1) SCG is heavily invested in Legacy. With all other factors removed from the equation, Legacy holds the promise of being the most profitable for SCG.
2) WotC appears to be heavily invested in Modern. With all other factors removed from the equation, modern holds the promise of being the most profitable for WotC.
3) As a corrolary to to #1 and #2, WotC has little profit incentive to support Legacy, and SCG has less incentive to support Modern over Legacy.
4) There is uncertainty about what WotC is planning to reprint to augment the Modern card pool. Heavy reprints of Shocks, Tarmogoyf, etc would wipe out any possible gains SCG might make in investing in them. That said, WotC and SCG have a fairly synergistic relationship at this time, even if WotC will not give pre-notice to SCG what cards they are going to reprint, giving them a rough idea of when the announcement will come would be valuable information for SCG.
5) SCG is run by fairly saavy businessmen.
6) WotC from Modern's inception has been clear of what they want: the so called "Turn 4 format", wherein combo decks are unlikely to go off before turn 4, and aggro decks can routinely put together a win around round 4. Under this filter, every banning they have done makes more sense.
7) WotC loves a midrange format. It is both what the developers have professed to prefer, and what they believe their market research has told them players want.
8) Under the current bannings, Modern is trending towards a pretty midrange format. Jund is tier 1, but not oppressive.
9) WotC has the power to tank Legacy if it wants. if SCG swears off WotC's favored format modern completely and sticks just to Legacy, Wotc can print a handful of cards and make legacy completely unfun to play and force the issue. Then SCG is faced with catching up to Modern, which is going to stymie any profits they could make as they would already be behind the curve. Or they could stick to their legacy guns, go nuclear, and run with their own banned list...But that is likely to just end disastrously for both SCG and WotC.
Taking those facts, what else can we extrapolate as likely behavior for SCG?
1) There will absolutely be no mass lightswitch style switchover on their part to "Sundays are now Modern, legacy is out". Even Alternating weekends is unlikely in the short term. There will likely be a change, but it is going to be very gradual.
2) SCG will recognize that Wizards is serious about Modern, and understand that it is another market they can invest in. The majority of their investment is likely to be in things that they think are fringe enough that WotC's reprints are unlikely to affect them. Most likely looking at cards that are now in the $3-$7 range, which will be unlikely to see reprints, but would spike in price if Modern really took off. They may fund this investment from excess profits, or by easing up the accelerator on their legacy acquisitions, they have a solid legacy stock, and could stand to coast on it for awhile.
3) Additional bannings are becoming increasingly unlikely. The format as it exists is matching pretty well with WotC's stated goals. Affinity usually kills around turn 4 with average draws through a little disruption. Splintertwin is the premiere combo deck, and requires creatures to win, which lets pretty much everyone under the sun interact with it on the same axis that they interact with affinity, Jund, or other creature decks. Jund is a tier 1 choice, and because of its ability to have Bloodbraid and Dark Confidant help it stumble into winning games it has no business doing so, it can be the Modern gateway drug for the type players that would be intimidated by formats like Legacy. Even if another one or two rounds of bannings do somehow become needed to finish molding to WotC's vision of modern, they will soon reach the stopping point. Once a ban opportunity comes and goes with no cards banned, there will be an uptick in player and reseller (SCG) interest.
4) Once WotC has announced its plan on reprints, SCG would likely dive in hard on buying modern cards that they then know aren't in immediate danger of being devalued.
5) If SCG can find out when the announcement of reprints is happening, they will likely then plan for an uptick in their modern tournament offerings to shortly follow that as they know this will raise the tide on the investments they made in #2 and #4.
6) At that point, SCG is in a feedback loop and can balance their investments to what is most profitable. Expect the mix of Legacy and Modern opens to also fluctuate here as they seek the best way to rise the cost of both sets of cards. There is no way for any of us to really predict where that balance falls, any estimate we make is just a projection of how much we personally like Legacy vs Modern.
