Three things Wizards could do to improve the Vintage and Legacy Championships

[BC]

We are just a few weeks away from Grand Prix Providence, which will undoubtedly be the biggest Eternal MTG event on US soil in 2011, so I feel like this is a good enough time to discuss what SHOULD be the biggest yearly Eternal MTG event on US soil… or even… the WOOOORLD.  Of course I am talking about the Magic: The Gathering Vintage Championship and Magic: The Gathering Legacy Championship that occur on consecutive days every year (or almost every year) at Gencon Indianapolis (August 4-7, 2011).  I’m not sure how long these tournaments have been taking place, and frankly I don’t have the energy to find out.  I DO know that 2011 will be the year that the 9th of the Power 9 paintings is given away as the first prize for the Vintage Champs (Time Walk!), so let’s say it’s been at least 9 years. 

The fact that these events are called “Championships” is really only because that’s what Wizards decided to call them.  In truth, they aren’t really considered championships by most people, primarily because they are not very well attended at all.  The Vintage tournament usually draws around 120 people, while Legacy draws 160 or so.  Compare this to Legacy Grand Prix events, which regularly draw over 1000 participants.  The Vintage and Legacy Champs tournaments draw most of the established Eternal players from the Midwest, because that’s where the tournaments occur.  Some people make the trip from the East Coast, but very few players from the West Coast make the trip, and even fewer international players attend.  Why don’t people attend these tournaments?  More importantly, what can Wizards of the Coast do to make these tournaments more important and better attended?

First let me discuss what Vintage/Legacy Champs is doing right.  I remember the first time I went to Gencon.  It was August 2005, I was living in St. Louis, I had just started playing competitive Vintage a few months prior, and I had never actually played Legacy before.  In fact, not many people had.  The format was introduced less than a year before (September 1, 2004).  Gencon was just about the coolest thing I had ever seen.  So many fellow nerds, so so so many things to do.  I won’t get into the details of what Gencon is like, but I highly recommend going at least once.  I doubt that you will be disappointed.  Anyway, I was there to play Vintage, and as long as I was there I thought I would go ahead and try this thing they were calling “Legacy”.  That brings up the first thing that I think they are doing right.  The Vintage and Legacy formats are the Eternal formats.  They are intimately entwined.  The Championships should never be uncoupled.  The one time they were (2008), Vintage Champs was moved from Gencon to Worlds in Chicago.  I think this probably hurt both events, if not with attendance, than with the missing crossover between diehard Legacy and Vintage players. 

Some people may disagree with the second thing I think they’re doing right, which is sanctioned, 0 proxy events.  This is, of course, less of a big deal for Legacy, in which the cards are (supposed to be) cheaper than Vintage cards.  But I love sanctioned Vintage.  If you live in the US, you undoubtedly have very few chances to play it.  My first few Gencons I had to beg and borrow and beg some more in order to find enough Power cards to field a respectable deck, but I did it.  I got to throw around real Moxen against other people throwing around real Moxen.  It was awesome.  It was real.  And frankly, since this is the Magic: The Gathering Vintage Championship, there’s really no other way to do it.

But back to what I think they could improve.  In no particular order, here are 3 suggestions that I think would make the Champs events huge:

1. Give out prizes that people actually want.
This is the first and most important step that has to happen in order to draw players to the Champs.  As I previously mentioned, Vintage Champs gives away original paintings of Power 9 cards to the winner.  It’s hard to tell how much these paintings are worth, since they are original and unique, but it’s probably a few thousand bucks.  Legacy Champs usually gives away a full set of 40x Revised dual lands.  Based on current SCG prices, this is worth around $3,000.  Not so bad.  But what about the non-winners?  Getting 2nd place in one of these tournaments is a respectable finish.  What does that guy get?  What about 3-32?  Well, they usually get some combination of booster packs.  I think last year they were giving away some combination of Italian Legends, Revised, and Portal 3 Kingdoms packs, maybe with some Zendikar or some other bullshit thrown in.  Frankly, that’s a little disappointing.  Obviously, this makes both tournaments extremely top heavy, which is unique among Magic Premier Events.  Grand Prix and Pro Tour payouts are much better, first of all, and much much more distributed.

So if they aren’t going to give away the paintings or the dual lands, what should they give away?  Well, that’s a good question.  In one way, I really like the uniqueness of the Vintage painting, and in another way I really like the playability of the dual lands.  Couldn’t those two be combined in some way?  Couldn’t they find a way to do that?  I think you see where I’m going with this.  In my opinion, it would be really awesome if they gave away tournament legal promotional (foil probably) versions of Vintage and Legacy staples to the top 8 or 16.  How awesome would that be?  Let’s say, for example, that this year they give away foil promo Mana Drains to the top 16 of the Vintage Champs in addition to the other pack prizes.  How many people would show up for those?  Probably quite a few.  What would it cost Wizards to print these promo cards?  I don’t know anything about the card printing process, but it can’t be that much.  What would they be worth to players?  Potentially thousands.  I see no downside.  They could even make an extra special foil promo card for the winner, just so he feels like he got something special.  And please, don’t feed me some bullshit about the Reserved List.  They make the policy, they can change it.  Wizards could also easily give out Pro Points for the two tournaments.  That would definitely help attract some people.  I’m not sure how those things work, having never earned one, but I don’t think they’re a limited commodity. 

