocklands, etc.).
95 players at a local northwest Legacy event this Sunday, and just under 300 at the SCG Open, both on the same weekend as GP Oakland.
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Due to real-life obligations, I am taking a long break from Magic which may include missing the local Legacy GP. Apologies for not being able to keep my threads updated.
As an aside, you should never build a deck for "post-rotation", because it's a completely unknown format. You don't know what cards you have to beat, and you don't know what will have synergy with your cards. You might as well build a deck for two blocks ahead.
That's not really true though. True, we don't know for sure what's in Theros, but we still know what the cards in 80% of the sets that will be in the Standard that Theros will enter into, so you can make some pretty reasonable guesses as to what it will be like. Certainly significantly better guesses than making a deck for two blocks ahead, of which you know 0% of the sets that it will involve.
That comparison makes no sense. You're comparing Bonfire's price over a year since its original jump to Transmute Artifact's price jump which occurred very recently. For example, Helm of Obedience had a large price jump, but it's gone down since then.
Certainly, Legacy staples are better at holding their prices than Standard staples, but the it makes no sense to use the cards you cited as a "Standard price graph" versus a "Legacy price graph".
Great blog, great thread, great everything. I consider Legacy to be the best and most enjoyable format by far, and while I do not expect everyone to agree with me, I am glad that many people do and are as fervent for their love of the game as I. Many of my friends who are working and in school are attempting to build Legacy decks as their first interest in Magic, after playing other formats and enjoying Legacy the most. While they realize the endeavor of completing a Legacy deck, they also love the game and don't consider the format "inaccessible" or "close to dead." I am very pleased that more new players are getting into Legacy, and that it has flourished for so long with no sign of slowing down.
Would just like to say that I'm a new player that got into MTG about 2-3 weeks ago, and this format is the one that has interested me the most. While I obviously don't have a lot of experience with all the formats at all, I've done extensive reading on the subject and have come to the conclusion that this is the only format I'd ever want to get into. Seems like a great format and I don't think it's that hard to get into (with the exception of a few important cards that seem a bit expensive, but I'm sure I could work towards them eventually) if my experiences mean anything.
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"An immense river of oblivion is sweeping us away into a nameless abyss." —Ernest Renan, Souvenirs d'Enfance et de Jeunesse
Anyone else find it disconcerting that Wizards has only one Legacy GP in the U.S. next year? Maybe I'm just letting the hardcore Modern players in my Magic Club get to me a little (they always like to rag on Legacy), but I just wanted other people's input on this.
Anyone else find it disconcerting that Wizards has only one Legacy GP in the U.S. next year? Maybe I'm just letting the hardcore Modern players in my Magic Club get to me a little (they always like to rag on Legacy), but I just wanted other people's input on this.
Legacy is 90% supported by SCG anyways. It's popularity has very little to do with GPs. The only way WOTC could kill legacy is stuff like making terrible changes to the banned list.
Anyone else find it disconcerting that Wizards has only one Legacy GP in the U.S. next year? Maybe I'm just letting the hardcore Modern players in my Magic Club get to me a little (they always like to rag on Legacy), but I just wanted other people's input on this.
Fortunately Legacy GPs aren't the measure of Success of Legacy. GPs are extremely top down agenda driven.
I find the lion's share of Modern players who have a negative view of Legacy have very little or Zero EXPERIENCE PLAYING the format.
The weekly Modern event in my area will draw 30+, the weekly Legacy event draws 20+. I'll see Legacy guys at the Modern event but rarely the other way around. You can't base the state of Legacy on what Modern players say.
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There are plenty of enthusiasts who have an interest in Legacy; and as Modern is simply not expansive enough to play the older cards and decks using them, Legacy will trump the other closest format. I would place my bets on Legacy sticking around for a long time. I agree, the demise is greatly exaggerated.
:tux::tux::tux:Me Blog:tux::tux::tux:
This is an excellent post. Time is the biggest barrier to play. Time to travel to shops, time spent traveling to events, time spent looking for the best deals on 3rd party websites, etc.
