I was fortunate enough to get WoTC R&D member Erik Lauer to sit down and answer some questions I had with respect to online eternal formats and eternal card sets. There were some other questions I had (of lesser quality) but Erik is working hard (so he says :) and we needed to cut it down to what you see below. I want to thank Erik, Chris Kiritz for the follow up, Tolena for organizing and the folks at WoTC for letting me do the interview. Without further ado...

1. With the announcement of online Legacy starting just after the release of Urza's Saga online, how do you feel about the format's ability to take advantage of the current popularity of Legacy, even though there are a number of unreleased cards online?

Coming soon to an MTGO near you

Erik L: I looked at the results of Grand Prix Madrid and compared the top 8 decks with the online card pool when Urza's Saga is released. I found that every main deck card is available. A few sideboard cards are not yet released, but many of those have suitable replacements such as Pyroblast instead of Red Elemental Blast. There are a few decks that need cards to work, such as a "Lands" deck needing Maze of Ith, but those will be available soon. If I were practicing for such a Legacy Tournament, I would use Magic Online.

2. In paper, Legacy serves a dual role in both providing an eternal format free of some of the most powerful cards and interactions in magic and staying clear of most of the most unavailable (and most expensive) cards in Magic. Online, both those needs are severely reduced. What made you decide to go with Legacy over Classic?

Erik L: I do not look at this as choosing one format over another. Classic fills a similar role to Vintage. It is a place where cards are restricted instead of a power-level banning. For people who want to play with almost all the cards, but have the most powerful cards banned, we have Legacy. Classic has cards that really raise the power of quick decks. For instance, even adding 1 copy of Demonic Tutor, Necropotence, Yawgmoth's Will, and Mana Crypt can make a quick combo deck even quicker and more resilient.

3. The online Legacy format will start with a banned list which is exactly the same as the paper list (sans all the unprinted cards, obviously), but with the online environment providing so much more data and having a monthly B&R update as opposed to 3 months for Paper, as well as the data for Online Legacy being so much more accessible, do you see a chance for the online format to drive changes in the shared list?

Erik L: Magic Online play and data can definitely effect what people play in paper, and the B&R lists. However our intention is to only update the B&R lists for Legacy every 3 months.

4. With Online Legacy having an expected active population much larger than classic, are there any concerns at WoTC that the availability of some of the staples and other playable cards will create an artificial cap on that population?

Erik L: Sometimes Magic being popular can cause problems, but it is a great type of problem to have!

5. Classic was never part of a MOCs Season Championship .What can we expect in terms of support for Online Legacy in the way of top-level sanctioned events? MOCs Champs? Maybe even a PTQ event?

Erik L: I think Legacy players can expect some big events. How far it goes will depend on how big Legacy is as an online format.

6. To quote Aaron Forsythe "Classic is the last bastion of playability online - if a card were to be banned there, it wouldn't be legal in any of the traditional 4-of-limit, 60-card-deck formats, which is not something we want to happen" . With the removal of Classic as a core format and relegated to a "specialty format" in favour of Legacy, this has essentially happened. What has changed since Aaron made that comment?

Erik L: I think this Classic fills a similar role to Vintage. We don't currently have any Vintage Grand Prix.

7. It's been over 5 years since the creation of the Classic format. How you think it's role has changed over time?

Erik L: Originally Classic had Invasion forward + Mirage. People who wanted to play Invasion (the first online set) forward could play extended. Classic has more powerful cards, and the number of sets which have rotated out of extended is increasing. There is a growing gap between extended and Classic, which didn't previously merit another format.

8. If you could go back in time to any point in the life of MTGO, would you make any changes to how pre-IPA cards were handled, or the formats that allowed for those cards were handled?

Erik L: I think Master's Edition 2 was a little too large. I would cut some chafe :)

9. Very recently, many cards for that are only available to now play in classic were released online. While cards like Demonic Tutor, Strip Mine, Balance, Channel, Tinker and Oath of Druids were part of paper releases and had to be released, cards in MED2 (Demonic Consultation and Necropotence) and as recently as MED3 (Mana Drain, Bazaar of Baghdad, Black Vise, Land Tax) were selected for inclusion online. Should fans of these cards expect inclusions of new Legacy-banned cards in future MED releases?

Erik L: Yes! Classic will get more Legacy-banned cards in MED4 this year. I am not promising "everything", but Classic players will be casting more Legacy-banned cards :)

10. It's been generally agreed there isn't an awful lot of cards from the Pre-Mirage era that will be drivers for sales in the upcoming Master's Edition 4, especially in terms of Legacy cards that will be used in sanctioned play. Can you comment on the possible future of the Master's Edition series beyond the 4th installment?

