I’ve been lent a legacy deck online and it’s a blast to play.  I’m normally a fish player, but I’ve been getting a hang for the little red men.

Enjoy!

Just to give everyone a heads-up as to what’s happening:  I did another cube draft last night, videos should be up within the next few days.  Also, MBS is now online, I’ll have a few drafts of that as well.  Finally, for those of you who like Pauper, I’ve built a bunch of new pauper decks that are both competitive and really fun, and I’ll hopefully make some videos of those.  Last but not least, Mirrodin Beseiged Game Day is this weekend, and I’m sleeving up a brew that I’m really excited about.  Hopefully I’ll have an article about that list next week sometime.

As always, feel free to comment below, or contact me via email (zak-AT-power9pro.com) or via twitter (twitter.com/zturchan).

Best of luck at Game Day!

The second day of the Wizard’s Championships took place at the Edmonton location, where I play, as well as occasionally judge/TO. It felt good not to have to get up an extra half hour early and carpool outside the city limits, so I was well rested for the day.

The first format of the day was Team Trios constructed, with formats to include Standard, Extended, and Legacy. For those of you unfamiliar with the rules for this format, I’ll give you a rundown.

1. Players form a team will face one other member from another team in a best 2/3 match. Whichever team wins 2 out of the 3 matches across the different formats wins the round.
2. There is no combined decklist for multi-format trios. Simply put, if the extended player has 4 Lord of Atlantis in their deck, the legacy p\layer can also have 4 copies. This is different from trios where the format is the same for all 3 members, where each team may only use 4 copies of a card combined in all decks and sideboards.
3. The Extended match takes place in the middle of the table.
4. Players are allowed to talk and assist each other in the middle of a game, including asking for assistance from your team.

As I said in my previous article, I was playing Legacy, and my teammates Buddy and Matt were playing Standard and Extended, respectively. I really only have 2 decks for legacy, mostly because of the fact I only started magic around 4 years ago (although it’s hard to believe it’s actually been that long), and don’t have an extensive collection of older cards, although I do have a fair few.

For the last 4 months I’ve been working on building Fish in Legacy (Hint: I love Merfolk in pretty much every format), and I’ve got almost all the cards I need. So after arranging to borrow a Force of Will and a couple Standstills from Matt, I came up with the following decklist, although I wasn’t able to procure an Underground Sea, so I made do with Watery Graves.

Here Fishy, Fishy (Legacy)

4 Lord of Atlantis 4 Merrow Reejerey 4 Coralhelm Commander 4 Aether Vial 4 Daze 4 Force of Will 4 Standstill 1 Kira, Great Glass Spinner 2 Umezawas Jitte 4 Cursecatcher 4 Silvergill Adept 4 Wasteland 4 Scalding Tarn 4 Mutavault 4 Misty Rainforest 3 Watery Grave 6 Island

Sideboard

4 Blue Elemental Blast 3 Perish 3 Submerge 1 Spell Pierce 4 Engineered Plague

There were 4 teams, and because of card availability I figured that I would be able to put a decent read on what the other players were playing.

Blaine was the only one on his team with a legacy deck, so I knew he would be playing Natural Order Aggro Elves. Hence the maindeck Jittes and sideboard Submerges instead of something more traditional like Spell Pierce. The Perishes and Engineered Plagues would obviously be amazing.

Brian was the “captain” of his team, and had Legacy Goblins built. The Plagues, Jittes, and Blue Elemental Blasts were a nod to this.

The third team (comprised entirely of players from Sherwood Park), was a mystery. That shop doesn’t run monthly Legacy like the Edmonton location does, so I didn’t know if they had the card pool, let alone a deck they were likely to play. However, I thought I had a decnet chance at winning at least one of my rounds needed to advance.

For the rest of my team, Buddy elected to play Jund. It’s a deck he’s comfortable with and has played a fair bit, and often experience with a deck can make up for it not being “the best deck”. Matt played a variation of Paul Reitzl’s white weenie, with maindeck Knight of Meadowgrains instead of Ethersworn Canonists, which were relegated to the sideboard.

Round 1

In round one we’re paired against the team of Blaine, Jim and Adam. Blaine (as expected) was playing NO Elves, Jim was playing extended Pyromancer Ascension and Adam was rocking Valakut Titan Ramp.