Let us also not forget that Magic wasn't designed as a child's game, otherwise how do you account for ante cards as a design concept? Barrier costs do exist, but they exist in every hobby. Obviously a child who has no income cannot buy into Legacy, but people who have an income, and have Magic (Legacy Magic) as their hobby, can reasonably, over a period of time, acquire the means to play the format at any level.
Legacy in the long run is the cheapest format (along with Modern) due to the fact that once the staples are obtained, deck maintenance is cheaper than that of standard, as you will only be replacing a few cards in a few decks every year, as opposed to half or more of your deck every year.
In any case I think time is the key concept that epitomizes legacy. Putting time into the format yeilds experience, a good collection, higher understanding of the game, etc. everything around us seems to be trying to speed up and yet legacy continues at its own pace. It fixes its own problems, it adapts to change, it flows; This all takes time. A format like standard wants you all in right away shunning the time it perhaps should take for a more immediate return. Legacy lets you get your feet wet.
Needless to say this line of thought could go on for a while, but the time concept is legacy. How else could you leave a legacy if it weren't for time?
-----The Legacy Flowchart-----
Tiny Leaders Overlord
http://copytaste.com/z4050
Edit: These graphs were based on the previous figure of 520, rather than 525.
For the sake of visualization:
Legacy
UWR Miracles UWR
GWB Maverick GWB
GB Elves GB
UBR ANT UBR
RG Combo Lands RG
Vintage
BUG BUG Fish BUG
Modern
GBW
Junk PodMagic: the BuylistingI think it'd be interesting if you had a trend line for the overall (all regions) graph. Everyone knows there will be oscillations, but with a trend line, you can see that the attendance is still gradually increasing throughout 2013. You can still sort of see it, but a visual line would be nice.
My Trade Thread
Current Decks:
Legacy:
GWR Punishing Maverick
UW Miracles
UR Sneak and Show
GWB Enchantress
However, if Legacy stops growing and the only people playing are the already established player base, why would a LGS want to host? LGSs usually don't make much off their events - if anything they turn entry fees into purchases by giving prizes as credit. I think most of their incentive is bringing in players who drop money on Legacy staples. If this drys up, they might as well just spread Standard and/or Modern.
I guess the way to keep these events strong is to (when staples reach Vintage level cost and obscurity) encourage the house to take a hefty rake out of the pot; and encourage the players to not begrudge the house take. Something maybe we should keep in mind over the coming years - those of us still lucky enough to have vibrant local scenes.
https://fieldmarshalshandbook.wordpress.com/
RUGLegacy Lands.dec
RUGBLegacy Lands.dec
RGLegacy Lands.dec
WUBRG EDH Lands.dec
UBR EDH Artificer Prodigy
B EDH Relentless Rats
I'll keep that in mind. It's actually not trivial to get a trend line in there, since I'm using a Python script to make the graphs and I'll have to make some changes to do a regression with time points. I also need to decide whether a linear regression, an exponential, or perhaps a LOESS is most appropriate.
We'll probably worry more about this once it gets there, but I think even if the player base stops growing, that doesn't mean the player base is stagnant. In Seattle, the Legacy scene has gone from big to huge in the last two years, but probably half of the players from 2011 have stopped playing (and have been more than replaced by new blood). In addition, even players with large collections continue to buy cards. Probably as importantly, stores like having a large, competitive Legacy scene to encourage players to constantly build new decks (and to improve existing ones), as well as to have opportunities to buy cards from players.
Legacy
UWR Miracles UWR
GWB Maverick GWB
GB Elves GB
UBR ANT UBR
RG Combo Lands RG
Vintage
BUG BUG Fish BUG
Modern
GBW
Junk PodMagic: the BuylistingTo be fair, Mythic Madness was probably a large contributor to this (both that players got it for entering, and that all the excess was given to the top placers).
GX Tron XG
UR Phoenix RU
GG Freyalise High Tide GG
UR Parun Counterspells RU
BB Yawgmoth Token Storm BB
WB Pestilence BW
They want bodies in their store, so a zero cost tournament has no downside other than it's opportunity cost, which isn't much if no other event is scheduled.
Agreed. I think most Legacy players in my area don't even care about the prize support. We just want to play. At the same time, my LGS has very good support and I almost always walk out ahead of my entry fee ($5) with more store credit afterwards, which is nice. I usually just save it for more Legacy staples.