In the end, the leads of both WotC and SCG realize that they are much better off when they work together and compromise rather than work at cross purposes. So they will try to find a compromise where SCG gets to keep the legacy cash outlet alive and WotC gets to have its Modern cash outlet.
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I support WotC's goal of shaping Modern in favor of diversity.
I ran a thought experiment on my blog Modern in a Nuclear Wasteland
of an extreme case of banning 20 more cards to make sure they get everything, then scaling back where appropriate. WotC seems to be on a slowly build up approach. Both ways probably reach similar end points.
The post Gatecrash metagame is proving to be closer to the endpoint than I estimated, so its very possible that few (if any) more cards need to be banned.
I just dont see how Modern is a cash outlet for WoTC, unless you guys are living in some magic Christmas land where wizards prints all the cards that are "too expensive" to grant equality to all. The only way wizards is making money on modern is if people attend modern GP's PTQs. Again unless you guys all of a sudden think that wizards is going to create "From the Vault, omg I can't afford that ban it or make it free." then please explain how modern is profitable.
I've been trolling the modern forums since it was a "casual" forum, I want it to be a success, as I love eternal formats. But lets not kid ourselves legacy is the true eternal format and regardless of its price of entry its doing well world wide.
I'm not sure it makes financial sense yet to replace Legacy with Modern. They surely won't do it this year. Maybe next. I mean, I have to say that I would love them to switch to Modern. That would be great. But I don't see them making that decision quickly or lightly. One wrong move could really damage the circuit.
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WoTC, thank you for finally announcing the Modern format, an eternal format where everyone can participate.
It will be a slow switch to be sure. But Wotc and SCGs knows Legacy cant survive or grow any at the levels it is now for too much longer due to the limited card pool. With collectors keeping them to their promise they are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Knowing that, Wotc had to make a move and do something. In the end its about money. Not all things are profitable right off the bat.
I just dont see how Modern is a cash outlet for WoTC, unless you guys are living in some magic Christmas land where wizards prints all the cards that are "too expensive" to grant equality to all. The only way wizards is making money on modern is if people attend modern GP's PTQs. Again unless you guys all of a sudden think that wizards is going to create "From the Vault, omg I can't afford that ban it or make it free." then please explain how modern is profitable.
I've been trolling the modern forums since it was a "casual" forum, I want it to be a success, as I love eternal formats. But lets not kid ourselves legacy is the true eternal format and regardless of its price of entry its doing well world wide.
The total amount of players who can play Legacy is capped. In order to get into the format, you need to buy someone else out.
its not capped, not at ALL. I've seen more and more new players coming out to events duals ready to play a competitive game. at SCGLA I met like 7 people that had JUST finished trading/buying their last dual they needed to play their deck.
there are 9 pages of revised duals on ebay right now, go to MTG traders and there are even more. If you're claiming every staple is in someones hand and no one can buy FoW karakas, etc etc then you're wrong. Legacy is far from capped.
its not capped, not at ALL. I've seen more and more new players coming out to events duals ready to play a competitive game. at SCGLA I met like 7 people that had JUST finished trading/buying their last dual they needed to play their deck.
there are 9 pages of revised duals on ebay right now, go to MTG traders and there are even more. If you're claiming every staple is in someones hand and no one can buy FoW karakas, etc etc then you're wrong. Legacy is far from capped.
IMO your wrong. Even a format like modern has a soft-cap because we only have so many of the best cards(goyf) floating around. The reason legacy is hard-capped is because the reserve list. Sure this might a large number do to deck variety, but it is not possible for legacy to grow to say...standard levels for this reason.
Your point about wotc making money off of modern is quite true. Other than the PTQ tournaments and GP tournaments wotc doesn't make money specifically on modern as they have no claim to the secondary market.
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In life all we can do is try to make things better. Sitting lost in old ways and fearing change only makes us outdated and ignorant.
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
Albert Einstein
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
wotc doesn't make money specifically on modern as they have no claim to the secondary market.