I draw my opening 7 and see double Aether Vial, double Standstill, Daze, Wasteland and a fetchland. I show my hand to Matt as his opponent was still shuffling. His remark was something along the lines of “You’re missing that one thing, but otherwise it’s good”, ‘that something’ obviously being creatures. I’m on the draw, keep and get a turn 1 Aether Vial while Blaine had a turn 1 Quirion Ranger and started beating in. He has no turn 2 or 3 play while I resolve a Standstill which he breaks next turn with an Elvish Archdruid, drawing me into some gas, and then I Daze it. I’m content to play another and Standstill and pass, Vialing in a Silvergill Adpet at the end of his turn. Blaine Wastelands my Mutavault and I’m happy to Vial in a Merrow Reejerey next turn. Blaine casts a Living Wish for Gaea’s Herald (no doubt trying to protect something like a huge Joraga Warcaller, but I draw a Force of Will of the Standstill and Blaine has no more action and my menfolk overwhelm him.

I board in 4 Engineered Plague, 3 Perish, and 2 Submerge on the draw, boarding out Cursecatcher, Kira, Great Glass Spinner[card], and [card]Daze. While some could argue that I should keep Daze in to counter an early Natural Order, I expect him to board the combo out, and with the all the powerful spells I’m bringing in, I should be able to overwhelm him pretty easily.

Blaine starts off much faster in the second game, with a first turn Llanowar Elves, and a turn 2 Quirion Ranger. When he tries to resolve a Priest of Titania, I Force of Will it, and he then casts a Thorn of Amethyst, while Wastelanding a Watery Grave. Although I play another land next turn, I can’t Perish because of the thorn. However, I can cast a Coralhelm Commander and a Merrow Reejerey, while he further stifles my chance at resolving Perish with another Thorn. I Wasteland his Gaeas Cradle, and then cast another Reejerey and Commander, each time tapping some potential blockers. I pay 2 mana for a “free” Submerge and
force him to draw dead to my huge team.

Buddy won his standard match, while Jim came back after getting horrendously mana screwed and defeating Matt in a third game.

1 – 0 (Team) 1 – 0 (Individual)

Because only 1 team would be eliminated, we drew in the next round so we could all get breakfast. I know this makes for an uninteresting article, but it was the most practical thing to do.

1 – 0 – 1 (Team) 1 – 0 – 1 (Individual)

Record on the Tournament: 4 – 3 – 2

After all the trios matches were finished, the team of 3 Sherwood Park players were eliminated, and of the 9 contestants remaining, only 2 were from Sherwood Park (Matt and Buddy). We’re informed that the next round will be normal M11 draft, no gimmicks. This is the format that I was most worried about, as I haven’t had a very good track record for this format, although I’ve drafted a fair bit.

So I was apprehensive, but ready to draft as best as I could. You’ll have to wait for the next update to learn how the draft went.

As always, you can contact me via email at zak-AT-power9pro.com, or through twitter at www.twitter.com/zturchan.

Cheers,

Zak

WotC has finally taken action on the Reserved List, bowing to immense pressure from the gaming community that subsist on and support their product; the following concession was made after the voices of thousands cried out for the ending of the archaic contract that soon promised to keep Legacy from being playable by all interested parties: The Final Word.

It seems that the final word on the issue, handed down from upon high by an Executive somewhere, likely with a nodding Legal staff behind him, was essentially a single word.

“No.”

If you haven’t looked at the links yet, the official word is that there are a handful of reprints using the previous ‘premium loophole’ that will come out this year, 2010, but that beyond that there will never be another reprinting of the cards other than oversized promo materials.

A Murder Mystery

I have been speculating on the situation above and I could make some reasonable guesses as to the events that lead to this. Let me start out by saying that Legacy will not die overnight. This is not a decapitation. This is Phthisis. Let’s have a mental exercise to see possibly whodunit.

Hypothetically, the format is currently being supported in part by WotC, and also in major part, by a substantial secondary market card store (SMC). WotC is only getting marketing value out of supporting Legacy, selling very few cards from recent sets to support the players. The SMC, being the biggest name in the market, benefits greatly from card resale traffic. As the format grows in popularity, the margin on each card grows with demand. This is especially true for powerful cards that are needed in a vast number of decks and are also on the Reserved List. The Dual Lands are the best example, followed closely by cards like Mox Diamond and Lions Eye Diamond.

(Disclaimer: I will state now that while it was suggested that I go to law school, I haven’t, so lawyers and law students feel free to jump in and correct erroneous assumptions or support/guide my suspicions.)

Means

Wotc’s Reserved List, I suspect, could be seen as some type of legal guarantee of value in the investment medium of the game components listed upon it. By ‘promising’ in an open publicly known and promoted policy, WotC may have opened themselves to the Reserved List acting as some sort of contract. This would also open them up to possible lawsuits if someone with significant interests and resources would stand to lose from unfavorable changes in this policy.

