How to build a Vintage community?

[tito del monte]

Dear wise heads of the Mana Drain,

Fellow TMD user Lemnear and I have a bit of a problem - we both love Vintage, but seem to have moved to one of Europe's major backwaters when it comes to the format: Berlin.

We managed to meet for the first time on Sunday and play some games, and I suppose it's fairly emblematic of a lot Vintage's players' situations that it took us a couple of months of false starts before we both had the time to do so. Vintage seems very much to be the format for grown ups - and that means people with responsibilities, both personal and professional, who can't easily fritter away hours in a dingy game store.

Similarly, in its sanctioned form, we can all agree that Vintage is also a format for grown ups with enough cash in their back pocket to buy some ridiculously expensive cardboard. It's probably no surprise that Germany's Vintage strongholds are in more affluent places than Berlin - although, it's worth noting that there is a healthy Legacy community here. My guess is it put down roots before revised Underground Seas hit $100, but nonetheless it continues to thrive (you've probably seen Mon, Goblin Raider's SCG columns on it).

My question then is this: How from this seemingly barren ground would you go about conjuring a sustainable Vintage scene?

Realistically, I think our goals our modest - start playing casually with a group of like-minded people until we can eventually support a small, regular, tournament (sanctioned or otherwise - that's up for discussion).

What we have to work with:
Lemnear has a pretty awesome collection (!) and disposes of several decks. In order to also have more than one deck available, I've full-colour proxied one up - I hope to put into the hands of other players in other groups and see if they'll take to the format (I appreciate that some people on these boards will consider that a big ask in itself!).

Also, we're lucky enough that a small eternal forum (eternalfever.de) exists and is run locally, although it's userbase is mainly in the Legacy players who play in the cities main game store (there are a couple of others though), as well as players who want to meet up on the occasional friday evening, drink a beer and play EDH.

And... that's kind of it.

So, I would love to hear any advice you guys have on what to do next. Lemnear's going to post a couple of pics on the local forum from our games at the weekend, to at least prove that Vintage is no longer moribund in Berlin. But what concrete steps would you take next? Who would you be looking to as potential new Vintage players: the Legacy crowd? The EDH crowd? Or others entirely in some kind of unlimited proxy format?

I have no idea how to run a tournament, but we do have a shop with the infrastructure to do it for us... we just need the players, a community. Has anyone else on here started out with such a small scene and created something worthwhile and fun? If so, let me know!

Thanks in advance for your tips,

Titus

EDIT: At the risk of sounding like a tree-hugging hippy (and despite some heated discussion here recently), it feels like a good time to be turning to TMD - the site feels busier than it has for a while, with some interesting threads and decks being discussed. Whatever the pros and cons of the format, a healthy TMD has got to be good news - and I thought I'd point that out, as I figure no-one's going to post a "Wow, TMD is alive and kicking and the Mods and community are a doing a good job" thread.

[Prospero]

This may sound overly simple, but really it just boils down to a few things:

1. Players
2. Card Pool
3. Tournaments

I recruited most of the players that I had from local stores.  Many of them were devoted Standard/Limited players, they didn't have the cards needed to build the best decks in the format.  They were, however, interested in playing Magic and they had the time to devote to it.

I lent a bunch of decks, I traded cards away at cost and I encouraged others to do the same.  I put together several decks, as did others, and we lent them out to the new pilots.  Europe is known as a no-proxy metagame.  I know that there are events in Europe (i.e. The Dutch Vintage Series) that permit some number of proxies.  I think you're obligated to make some number of proxies (10-15) available to the players you're trying to recruit.  It's very difficult to get someone to commit to a format and spend several thousand Euros.  If they were able to build a deck that ran them only slightly more than what many of the best decks in Standard run, I think they'd be interested.  

Legacy players should be easier to recruit, if only because so much of the card pool translates to Vintage (and because the more expensive cards that those players don't have are the cards that they'd be able to proxy.)

One of the two of you is going to have to become a T/O.  You're going to have to deal with local store owners (to find players, space to play and potentially prize support) and you're going to have to advertise (locally, on TMD, wherever.)  You can run a big event once a month, or once every two months, but think about it like this: if you were a new Vintage pilot and you had just committed $1,000+ to the format, wouldn't you want to play with that deck more than once a month?  The dedicated Standard pilots get raked over the coals every time a block rotates and that sucks, but they're still able to play their deck at least four times a month, if not more.  Players want to play with their cards – you have to provide them the opportunity to do so.

So, to quickly recap:

1.Reach out to local players who play other formats (with specific attention paid to Legacy), introduce yourself, show them Vintage, and have a deck that they could borrow to play with (even if it's immediately after the introduction.)  “Hey, I'm looking to get some testing in for tournament ____ and you seem like a pretty good player, if I lent you a deck would you be interested in getting some Vintage games in?”

2.Build extra decks, pick up cards for the new pilots, be generous and do what you can to help them build the decks.  When a player is financially committed to the format it's tougher for them to leave.

3.Deal with the local store owners (or anyone with a good enough venue) and work out a deal with them to run tournaments.  They're going to make something for it, obviously, but try to keep it at no more than 20% of whatever your entry fees are.
Good luck with everything.

[Lemnear]

That Collection isn't that great ... I'm just a foil nerd. Normaly I only get insulted in threads so this is is pretty new xP.

Anyway, I'm in touch with the owner of the mentioned store and acted as TO many times before so this is not a problem (Even have a DCI reporter on my private notebook). We only need to recruit Legacy players who are not satisfied by the weekly 26 ppl Legacy tournament there.