2. Make the Championships the main attraction.
One of the great things about Gencon is that there is always something to do.  The bad thing about this, is that there are usually several events that conflict with the Legacy and Vintage Champs.  For example, last year the Midwest Master’s Series tournament was on Saturday, the same day as the Legacy Champs.  I know of several established Legacy players that skipped the Champs event for the Master’s Event.  This year, Gencon will host the 2011 US National Championship, which will also likely leach away a few players (although it’s possible it might bring in some players too, we’ll see).  This is why I believe the Champs events absolutely have to be the main event, with no other major tournaments happening in parallel.  Currently, there are two weekends a year in which Legacy is the main event (GP Providence and GP Amsterdam this year), and no weekends in which Vintage is the main event.  I don’t think this is too much to ask.

Unfortunately, making Vintage/Legacy Champs the main event most likely involves moving them away from Gencon.  As I mentioned before, I love Gencon, and it would truly make me sad if the Champs events were separated, but it might have to happen, just to isolate them from the other tournaments that happen at Gencon.  This would also have the added benefit of lowering the entry fee to the tournaments.  A pass to Gencon is something like $75, plus another $20 or so for each of the tournaments.  Much more than other tournaments, even if they do include all the other cool Gencon shit.  Instead, if they created the Legacy and Vintage Championship Weekend, where I could potentially win a playable foil promo Bazaar of Baghdad if I made top 8, that would just be the awesomest.  This would also be a good opportunity to move the tournament around the country, which would also get local player bases interested other than those in and around Indianapolis.

3. Create a series of Grand Prix-style trials, and award byes based on Composite and/or Eternal rating.
There’s currently not much of a system of prelims or qualifiers or trials leading up to the Vintage/Legacy Champs.  There’s a prelim at Gencon the day before each tournament, in which the winner wins 2 rounds of byes for the tournament the next day.  As far as I know, that’s it.  In contrast to this, every Grand Prix features dozens of trials around the country in the months leading up to the tournament.  If Vintage and Legacy Champs had a similar trials system leading up to the tournament, it might get people interested, and maybe get a few people to go to the tournament who otherwise wouldn’t have.

Wizards could also offer byes to the Champs events based on rating.  This could either be Composite rating, which would get pro players interested, and/or it could be based on the previously useless Eternal Rating, which would reward those of us who have been playing Eternal for a while and done well. 

In conclusion, I think the Legacy and Vintage Championships should be huge.  They should be important to everyone who cares anything about either format, and they should bring in hundreds or even thousands of participants.  There is no excuse for the “Championships” of these formats that Wizards cares so much about to languish in mediocrity and obscurity.  They should do better.

[CHaPuZaS]

All of those seem to be good enough, but they all have a weakness in common. It expects Wizards doing something about it. As we all know, they have a lot of things to take care of in a list that Vintage is the bottom matter.

What about doing something by yourself? I mean, that's what we've been doing here in Europe and it seems to be perfectly well. It just needs someone, or a group, with the valor to do something for the format: A great tournament. Bazaar of Moxen (In France), Ovinogeddon and D-Day (In Italy) and Eternal Weekend (In Spain) have performed well becoming each country's weekend for eternal once a year, the assistance going higher year by year.

What I mean is, there must be someone, somewhere and somehow to make a big weekend of Eternal tournaments once a year in the USA.

[TheWhiteDragon]

I could hold a tourney and give away my collection to the top 8!

The problem is, that would attract all of 8 players.

In a country of 300 million, we can only get 120 to make the trip for Indi.  I could hold a bazaar of Moxen type tourney and doubt 100 would make the trip.  People want gigantic tourney's in their backyard and aren't willing to travel more than 3 blocks to get there.  It's more a problem of the players than WotC.  If 800 showed up for Indi, despite a bad prize support, don't you think there would be a much better support next year after such a crowd drew attention?  But you want WotC to throw out tons of prize support for a tourney that barely cracks 100...sure.  It may be a matter of the chicken and the egg, but since players are having the gripe about little support, then it seems they need to make the first move, not WotC.

[Diakonov]

I could hold a bazaar of Moxen type tourney and doubt 100 would make the trip.

I would like to challenge this.  TMD Opens have more equalized prize support than the Championships do and have no problem reaching the same attendance numbers.  If you've proven yourself to be a solid T.O. and have Bazaar of Moxen level prizes, I bet you would break 100 easily.

