Why there is no official T1 tournament from WotC? (friendly)

[Mr. Clean]

I have to make another thread with "friendlier" title, so those viewers would be happier to make a debate.  

After reading one of the Swordman's posts, it sounds like my question would make them feel dumber.  Oh boy, I didn't know that they have a gut to make a good debate with proving about the issue of T1 with WotC.

I am not talking about Magic shops, just only talking about the business of WotC.

[pox_reborn]

Because from a business standpoint, Wotc would make no money since all the power cards and the like are from out of print sets.

Wotc has made an effort to produce quality type 1 cards as seen from the mirrodin block as a whole. Thier concern about the community and listening to us about restrictions and unrestrictions leads me to believe that Wotc will more strongly support type 1 in the future.But as for a pro tour type 1, eh maybe not now but it could always be a possibility.

[Ric_Flair]

Wotc would make no money since all the power cards and the like are from out of print sets.

Pox's answer is clearly wrong.  Most of the sets allowed in Extended are out of print, yet they still hold Extended events.  After market prices have NO effect on WotC at all since they do not sell cards outside of packs.  Aside from a slight boost to cover increased costs a pack of Beta and a pack of Darksteel generate an equal amount of profit for WotC.  The real reason and the reason Rosewater et. al has cited for the lack of official Vintage events, aside from Worlds at Gen Con, is the lack of availability.  Some country's pros would be almost automatically excluded due to the lack of cards in their country.

[Mr. Clean]

I can see how they would make the latest set bridge to the type 1 and other formats.  That would make the older Magic players continue to spend money on new cards.

It's true about the official World tournament lacks many players with type 1 cards.  However, there was about 98 players in the Vintage at the side event tournament.  That's pretty a lot of numbers, so I'm sure there are plenty more other players than that.

Even if there are about 300 active Vintage players, that still doesn't hurt WotC business if they want to run an official vintage tournament.  

You better be happy that WotC still supports T1, unless they're having financial issue and probably willing like to cut the T1 format.

[jpmeyer]

They do care.  There's actually a bit of Standard-ishness in Vintage due to "virtual" rotations.  I remember a ton of random cards from Invasion block being good in Vintage, and then a lot for Odyssey, and so on.  However, a lot of the pre-Mirrodin cards aren't played as much.

This is still forcing purely Vintage players to buy new cards.  Granted, they might not be cracking packs for those fetchlands or Mindslavers, but somebody is, and that money is going to WotC.  While I doubt that they have an incentive to grow the format, there's an incentive for them to print Vintage-playable cards.

[Jacob Orlove]

You know, there was an Official T1 world championship tournament at Gencon. "Official" as in "run by Wizards".

[Bram]

Jacob is right.

Also:

I am not talking about Magic shops, just only talking about the business of WotC.

You can't separate the two as easily as you think. If Wizards takes *any* action that will bring down the majority of the (online and real-life) card shops, they will end up hurting themselves. In the case of Vintage, it could go a little something like this:

1. WotC somehow 'bans' vintage and ends all support.
2. Card shops (secondary parties) see their income drop since Vintage cards make up for a decent portion of their turnover. Note that, while it will not be the biggest part, it is still essential to the survival of said shops due to the relatively low margins of profit and small quantities of sales of games in general.
3. The smaller card shops (the one that lack 'deep pockets') will go bankrupt.
4. As cards become harder to come by, the game becomes more and more obscure. Profit margins decrease. Go to points 2. Rinse and repeat.

Also, it is absolute nonsense that WotC doesn't make money off Vintage players. Look at the T8 lists around the world. Read  Dr. Sylvan's articles. While the price of my power was high, it was a one time investment. But much like Standard players, I too am forced to buy new cards to keep up woth the ever-changing Vintage metagame.

Finally, I firmly believe that WotC has its heart in the right place. Sure, they're a company and are in it for the cash. But they do care about vintage and their old-school player bas. To them, it is a part of history. Ignoring your own past can be a dangerous move.

The reasons why all this doesn't lead to sponsored tournaments (please note that many vintage tourneys are sanctioned and some even run by WotC) have been discussed many times over. It is not because of a lack of interest in the format. It is not because they can't make any money off Vintage players. It is not because the format is too broken or the players too dumb. It is simply because of the limited availability of Power cards. The philosophy is that everyone should be able to play a magic tourney. For standard, there is a balance between the number of players interested in tourney play and the availability of cards. The law of supply and demand sets the prices of good cards at a reasonable figure.

For Vintage, this figure is nowhere near reasonable as it is, and were WotC to, say, make Vintage a PT format, prices would skyrocket. And so, once again, we see the discussion turning towards proxies or reprints. And please, let's not go there...

*sigh*