Ahem. Dual Decks, Planechase, Commander, From the Vault, Premium Deck Series, Archenemy... WotC has its hands all over the secondary market. And it is through these products that they will reprint many of the Modern staples that are too powerful for Standard: Goyf, Engineered Explosives, V-Clique, Shocklands, etc. WotC has an easy way to make a lot of money off Modern.
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WoTC, thank you for finally announcing the Modern format, an eternal format where everyone can participate.
they have their MSRP all over the secondary market. as far as goyfs being hard to find, what does that even mean. Go on amazon, ebay, craigslist, mtgtraders, they're all over the place man. Name ANY legacy staple that you can't find because they are all owned or off the market. There isn't one.
if your(sic) not seeing growth in legacy you're not looking at the numbers.
Ahem. Dual Decks, Planechase, Commander, From the Vault, Premium Deck Series, Archenemy... WotC has its hands all over the secondary market. And it is through these products that they will reprint many of the Modern staples that are too powerful for Standard: Goyf, Engineered Explosives, V-Clique, Shocklands, etc. WotC has an easy way to make a lot of money off Modern.
kind of I guess. It is rather unfortunate that wotc isn't trying to cash grab the heck out of modern. I just don't know how many expensive staples are going to be in these things because reprints are bad for companies like SCG who can make more money off of selling goyfs for ~110 than selling something that can be mass produced which means that they can't artificially inflate the market.
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In life all we can do is try to make things better. Sitting lost in old ways and fearing change only makes us outdated and ignorant.
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
Albert Einstein
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
kind of I guess. It is rather unfortunate that wotc isn't trying to cash grab the heck out of modern. I just don't know how many expensive staples are going to be in these things because reprints are bad for companies like SCG who can make more money off of selling goyfs for ~110 than selling something that can be mass produced which means that they can't artificially inflate the market.
It's really weird because when you think about it; if say a 30 dollar 'intro to modern deck' with a Goyf and a Shockland in it were printed in a large amount and given to places like Wal-Mart, Target, and B&M hobby stores; they'd fly right off the shelves.
It'd make it much easier for new players to get into Modern, WotC would sell a ridiculous amount of product and I'm willing to bet Tourny attendance would be very high.
But, i don't know much about running a company, i suppose.
It's really weird because when you think about it; if say a 30 dollar 'intro to modern deck' with a Goyf and a Shockland in it were printed in a large amount and given to places like Wal-Mart, Target, and B&M hobby stores; they'd fly right off the shelves.
It'd make it much easier for new players to get into Modern, WotC would sell a ridiculous amount of product and I'm willing to bet Tourny attendance would be very high.
But, i don't know much about running a company, i suppose.
You don't want to devalue cards like that overnight. They did it once with Chronicles and burned a lot of people very badly. The decks sold in Wal-Mart/Target aren't aimed at the tournament crowd, and they don't like it when they're scavenged for parts by competitive players.
It's really weird because when you think about it; if say a 30 dollar 'intro to modern deck' with a Goyf and a Shockland in it were printed in a large amount and given to places like Wal-Mart, Target, and B&M hobby stores; they'd fly right off the shelves.
It'd make it much easier for new players to get into Modern, WotC would sell a ridiculous amount of product and I'm willing to bet Tourny attendance would be very high.
But, i don't know much about running a company, i suppose.
I have often said this, but the powers that be are too busy making sure that the secondary market stays intact mostly for SCG I believe. It honestly seems that wotc is actually ran by SCG they listen to them.
You don't want to devalue cards like that overnight. They did it once with Chronicles and burned a lot of people very badly. The decks sold in Wal-Mart/Target aren't aimed at the tournament crowd, and they don't like it when they're scavenged for parts by competitive players.
MTG doesn't have the collectors appeal that it used to. Let the collectors have their reserved list, but card from RAV and UP should be made more affordable secondary market be damned. Also why would wotc care if people scavenge from their products? A tournament players money has the same weight as a noobs or a casual players. Several people argue that wotc is messing up modern to increase attendance to increase cash flow yet they would care who's money they took? It seems illogical that both of these could be true in tandem.