Erik L: That is pretty far away. We pay attention to how the Legacy and Classic communities react to our releases. A big factor in whether there are more Master's Editions is whether we believe there is a desire to play more.

11. Many people agree that Mercadian Masques is not hotly anticipated block by the community. Do you have any special plans in store for the release of the final pre-IPA block to help it drive sales?

I dunno - are they?

Erik L: Hmm, maybe the Pauper community is eagerly awaiting Ramosian Sergeant? As far as I know, the set is what it is :)

Follow up question – So Mercadian Masques cards aren't being considered for MED4?

Chris K: To clarify ME4 follows a traditional Masters release and will not contain any cards unique to post-Mirage sets

I'm just going to analyze the questions in order, as they were actually written in an order I thought might have a nice cognitive flow with the answers given. I think that worked out, so I'm sticking with it.

Analyzing some of the answers might prove hard, because as you can see the questions were fairly open-ended. I did that on purpose – I've found with WoTC, if you ask a direct question like "When is Maze of Ith going to be online" they are just as likely to not tell you as say "soon" anyway. They play their cards close to the chest in most cases. So in terms of spoilers for upcoming MEDs or future releases, I didn't expect to get them anyway (though we did end up getting one)

So before you ask or mention it, that's why I didn't ask a single thing about Moxes, Lotuses or the rest – pretty sure they weren't going to say anything one way or the other. My gut is to wait it out for MED4, and see the contents there. Maybe afterward might be a good time to ask.

As you can see by the first answer, Erik is no fool. He knows where to go for info and he's aware of top decks like Lands.dec and what we're missing from Legacy. So consider Maze of Ith Spoiled – my guess is it will be in MED4 – remember, *our* idea of soon isn't nearly the same as WoTC – these are people who are already working on next year's releases. 8 months for them is soon, though it's possible since it was a judge promo we might also see it made available that way.

I liked Erik's answer to my second question – WoTC isn't choosing Legacy over Classic. I like it because it so eloquently states the case for classic – it fills Vintage's role online. That role is a small but important one that I think might possibly get bigger if WoTC ever decides to put the power 9 online. In the meantime, as a fanatic of playing things like Will, Academy, Oath and Mana Drain, I can play classic online as much as a like and get a tournament once a week. That's a long, far cry from what the Vintage players get. A couple of answers down Erik makes note that they don't offer any Vintage Grand Prix. In fact, WotC doesn't offer ANY sanctioned Vintage tournaments (that I know of) – and very few sanctioned matches take place at all with the format's reliance on proxies. As far as filling in for Vintage, I think Classic will do admirably.

The third question I think was more a clarification that I think needed to be done. Now that Legacy is online, it will not receive the same kind of once-a-month treatment that classic and the other online-only formats get with respect to B&R. I don't see much harm in that move, so long as WoTC doesn't forget to update the B&R file when cards that weren't online come online. Legacy is essentially fully integrated across the mediums, even if the card pools are slightly different.

That being said, I wasn't exactly thrilled with the cavalier attitude towards the possible problems online might experience if legacy should become far more popular than expected with respect to card price and availability. Maybe Erik was just being coy here – it's entirely possible they have plans and are keeping their eye on the situation (and they probably are) but it would have been a nicety to say so to alleviate any fears people might be having while Legacy staples are creeping up in price. Especially considering the next answer indicates they are looking at big events for Legacy. I think feedback from forums has shown, to which I agree, that the first time Legacy gets a MOCs or a PTQ, look for the prices of the cards to rise sharply. I don't know if we can expect Extended–level drastic changes. That format seems to be able to hit massive highs and lows, and I expect Legacy to maintain a much more constant player base and therefore price level, but I also feel the pricing and availability has the potential to reach a level that might be stifled (pun intended) by the current availability of Legacy staples.

As Erik correctly points out, Classic has been getting more and more powerful since the initial release of Mirage, and has spread further and further away from the days where it was Extended plus. What's really happened is that there needs to be a place now where people can, if they wish, get away from the style of play classic now offers – heavily reliant on the more powerful combinations and cards in the game. Legacy now fills that gap nicely. That does leave classic a bit in the lurch, because it ultimately doesn't fulfill it's own raison d'etre, which is to contain all the most powerful interactions. That remains the exclusive domain of Vintage, and it will remain so (are you listening, WoTC?) until the power nine and the rest of the Vintage restricted list is brought online. From this point on, there is no denying that classic is now simply a placeholder format for Vintage, and the move online for Legacy will only prompt eternal fanatics to wonder when Vintage will make the same move. If there is one thing that continues to rankle amongst all the changes that will be made, it is the fact that the power 9's online existence remains up in the air. Legacy + Classic is at best a stop gap solution, if you ask me. Eventually, WoTC will have to answer the P9 question.

