A Shot at the Big Time - by Dangerlinto

In order to make a point I often can't prove but feel is correct, I will turn to analogy. It's a tenuous way to prove a point, but there is sometimes no better alternative. So, I'm going to turn to the wonderful world of analogy to prove this point:

Legacy needs some big events.

It's highly appropriate that I'm writing this article (finally, as I've actually had this one in mind for quite some time) as the FIFA World Cup is currently going on, because soccer (or football for all the non-North Americans) perfectly illustrates why Legacy needs big events - it needs them to grow the format. Since Legacy has arrived, it has been able to string off an impressive number of daily events, with a single premier event fired in the past 4 months. While DEs are fine events (and provide what is more than likely a schedule that fits into most people's calendars), they don't provide the high-level, high stakes competition that is really need to grow the format. Must like sports, people are drawn to the sports with the big events and the high-level competition.

You don't, do you?
Some of you probably don't know who this is... for shame.
Want to know what the biggest sport in terms of participation is in North America amongst youths? That's right - it's soccer. Not baseball, not football, not basketball, (definitely not hockey). Why then, you might ask, does soccer then fail so miserably to attract attention as a major sport only in this section of the world? Look no further than a) the interest in the other 4 major sport leagues and b) the inability for a major soccer league to maintain itself for more than a generation. Kids playing soccer don't grow up dreaming of becoming the next great soccer player, they dream of being the next LeBron James, Mickey Mantle or Wayne Gretzky (OK, I'm purposely crossing generational gaps there). Somewhere along the line, they leave soccer behind and if they are an athlete, start participating in one of the other sports. I don't want to delve to hard into the mechanics of why soccer, possibly the world's simplest game in terms of mechanics and play, fails to interest the North American public, but needless to say the correlation between the lack of sustained professional play (with all due respect to MLS fans, you have a long way to go) and the growth of the sport amongst elite athletes.

The same truly exists for magic. If we were to think of Legacy as the soccer of Magic, then Block, Standard and Limited are the Baseball, Football and Basketball of the Magic world (Extended would be like the Hockey - popular in pockets and spurts... Classic would be like the curling of Magic). And in this analogy, we are all adults - for some reason we've given up on playing Legacy as a premier event but we all played it as youths in a more casual environment. All the "elite athletes" of the Magic world are drawn to the other formats because a) they perceive this to be a ticket to the big show - read: Pro Tours and Championships with bigger money; and b) the perception that being good at these formats is where the elite athletes hang out.

Of course, you say, the other more important formats are where the elite athletes go because WoTC makes them more important by giving away bigger prizes. Well duh, of course they do. And if you ever see my use the phrase "formats are for WoTC, not players", you might know exactly where I'm coming from. If every single player of Magic suddenly decided they didn't want to play those formats as much as they wanted to play Legacy, do you think WoTC would suddenly stop supporting those formats more? Of course not - WoTC wants to push the user base into those formats - their business model involves injecting a significant number of new cards into the system periodically, and they need excitement around where those cards have the most effect. What does Johnny "I bought a starter kit" care what WoTC says he should play most often? Why should he stop playing with cards he owns - ever? Because that's what the elite players care about. That being said, neither can WoTC deign to ignore such a large portion of the player base. How many people own non-standard cards? A LOT. Hence they need to keep players happy by providing them a place to play as well. How much they provide is entirely up to judging the players appetite for playing in those events. I would also like to point out that it is my belief that growing a format like Legacy doesn't have to be at the expense of other sanctioned formats - there is definitely a crowd out there - they just don't want to play competitively at the highest level, it seems.

Hopefully I've made my point about how the Powers That Be can control the participation at a high level. If, in the 1890's, there had been some enterprising people who'd liked soccer a lot more than baseball, maybe it would have grown into a major league and been declared the USA's national sport years later by Roosevelt. So why is now a good time to make a call for high level play?

Jace, The Mind Sculptor
Now more expensive than Force of Will, a good trade economically
Simple - right now, WoTC is currently removing some of the roadblocks that stand in the way of making Legacy participation available to more. Witness the fact that Force of Will is currently now selling for less than Jace the Mind Sculptor. More dual lands are entering the system daily, and soon there will also be MVW & TSE events. In other words, this would be a good time to get people interested in Legacy, Not the middle of February, when all the cards needed had long been out of print. If there are users, as many suggest, who are only avoiding playing Legacy because of the obstacle buying into the format presents (as compared to say, other formats), now seems to be the time when that obstacle is the least resistant. Instead of driving up the prices of singles, announcing a Legacy MOCs, for example, while probably still affecting the prices of singles would be offset by simply increasing the rate at which the drafts that contain those cards would fire - which I believe is a far more preferable situation than waiting long after they are over and allowing speculation to have a greater effect. If ever a time existed for WoTC to give legacy it's big shot, I think it's either here or will be very soon (there is another MED123 scheduled for July)

Now, to the task of getting Legacy premier events (just the regular old every week type) to fire, I think it's time to look in a new direction. I applaud WoTC's recent decision to move premier events only onto weekends - realistically, having a 6-9 hour (sometimes more) events in a weekday caters to a fairly small crowd - college kids who don't have class until noon the next day, maybe - but it obviously doesn't fit into many other people's schedules or lifestyles. At least they are admitting that Premier events, as they are setup, are problematic. I would also say that they are a rip-off in terms of EV. I've shown this before, but at a 10 tix entry, as soon as you hit about 56 people, WoTC is actually making money on Premier Events. That means that if you could get 64 players to all give you 10 tix to play in an event, you could BUY a better prize support structure - from the WoTC store! Hence I still believe some restructuring needs work there. But the move to the weekend shows that they are aware there is a time issue. I don't think simply moving to the weekend is enough of a move in this direction. I think Legacy players, more than perhaps the players of other formats, generally are more time-sensitive because they are (anecdotally) an older crowd. Another, much more important move here would be to reduce the time in the rounds from 60 minutes to 50 or even 40 minutes. Now, I know that generally (especially in Legacy) rounds don't often go to time, but you have to at least PLAN for them to go to time. Cutting 1 hour off of that (by going to 50 minutes) might get a couple of players in - and increase the experience for people because when rounds do go to time and you've just trounced Zoo with ANT 2-0 in under 5 minutes... well as the song says - the waiting is the hardest part. You could argue all you want, but with MTGO doing all the work for you in terms of shuffling, preparation and even some of the note-taking, nobody needs 30 mins to win a match. The only time MTGO stands in the way of itself here is when long, repetitive loops that are competitive come into play. I've played Worldgorger Dragon and Bomberman online, and it could take a while to loop through these win conditions enough times for the kill, but still I could easily do so twice in well under 20 minutes. If it were me and I had nothing to lose, I'd go straight to 40 minute rounds - Legacy is a fast enough format. Probably the safer bet would be to go with 50 and see how that works out.

I really have nothing more to say, other than if you agree that we need big events and now is the time, to continue to voice your requests to get WoTC to give Legacy a shot at the big time. If you are interested in growing the format, this is a necessary step, and allowing the Premier Events to flourish by tailoring them to the needs of the players will do more to increase that growth.