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In life all we can do is try to make things better. Sitting lost in old ways and fearing change only makes us outdated and ignorant.
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
Albert Einstein
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
You don't want to devalue cards like that overnight. They did it once with Chronicles and burned a lot of people very badly. The decks sold in Wal-Mart/Target aren't aimed at the tournament crowd, and they don't like it when they're scavenged for parts by competitive players.
Goyf would still probably go for 30$ a pop if sold in a 30$ deck even if it did include a Shockland. Which is still 120$ a playset which is still a ridiculous amount of value for 4 pieces of cardboard (I can buy 2 weeks of really nice groceries for 120$ or pay 1/4th of my monthly rent or buy a half of an engineering text book!).
I would think that making the game a decent bit cheaper would help make the competitive scene that much more popular.
I'm not sure that WotC should actually care about secondary market value.
Reducing the price of Goyf by printing it in a Tournament starter deck product is a little bit different than reprinting Lotus or the Moxen.
its not capped, not at ALL. I've seen more and more new players coming out to events duals ready to play a competitive game. at SCGLA I met like 7 people that had JUST finished trading/buying their last dual they needed to play their deck.
there are 9 pages of revised duals on ebay right now, go to MTG traders and there are even more. If you're claiming every staple is in someones hand and no one can buy FoW karakas, etc etc then you're wrong. Legacy is far from capped.
they have their MSRP all over the secondary market. as far as goyfs being hard to find, what does that even mean. Go on amazon, ebay, craigslist, mtgtraders, they're all over the place man. Name ANY legacy staple that you can't find because they are all owned or off the market. There isn't one.
if your(sic) not seeing growth in legacy you're not looking at the numbers.
For every 'new' Legacy player you are seeing in your area, someone else in another part of the country/world has just sold off their staples. Meaning the format has lost a player somewhere. If you look at the attendence numbers for SCG events, they are pretty stable, but show no growth.
As for Legacy being capped, there are only 'X' amount of each dual and fetch and the rest of the cards Wotc CANT REPRINT. That means the number of Legacy players is capped. What that cap is, no one knows.
Add in the cards lost to damage, the collectors who wont sell and dont play, the card pool is shrinking, not getting bigger by any means.
Without fow (and bs to search for it), I hear losing on turns 1-3 against combo is fun and nice. Then you put your sideboard hate but if you don't draw it in your opening 7 you're... doomed.
are you still mad that you got ran off because people said your wrong and could back it up, right now combo isn't doing so hot (tempo is the name of the game right now), heck the most popular deck is something called maverick which tends to be G/W or G/W/r, oh yeah you need to have hate, but didn't modern go through a period dominated by combo decks, just like *gasp* every eternal format does.
For every 'new' Legacy player you are seeing in your area, someone else in another part of the country/world has just sold off their staples. Meaning the format has lost a player somewhere. If you look at the attendence numbers for SCG events, they are pretty stable, but show no growth.
As for Legacy being capped, there are only 'X' amount of each dual and fetch and the rest of the cards Wotc CANT REPRINT. That means the number of Legacy players is capped. What that cap is, no one knows.
Add in the cards lost to damage, the collectors who wont sell and dont play, the card pool is shrinking, not getting bigger by any means.
You are also leaving out the massive exodus of eternal staples to Europe. As more and more Europeans buy into Vintage and Legacy, fewer and fewer Americans have the cards to play with. That means the U.S. Legacy potential player-base is shrinking, not growing.
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WoTC, thank you for finally announcing the Modern format, an eternal format where everyone can participate.
You are also leaving out the massive exodus of eternal staples to Europe. As more and more Europeans buy into Vintage and Legacy, fewer and fewer Americans have the cards to play with. That means the U.S. Legacy potential player-base is shrinking, not growing.
I mentioned it on page 2 of this thread but no one took notice.