The question about "going back in time and fixing things" is always a fun question to get answers for. For one thing, I think it humanizes WoTC – yes they make mistakes and yes they admit them. While Erik probably wishes he could go back and cut the chafe from MED2 (and so do all of us, Erik!), I think if it were me I would go back and not leave an 18 month gap between Visions and Weatherlight, though perhaps Erik was looking more personally as he was the main constructor of MED2. That 18 month gap really set back the plan, if you ask me, and left a lot of people feeling like no eternal format would survive online. We'd be at least at the end of Saga Block by now if it weren't for that gap, instead of just starting it, and Legacy would have been online earlier – sometime last year with either Saga, FTV: Exiled or MED3. WoTC would have been ahead of the game, instead of following the lead of Star City Games. I think looking back they'd like to be in that position.

I did want at least some info for the upcoming MED4, and since I knew it would be highly unlikely to get spoilers, I specifically set up the 9th question to try and kill two birds with one stone. Firstly, I wanted to relieve anyone of the idea that the presence of Legacy online meant that WoTC was no longer going to satisfy continued demand for non-Legacy cards. Consider that done – there will be new Legacy-banned cards in MED4. Secondly, this means that in MED4 we will see at least one of:

My guess is this is one we'll see in MED4

Black Lotus
Fastbond
Library of Alexandria
Mana Vault
Mishra's Workshop
Mox Emerald
Mox Jet
Mox Pearl
Mox Ruby
Mox Sapphire
Sol Ring
Time Vault
Time Walk
Timetwister
Wheel of Fortune

These are the only remaining new cards left in the pre-Mirage era that aren't ante, dexterity and sub-game cards. My guess: Mishra's Workshop, maybe more.

I really liked Erik's answer to the question of future MEDs. In short, if it seems like if they will sell, they will make them. I know that kind of non-committal approach really bothers some people – some days, it bothers me too. In the wake of the reserved list hub-bub that has gone on recently, I think my views here have changed in short order. Unfortunately, being committal for a company like WoTC seems to equate to being stuck. If WoTC wasn't so "committal" back when they first made the reserve list, the issues it has caused might never have come to pass. While it would be nice and safe for WoTC to come out and say "here is what we are going to do online and how we are going to do it", if the fortunes of the world change it leaves WoTC in the lurch with respect to adjusting to those changes. The MED sets are a perfect example. Force of Will and rampant nostalgia might have driven the sales of the first set, but look at how non-committal it was. No Legacy-banned or Vintage-Restricted cards. The MEDs I would say have been increasingly committal in bringing eternal staples online. MED3 was simply chalk full of them, and I expect MED4 to follow suit. Understand that in that time, while WoTC was being non-committal with respect to where eternal formats would eventually end up (they really still are in some ways), the people who were early adopters of the formats have really reaped big rewards in terms of card values and being able to play with said cards in that time. I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing for a format. I'll admit it makes it harder to sell the format – you essentially join on faith that it all won't disappear tomorrow. It attracts a different type of person, perhaps, but it's possible it attracts more than the people who crave the surety of knowing what's in front of them long term.

Lastly, I really wanted to clear up how MED4 would be built and Mercadian Masques will be released. MED4 will be constructed with essentially the same criteria the previous entries used – that is Pre-mirage cards, most of which haven't ever been online but possibly some reprints for draft purposes. No best of reprints, no best of hit from the Masques block – pretty much the status quo (side note, Erik Lauer mentioned in a chat an interesting draft twist – speculations begin). The non-committal approach is once again prominent with respect to Mercadian Masques's launch. I'm pretty sure WoTC is fully aware of how the community views that block. But by not saying anything, they are free to think about whether they want to make changes to it's release structure for a while longer. Makes for poor spoilers, I'm afraid, but you can't get everything. I have to admit I think I dropped the ball on this question. While it cleared up the points I was looking to clear up , I could have been sneakier and see if I could get the answer to this question, which probably could have done the same thing with a bit of reasonable logic, and been a much better spoiler for the article…

I should have asked: "Will MED4 have mythic rares? "

Oh well – next time.