[tito del monte]

Prospero! Thanks for the solid advice - Both Lemnear and I pretty much agree that around 10 proxies is the right way to go, so that people will still have to splash out on a Sol Ring to get involved, but can nonetheless pilot a broad range of competitive, fun decks.

Are you Dutch? If so, it was actually you guys I most expected to hear from and from Marske's previous posts it sounded like something had been built up there from very humble beginnings.

Your three-step plan I guess is what vaguely was in my head - but it's good to see it spelt out (for others too who might be in the same boat). Hopefully, between Lemnear and I we can get it going.

@Lemnear - helps you're a TO!

Anyway - It would be good if this thread could be useful to others, too. So if anyone else has any best practice to share when it comes to encouraging a Vintage scene to grow, post it here. I set the thread up too partly to legitimise our efforts - hopefully Berlin players will head to TMD to find out decks in the near future and we can report back when we finally scrape together 8 people for a tournament. Baby steps and all that...

Cheers!

[Marske]

Prospero! Thanks for the solid advice - Both Lemnear and I pretty much agree that around 10 proxies is the right way to go, so that people will still have to splash out on a Sol Ring to get involved, but can nonetheless pilot a broad range of competitive, fun decks.

Are you Dutch? If so, it was actually you guys I most expected to hear from and from Marske's previous posts it sounded like something had been built up there from very humble beginnings.

I just saw this, let me state that Prospero (Nick) isn't just one of my closest friends we both share the exact same sentiments when building a community and took nearly identical steps in doing so. Nick build his community in NY/PA area and I did in the Netherlands. We started back in late 2006 / early 2007 with just 4 guys that wanted to play Vintage. We expanded from there on out with drawing the legacy crowds in, then the Type 2 / Casual crowd to the point where we had 40-50 people Vintage events for a Mox every 2 month's and at our height we even had weekly events as well. In recent times this scene has crashed a little, mostly because both of it's premier TO's and people pulling all the weight (one of which being me) kinda tuned out of the format for various non-MTG reasons. Just showing how fragile of a thing it still was.

Your three-step plan I guess is what vaguely was in my head - but it's good to see it spelt out (for others too who might be in the same boat). Hopefully, between Lemnear and I we can get it going.

Tito, Lemnear, feel free to PM me for more info, advice etc if you want, I'm at a stage where I'm going to rebuild the community once again since our last event (beginning of this year) it's been left in shambles. I'm going to re-use the same formula we used way back 4 years ago to get it back to where it was, hopefully getting even bigger.

I fully agree with Nick's 3 step program, but it's a bit more complicated then he made it sound. It's not just as simple as "doing it" as the step where you get to recruit players is the most tedious and hard one to do. You have to:

- Play in other formats to get to know people, just showing up and asking is not going to work, you need to establish a base of trust.
- You need to compete regularly at an FMN, engage in lending out cards, be amazingly interested in testing even the most horrible matchup and be sure to let others catch your enthusiasm bug.
- Don't ever ever bring any player or idea down but foster it, gently nudging in the right direction, don't berate people for wanting to play a direct port of their legacy deck or anything.

That all being said, if you read both Nick and my post you can probably understand this nearly means living, breathing and dreaming not only Magic but Vintage as well, this is one of the hugest time sinks you can do. I know, I've done it for 4 years straight and it nearly killed my love for the game.

I was at a point where my spare time was either: Hunting for cheap deals for cards that other people needed for their decks, writing about Vintage, playtesting, competing in tournaments, judging, discussing the format. I remember weeks where all the free time I had after work was spend engaging in some activity regarding the Community going on deep in the night. Having 2 people to pick up the slack is the key though.

You need to make yourself available for the community (even the non-Vintage crowd) to be a person they can trust, who they know wouldn't steal from them, gives them a fair deal on cards, who gives them advice on decks, cards, sbing and is an overall nice guy. Transparency is the key, show them they get good prizes, good support, you work with feedback they give you etc etc. I could probably right a book about what I encountered being a TO and community builder for nearly 5 years... (might make into an interesting article! )

I'll chime in this thread from time to time eventhough I don't frequent TMD anymore.

[Prospero]

Prospero! Thanks for the solid advice - Both Lemnear and I pretty much agree that around 10 proxies is the right way to go, so that people will still have to splash out on a Sol Ring to get involved, but can nonetheless pilot a broad range of competitive, fun decks.

Are you Dutch? If so, it was actually you guys I most expected to hear from and from Marske's previous posts it sounded like something had been built up there from very humble beginnings.

Your three-step plan I guess is what vaguely was in my head - but it's good to see it spelt out (for others too who might be in the same boat). Hopefully, between Lemnear and I we can get it going.

@Lemnear - helps you're a TO!

Anyway - It would be good if this thread could be useful to others, too. So if anyone else has any best practice to share when it comes to encouraging a Vintage scene to grow, post it here. I set the thread up too partly to legitimise our efforts - hopefully Berlin players will head to TMD to find out decks in the near future and we can report back when we finally scrape together 8 people for a tournament. Baby steps and all that...

Cheers!

10 proxies seems fine, especially if you're dealing with a Legacy crowd.  If they have the duals, fetches, Forces and more, all they should be proxying is power.  10 seems like enough proxies that somebody is forced to pick up the random stuff that they may not have (a Demonic Tutor, Sol Ring, etc.) while also not pushing the format into a cost prohibitive place.

I lived in the the Netherlands for two years.  I'm American, by way of Germany and Ireland.

Marius is right, you are going to have to play other formats, but it's still a good guide.

Good luck with everything!

[tito del monte]

Thanks guys! Let's see how this all goes...

Currently, as per the Mobiles song, "Drowning in Berlin" but will report back soon.