My Trade Thread
Current Decks:
Legacy:
GWR Punishing Maverick
UW Miracles
UR Sneak and Show
GWB Enchantress
I have built a few decks: some EDH, one modern, one standard (for next block).
I am working on a RUG Delver list, and have acquired the non-money cards as well as a playset of Force of Will.
Lots of these cards have a high cost, and that high cost makes me reluctant to get into legacy, because I don't want to see my cards crash in value when I've only just had them. That being said, I worry about it other formats too.
Youll learn that only standard cards crash in value. Legacy is the land of $14 cards becoming $50 cards overnight, not the other way around.
As an aside, you should never build a deck for "post-rotation", because it's a completely unknown format. You don't know what cards you have to beat, and you don't know what will have synergy with your cards. You might as well build a deck for two blocks ahead.
It is like building a modern deck if you've never seen a single card out of standard and refuse to look at them. (I.e., it's not a modern deck. It's a standard deck.)
All you are doing is playing a block deck against standard decks.
Exactly. The whole reason I've stopped playing standard is because it costs nearly the same for a deck, but I'm not actually getting great cards. Oh, Bonfire was $40? Then Sphinx's Revelation? Then Voice of Resurgence? What next? Maybe I should just buy some Taigas or something...
http://ark42.com/mtg/pricehistory.php?q=Bonfire+of+the+Damned&d=0
And this is what a legacy one looks like:
http://ark42.com/mtg/pricehistory.php?q=Transmute+Artifact&d=0
I'm not concerned about stuff on the reserved list.
Anyway, I guess I shouldn't be worrying about the value of cards dropping. I do want to get into this format, so I should just go for it. I'm thinking of trading FoW for Lion's Eye, because at the very least I can put that in my almost complete dredge deck, so I can actually play.
(As for standard: I'm not too serious about standard because I don't like the price fluctuations. I built a RG beatdown deck using no INN block/M13 cards so I can play standard and do OK. I refuse to spend more than $20 on a card that's just for standard, and in practice I haven't paid more than $10 for standard cards outside of Deathrite, Shocklands, etc.).
Legacy
UWR Miracles UWR
GWB Maverick GWB
GB Elves GB
UBR ANT UBR
RG Combo Lands RG
Vintage
BUG BUG Fish BUG
Modern
GBW
Junk PodMagic: the BuylistingThat's not really true though. True, we don't know for sure what's in Theros, but we still know what the cards in 80% of the sets that will be in the Standard that Theros will enter into, so you can make some pretty reasonable guesses as to what it will be like. Certainly significantly better guesses than making a deck for two blocks ahead, of which you know 0% of the sets that it will involve.
That comparison makes no sense. You're comparing Bonfire's price over a year since its original jump to Transmute Artifact's price jump which occurred very recently. For example, Helm of Obedience had a large price jump, but it's gone down since then.
Certainly, Legacy staples are better at holding their prices than Standard staples, but the it makes no sense to use the cards you cited as a "Standard price graph" versus a "Legacy price graph".
If I had to guess....
1. Reserved List
2. Commander probably likes this
3. Legacy's "U/B Tezzeret Control" for lack of a better name plays Transmute Artifact
Currently Playing and/or Building:
Legacy:
BUG Shardless BUG BUG
BUG Team America BUG
UBRG Cabal ANT UBRG
Tell 'em. http://wizards.custhelp.com/app/ask
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/legacy-type-1-5/661941-list-of-stores-that-support-legacy
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?28892-Compilation-Of-Legacy-Streams
Thanks for spiderboy4 of High~Light_Studios for the kick ass avatar.
Thanks for DarkNightCavalier of HotPS for the exceptional signature.
Fortunately Legacy GPs aren't the measure of Success of Legacy. GPs are extremely top down agenda driven.
I find the lion's share of Modern players who have a negative view of Legacy have very little or Zero EXPERIENCE PLAYING the format.
The weekly Modern event in my area will draw 30+, the weekly Legacy event draws 20+. I'll see Legacy guys at the Modern event but rarely the other way around. You can't base the state of Legacy on what Modern players say.