Without circumventing the reserve list and reprinting cards, the only way Legacy can grow is proxies. How many of those limited cards have been ruined or destroyed? How many are sitting in peoples collections never played or forgotten about? According to some larger shops across America, they believe close to 60% of Legacy and Vintage staples are in the UK and Japan. Add in the damaged or lost cards and that doesnt leave many cards for the American players to use.
Why does it have to be one or the other for Modern and Legacy? As I stated earlier in this thread, SCG could easily just alternate weekends. Or, do three Legacy events/1 Modern event per four SCG Opens. Just call Sunday the SCG Eternal Open, and alternate the format.
I think that would get more people into Modern, would define a Modern metagame, while also getting SCG Opens more viewers AND players. I know people who want to watch Modern, because it is so new. People also ant to have a real Modern metagame, not based upon recent MODO results.
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"Imagination is more important than knowledge." - Albert Einstein
Why does it have to be one or the other for Modern and Legacy? As I stated earlier in this thread, SCG could easily just alternate weekends. Or, do three Legacy events/1 Modern event per four SCG Opens. Just call Sunday the SCG Eternal Open, and alternate the format.
I think that would get more people into Modern, would define a Modern metagame, while also getting SCG Opens more viewers AND players. I know people who want to watch Modern, because it is so new. People also ant to have a real Modern metagame, not based upon recent MODO results.
The issue is that SCG needs to make its series predicable. The invitationals are the place for them to start experimenting, and I hope they do.
The issue is that SCG needs to make its series predicable. The invitationals are the place for them to start experimenting, and I hope they do.
I agree that they need to make them predictable. But, all SCG would have to do would be make sure there is sufficient advertising on the page for the following week, make sure the commentators talk about it sufficiently the prior week, and on Saturday, during the Standard Open, make sure there are announcements saying: "Tomorrow will be a Modern Open! That's right, Modern!"
I think that it would be an awesome draw, and might even would come close to the number of Standard players, instead of the ~50% attendance that there is for Legacy.
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"Imagination is more important than knowledge." - Albert Einstein
I agree that they need to make them predictable. But, all SCG would have to do would be make sure there is sufficient advertising on the page for the following week, make sure the commentators talk about it sufficiently the prior week, and on Saturday, during the Standard Open, make sure there are announcements saying: "Tomorrow will be a Modern Open! That's right, Modern!"
I think that it would be an awesome draw, and might even would come close to the number of Standard players, instead of the ~50% attendance that there is for Legacy.
The problem is that they risk angering local Legacy players who aren't getting the same tournament that the previous city did. The events are much more localized now that the grinder rewards have been killed off.
The problem is that they risk angering local Legacy players who aren't getting the same tournament that the previous city did. The SCG events are much more localized now that the grinder rewards have been killed off.
^^^ This x9001
Another point of interest: When I went to a fairly LARGE amount of scg weekends last year, not a single modern side event ever fired, so I can only assume this interest in modern isnt quite there.
Since then I have given up on modern (used to have 10-12 for local... now none show)... I do believe the main culprit is Wotc themselves. Their bans happen too quickly and dont even give the format enough time to self regulate/adjust and instead winning means your deck is next up on the chopping block.(cranial plating/ravager is the next to go btw)
I have always felt that the tcgplayer tournies should do a standard open on sat, and a modern open on sunday (are their tournies opens?).... They could fill the niche of modern since they arent invested in eternal.
Another point of interest: When I went to a fairly LARGE amount of scg weekends last year, not a single modern side event ever fired, so I can only assume this interest in modern isnt quite there.
Since then I have given up on modern (used to have 10-12 for local... now none show)... I do believe the main culprit is Wotc themselves. Their bans happen to quickly and dont even given the format enough time to self regulate and instead winning means your deck is next up on the chopping block.
The bans and the ridiculous secondary market. Looking at the PTQ numbers thus far they are less than half of what extended ptqs were a few years ago. I guess the format could pick up, but noone other than PTQ grinders really have any need for this format. Legacy is more fun and standard is cheaper. That about covers the spread.