A SMC could launch a suit do to the increased buzz of activity and discussion around negating the Reserved List, either defacto through the ‘premium loophole’ or in whole by obliterating it. Such a suit, if it holds merit or if it would prove very costly, would pressure WotC into an out of court settlement, changing the policy, reaffirming it, possibly even paying losses, all the while the employees of both WotC and the SMC being bound by a non-disclosure agreement which requires them to refrain from discussing the reasoning, implementation, and fall out from such an action.

Motive

If WotC negates the Reserved List and prints a new bevy of limited circulation cards, the demand for the cards vital to this format will drop. Subsequently sales traffic and margins will also drop, denting the SMC’s bottom line. Meanwhile, this would be healthy to WotC and the MTG community playing as more players would gain access and WotC would be able to sell the reprint product fresh off the printers.

Opportunity

If WotC, seeking to test the waters regarding a possible elimination of the Reserved List, began talking about it in public forums, such as their company website, and gave an interested party reason to believe that they would suffer major capital losses, such a party could begin to monitor the situation closely, and perhaps even send representatives to meet and discuss the issue. They could then use the information gathered to launch a suit, and perhaps even an injunction, against WotC citing imminent and unrecoverable business losses.

Means, motive and opportunity aside, the bit players and key figures in each company and the community might not have even known what all was going on until it came to a head in some series of hush-hush legal meetings. Perhaps all figurehead parties would love to have gone ahead with the elimination, but those behind the scenes with their fingers on the purse strings might have moved to interfere. We will not know for certain due to the shield of the law. This means that we are left to only our own reasoning and speculation. I have nothing against the hypothetical SMC described above, but without explanations, this is what makes the most logical sense to me.

What this all means is that the Legacy format will likely continue for a time to climb in demand and prices until such a time that only the wealthiest players can afford to play, and the format will slowly fade into obscurity as prices will only ever creep upwards due to cards leaving circulation in any number of ways.

Eternally yours, Unrequited

Sadly, I was slowly attempting to pull together a Legacy legal deck as I really wanted to play in the only GP within a reasonable distance from my particular location on the globe, GP Columbus, OH. With the prices of Legacy required cards sky rocketing, I cannot afford to buy-in to the format at a latter time. With the prices as high as they are, I cannot afford to buy-in now thanks to the Economic Recession. Now that I know prices have no hope of coming down while also maintaining a healthy format, I feel no desire to invest into the format.

I am a player of Standard and Limited as they are the easiest formats to enter competitively. I would play Extended if the format had support in my area as I’m not in a position to go fifty to one hundred miles out of town each weekend to play in a PTQ. Vintage, proxied tourneys aside, is priced at such a level as I would only consider it if I won the lottery or some other windfall. Legacy was a shining hope for playing with old good cards and making a run of it competitively.

Legacy now has fallen into the same compartment as Vintage. Indeed, I almost see no reason in separating them anymore as both serve the same elite level of players: the wealthy and well-connected. I will miss this opportunity lost, but WotC doesn’t love me back, and so I must look now to the future.

Classic Revolution

We, the players, will have to pick ourselves up, dust our cards off, and begin anew. The Reserved List has not been added to since Urza’s Destiny and will not be added to ever again, in theory. I then propose that we push the emergence of an Eternal format that may be eternally renewed without the barriers of some arcane seal barring the cards from reaching our hands.

Classic is a format in which all cards older than Mercadian Masques are banned. All sets from Mercadian Masques on into the foreseeable future will be legal, reasonable broken card bannings not withstanding. This format will enable both WotC and the MTG community to do a few important things.

• Have a stable, ever expanding format in which new discoveries will be possible with each new set.

• Create, for however brief a time, a new game-wide meta-game and format structure to explore and develop.

• Ensure that if a card begins to rise to meteoric heights that WotC always has the option to reprint it. This also applies to cards dropping out of circulation and the hands of players for whatever reason.

• Retain cards that rotate out of Extended and other rotating formats and continue to play them in a widely accepted and non-elitist format.

These things represent an Eternal format that is healthy and not impossible to enter for those who are students, work for a living, have a family, or have not been playing since the dawn of the game. Yes, I am aware that there are plenty of people in the game that have traded-up, won, or otherwise acquired the best cards in the game, but a fine minority should not rule the majority. Besides, I don’t believe that having Classic, a format with the above listed qualities, would hurt the game in any manner and provides only upside for both WotC and her customers.

The tournament will be held on Valentine’s Day (Saturday, February 14), because we know that Magic is your true love! Registration starts at 9AM and the tournament starts at 10AM.

The grand prize winner gets a box of Conflux and a Dragon’s Egg Tournament Bag!

Format: Legacy
Entry Fee: $12
Prizes:
1st prize – 1 box Conflux and Dragon’s Egg
2nd prize – 1/2 box Conflux
3rd-8th prize – split 1/2 box Conflux and 1 box Morning Tide