Is it possible that the format is just getting to be more like every other format ie. the people who are good players and deckbuilders don't bother with forums apart from inside their own team, and just playtest with other people they know are good? I don't frequent the Type 1 forums here much anymore, so I can't answer this question, but: How many people who have made Top 8 at various recent tournaments are actually active posters here? Does that number tell you anything?

Apart from Steve, of course. You seem to have a great desire to _write_, not just play and succeed, so that the world at large understands your thought-processes. It reminds me a lot of Zvi.

Steve: is there any way for non-premium people to read this? Or is that illegal?

4) If Legacy were better supported, would I choose to play it over Type 1?

Absolutely. I play Magic on a semi-regular basis, with occasional stretches where I don't touch my cards for a month or two, and thus I play Vintage because I have no other choice; there's no way I could keep up any rotating format either time- or money-wise.  Legacy is how I envision Magic: a game where with a minimal investment anyone can put together pretty much any deck, and results are based to a great extent on your skill, both in play and in deck building. In chess, I can play any strategy I want. Playing a different opening, say the King's Indian instead of the Benoni, doesn't require anything more than moving the pieces differently. Legacy has a lot of that freedom - a lot more that every other format, anyway.

And why try to open up Type 1? It's the format with the Moxen and the b0rken stuff. I've never seen a proxy discussion go by without a chorus of "I paid lots for my power, you should too!" going up. People just don't like their hard-earned pieces of cardboard being devalued, even if the actual secondary market value doesn't drop.

So is there an audience for a more open (chess-like) format like Legacy?

postscript: Personally, I'm not particularly fond of the broken cards in Type 1 - yeah, Mox Sapphire is cool, but it's also a mistake: what kind of game of chess would you have if you let your opponent take two turns in a row at the start of the game? I can't tell whether people are more attracted to Type 1 for the broken cards or the unchanging card pool, but if the latter, Legacy definitely seems like the answer.

Black Vise is an excellent sideboard card against heavy control metagames (I can't count the number of times Phantom has said this).


"Null Rod.dec" can't afford to lose its namesake card, which is simply too important in most (almost all?) metagames.

Also, for two mana, Voidmage Prodigy's ability counters something the opponent can actually cast, whereas Rootwater Thief removes something that they may or may not draw, and there are fewer and fewer decks nowadays who are easily crippled by the removal of one or two cards from their decks a la Rector Trix.