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In life all we can do is try to make things better. Sitting lost in old ways and fearing change only makes us outdated and ignorant.
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
Albert Einstein
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
To you its more fun. As for cost, it really depends on what cards you own already. Duals for Legacy are much more expensive then shocklands, there are some staples comparable in price but when it comes to the mana base, Legacy is much more expensive to buy into as a n00b.
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1) SCG is heavily invested in Legacy. With all other factors removed from the equation, Legacy holds the promise of being the most profitable for SCG.
2) WotC appears to be heavily invested in Modern. With all other factors removed from the equation, modern holds the promise of being the most profitable for WotC.
3) As a corrolary to to #1 and #2, WotC has little profit incentive to support Legacy, and SCG has less incentive to support Modern over Legacy.
4) There is uncertainty about what WotC is planning to reprint to augment the Modern card pool. Heavy reprints of Shocks, Tarmogoyf, etc would wipe out any possible gains SCG might make in investing in them. That said, WotC and SCG have a fairly synergistic relationship at this time, even if WotC will not give pre-notice to SCG what cards they are going to reprint, giving them a rough idea of when the announcement will come would be valuable information for SCG.
5) SCG is run by fairly saavy businessmen.
6) WotC from Modern's inception has been clear of what they want: the so called "Turn 4 format", wherein combo decks are unlikely to go off before turn 4, and aggro decks can routinely put together a win around round 4. Under this filter, every banning they have done makes more sense.
7) WotC loves a midrange format. It is both what the developers have professed to prefer, and what they believe their market research has told them players want.
8) Under the current bannings, Modern is trending towards a pretty midrange format. Jund is tier 1, but not oppressive.
9) WotC has the power to tank Legacy if it wants. if SCG swears off WotC's favored format modern completely and sticks just to Legacy, Wotc can print a handful of cards and make legacy completely unfun to play and force the issue. Then SCG is faced with catching up to Modern, which is going to stymie any profits they could make as they would already be behind the curve. Or they could stick to their legacy guns, go nuclear, and run with their own banned list...But that is likely to just end disastrously for both SCG and WotC.
Taking those facts, what else can we extrapolate as likely behavior for SCG?
1) There will absolutely be no mass lightswitch style switchover on their part to "Sundays are now Modern, legacy is out". Even Alternating weekends is unlikely in the short term. There will likely be a change, but it is going to be very gradual.
2) SCG will recognize that Wizards is serious about Modern, and understand that it is another market they can invest in. The majority of their investment is likely to be in things that they think are fringe enough that WotC's reprints are unlikely to affect them. Most likely looking at cards that are now in the $3-$7 range, which will be unlikely to see reprints, but would spike in price if Modern really took off. They may fund this investment from excess profits, or by easing up the accelerator on their legacy acquisitions, they have a solid legacy stock, and could stand to coast on it for awhile.
3) Additional bannings are becoming increasingly unlikely. The format as it exists is matching pretty well with WotC's stated goals. Affinity usually kills around turn 4 with average draws through a little disruption. Splintertwin is the premiere combo deck, and requires creatures to win, which lets pretty much everyone under the sun interact with it on the same axis that they interact with affinity, Jund, or other creature decks. Jund is a tier 1 choice, and because of its ability to have Bloodbraid and Dark Confidant help it stumble into winning games it has no business doing so, it can be the Modern gateway drug for the type players that would be intimidated by formats like Legacy. Even if another one or two rounds of bannings do somehow become needed to finish molding to WotC's vision of modern, they will soon reach the stopping point. Once a ban opportunity comes and goes with no cards banned, there will be an uptick in player and reseller (SCG) interest.
4) Once WotC has announced its plan on reprints, SCG would likely dive in hard on buying modern cards that they then know aren't in immediate danger of being devalued.
5) If SCG can find out when the announcement of reprints is happening, they will likely then plan for an uptick in their modern tournament offerings to shortly follow that as they know this will raise the tide on the investments they made in #2 and #4.
6) At that point, SCG is in a feedback loop and can balance their investments to what is most profitable. Expect the mix of Legacy and Modern opens to also fluctuate here as they seek the best way to rise the cost of both sets of cards. There is no way for any of us to really predict where that balance falls, any estimate we make is just a projection of how much we personally like Legacy vs Modern.
In the end, the leads of both WotC and SCG realize that they are much better off when they work together and compromise rather than work at cross purposes. So they will try to find a compromise where SCG gets to keep the legacy cash outlet alive and WotC gets to have its Modern cash outlet.
I ran a thought experiment on my blog
Modern in a Nuclear Wasteland
of an extreme case of banning 20 more cards to make sure they get everything, then scaling back where appropriate. WotC seems to be on a slowly build up approach. Both ways probably reach similar end points.
The post Gatecrash metagame is proving to be closer to the endpoint than I estimated, so its very possible that few (if any) more cards need to be banned.
I've been trolling the modern forums since it was a "casual" forum, I want it to be a success, as I love eternal formats. But lets not kid ourselves legacy is the true eternal format and regardless of its price of entry its doing well world wide.
The total amount of players who can play Legacy is capped. In order to get into the format, you need to buy someone else out.
Current post- Grand Prix KC Modern Postmortem (7/7/13)
there are 9 pages of revised duals on ebay right now, go to MTG traders and there are even more. If you're claiming every staple is in someones hand and no one can buy FoW karakas, etc etc then you're wrong. Legacy is far from capped.
IMO your wrong. Even a format like modern has a soft-cap because we only have so many of the best cards(goyf) floating around. The reason legacy is hard-capped is because the reserve list. Sure this might a large number do to deck variety, but it is not possible for legacy to grow to say...standard levels for this reason.
Your point about wotc making money off of modern is quite true. Other than the PTQ tournaments and GP tournaments wotc doesn't make money specifically on modern as they have no claim to the secondary market.
Albert Einstein
Thomas Jefferson
Ahem. Dual Decks, Planechase, Commander, From the Vault, Premium Deck Series, Archenemy... WotC has its hands all over the secondary market. And it is through these products that they will reprint many of the Modern staples that are too powerful for Standard: Goyf, Engineered Explosives, V-Clique, Shocklands, etc. WotC has an easy way to make a lot of money off Modern.
if your(sic) not seeing growth in legacy you're not looking at the numbers.
kind of I guess. It is rather unfortunate that wotc isn't trying to cash grab the heck out of modern. I just don't know how many expensive staples are going to be in these things because reprints are bad for companies like SCG who can make more money off of selling goyfs for ~110 than selling something that can be mass produced which means that they can't artificially inflate the market.
Albert Einstein
Thomas Jefferson
It's really weird because when you think about it; if say a 30 dollar 'intro to modern deck' with a Goyf and a Shockland in it were printed in a large amount and given to places like Wal-Mart, Target, and B&M hobby stores; they'd fly right off the shelves.
It'd make it much easier for new players to get into Modern, WotC would sell a ridiculous amount of product and I'm willing to bet Tourny attendance would be very high.
But, i don't know much about running a company, i suppose.
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You don't want to devalue cards like that overnight. They did it once with Chronicles and burned a lot of people very badly. The decks sold in Wal-Mart/Target aren't aimed at the tournament crowd, and they don't like it when they're scavenged for parts by competitive players.
Current post- Grand Prix KC Modern Postmortem (7/7/13)
I have often said this, but the powers that be are too busy making sure that the secondary market stays intact mostly for SCG I believe. It honestly seems that wotc is actually ran by SCG they listen to them.
MTG doesn't have the collectors appeal that it used to. Let the collectors have their reserved list, but card from RAV and UP should be made more affordable secondary market be damned. Also why would wotc care if people scavenge from their products? A tournament players money has the same weight as a noobs or a casual players. Several people argue that wotc is messing up modern to increase attendance to increase cash flow yet they would care who's money they took? It seems illogical that both of these could be true in tandem.
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Goyf would still probably go for 30$ a pop if sold in a 30$ deck even if it did include a Shockland. Which is still 120$ a playset which is still a ridiculous amount of value for 4 pieces of cardboard (I can buy 2 weeks of really nice groceries for 120$ or pay 1/4th of my monthly rent or buy a half of an engineering text book!).
I would think that making the game a decent bit cheaper would help make the competitive scene that much more popular.
I'm not sure that WotC should actually care about secondary market value.
Reducing the price of Goyf by printing it in a Tournament starter deck product is a little bit different than reprinting Lotus or the Moxen.
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For every 'new' Legacy player you are seeing in your area, someone else in another part of the country/world has just sold off their staples. Meaning the format has lost a player somewhere. If you look at the attendence numbers for SCG events, they are pretty stable, but show no growth.
As for Legacy being capped, there are only 'X' amount of each dual and fetch and the rest of the cards Wotc CANT REPRINT. That means the number of Legacy players is capped. What that cap is, no one knows.
Add in the cards lost to damage, the collectors who wont sell and dont play, the card pool is shrinking, not getting bigger by any means.
are you still mad that you got ran off because people said your wrong and could back it up, right now combo isn't doing so hot (tempo is the name of the game right now), heck the most popular deck is something called maverick which tends to be G/W or G/W/r, oh yeah you need to have hate, but didn't modern go through a period dominated by combo decks, just like *gasp* every eternal format does.
You are also leaving out the massive exodus of eternal staples to Europe. As more and more Europeans buy into Vintage and Legacy, fewer and fewer Americans have the cards to play with. That means the U.S. Legacy potential player-base is shrinking, not growing.
I mentioned it on page 2 of this thread but no one took notice.
I think that would get more people into Modern, would define a Modern metagame, while also getting SCG Opens more viewers AND players. I know people who want to watch Modern, because it is so new. People also ant to have a real Modern metagame, not based upon recent MODO results.
The issue is that SCG needs to make its series predicable. The invitationals are the place for them to start experimenting, and I hope they do.
Current post- Grand Prix KC Modern Postmortem (7/7/13)
I agree that they need to make them predictable. But, all SCG would have to do would be make sure there is sufficient advertising on the page for the following week, make sure the commentators talk about it sufficiently the prior week, and on Saturday, during the Standard Open, make sure there are announcements saying: "Tomorrow will be a Modern Open! That's right, Modern!"
I think that it would be an awesome draw, and might even would come close to the number of Standard players, instead of the ~50% attendance that there is for Legacy.
The problem is that they risk angering local Legacy players who aren't getting the same tournament that the previous city did. The events are much more localized now that the grinder rewards have been killed off.
Current post- Grand Prix KC Modern Postmortem (7/7/13)
^^^ This x9001
Another point of interest: When I went to a fairly LARGE amount of scg weekends last year, not a single modern side event ever fired, so I can only assume this interest in modern isnt quite there.
Since then I have given up on modern (used to have 10-12 for local... now none show)... I do believe the main culprit is Wotc themselves. Their bans happen too quickly and dont even give the format enough time to self regulate/adjust and instead winning means your deck is next up on the chopping block.(cranial plating/ravager is the next to go btw)
I have always felt that the tcgplayer tournies should do a standard open on sat, and a modern open on sunday (are their tournies opens?).... They could fill the niche of modern since they arent invested in eternal.
The bans and the ridiculous secondary market. Looking at the PTQ numbers thus far they are less than half of what extended ptqs were a few years ago. I guess the format could pick up, but noone other than PTQ grinders really have any need for this format. Legacy is more fun and standard is cheaper. That about covers the spread.
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To you its more fun. As for cost, it really depends on what cards you own already. Duals for Legacy are much more expensive then shocklands, there are some staples comparable in price but when it comes to the mana base, Legacy is much more expensive to buy into as a n00b.