[BC]

Legacy Grand Prixs regularly draw over 1000 players, including people who travel a long way to play in them.  What makes you think they wouldn't do the same for the Legacy Championship if it was done better?  I don't see any reason why Vintage players wouldn't do the same if there was actually something to play for.  You can't expect players to spend hundreds of dollars to travel to Indianapolis for a mid-sized tournament with little prize support just in the hopes that next year the prizes will be better.

And as far as Wizards "throwing out tons of prize support", they essentially have a license to print money.  Printing awesome playable promo cards as prizes doesn't cost them nearly as much as the cards would be worth to the players. 

[CHaPuZaS]

Well, you don't have to put the BoM prize list.

I expected about 100-120 players in the Eternal Weekend Vintage Event, put this prizes:

1º- 5 Moxes (1x) + Trofeo
2º- 1 Black Lotus
3º- 1 Ancestral Recall
4º- 1 Time Walk
5º- 1 Mox de Unlimited
6º- 1 Mox de Unlimited
7º- 1 Mox de Unlimited
8º- 1 Mox de Unlimited
9º- 1 Mana Drain
10º- 1 Mana Drain
11º- 1 Mana Drain
12º- 1 Mana Drain
13º- 1 Mana Drain (It)
14º- 1 Mana Drain (It)
15º- 1 Mana Drain (It)
16º- 1 Mana Drain (It)

And the tournament was well received, with the expected assistance.

Edit: And Proxies weren't allowed, a trend that is performing well in the big european tournaments.

[TheWhiteDragon]

That's retarded.  That's over $4000 in prizes.  At $40 a head, you just broke even on prizes and took a loss on staff and venue.  Do you really think people want to fork out $40 + airfare to play in this and have a TO take a loss like this?  Might as well just mail 100 vintage players $10 to keep playing and come out with the same loss.

[CHaPuZaS]

I'm retarded then. The entry cost was between 25€ and 30€, depending on if you were playing both Eternal events or just the Vintage one. I expected to lose money with the event, but I found that loss acceptable, because I wanted to celebrate the event with good prizes and prices anyway, and not alllowing proxies.

In the end around 140 showed up. Everybody was happy, and I didn't lose money. It all depends on how good you can advertise the eventm, how good your intentions are and how good a TO you are. Wizards is not promoting Vintage? Promote yourself the format with a big tournament. The prizes are very expensive? Ask people to sell them as cheap as they want/can or make an effort to fin them as cheap as possible in eBay and the like. Need to pay for judges? Obtain an sponsor from a store. Need a venue you don't want to pay for? Obtain help from your local town hall or an association to get it for free.

Every problem can be solved.

[TheWhiteDragon]

Most things are not going to be for free and most sponsors are not going to sponsor things like this that won't show any or much return.  Myabe you were okay with taking a loss, but I think expecting WotC to take a loss like this because they want to support Vintage is crazy.  They like that Vintage is around, but they don't make their money on them and won't invest in a no-return format.  Expecting your average vintage lover to go through all the trouble of coordinating and obtaining that kind of prize support for the slight chance of breaking even, great risk of losing money, and almost impossibility of profiting is akin to asking people just to burn their money in the name of Vintage.  Hell, I like a lot of things, but I won't throw away money for no reason.  Why in the world would you think a loss is acceptable?  If you expect the same year after year, would you keep taking losses?  Would you expect a profit-driven company to do this?

[CHaPuZaS]

Most things are not going to be for free and most sponsors are not going to sponsor things like this that won't show any or much return.

My idea is that, if I am able to do it each year, then it shouldn't be so difficult. It's just that it's an effort doing it.

I organise the event each year, expecting some loses, but in the end, more players come. That's the reason why I upgrade prizes each year, and why more people keep coming.

If you can't get an sponsor, or a free venue, then you might be not the best individual to do this, but I'm sure that somebody can.

[Ozymandias]

You really want to get things cooking at the Vintage/Legacy events? Make it so the winner's qualified for the next Pro Tour. I'm not sure whether or not this would come with a plane ticket, but just the qualification would add a huge amount of cachet to the tournies.

[TheWhiteDragon]

Welcome to America - the land of the pricetag.  Nothing's free.  I certainly can't find free venues, staff, and advertising, nor people willing to sell me their cards for cheap "just to be nice."  My guess is that if people were in a position that COULD do this, they already would be and Vintage would be kicking ass.  Since this is not the case, I am assuming most are in my boat.  Even if people could get "cheap" prizes, they'd probably just sell them and pocket the profit as opposed to taking the loss. 

[CHaPuZaS]

OK then, I just thought that my knowledge on the Vintage European scene and my experience as a tournament organizer was worth trying to help by exposing what worked here in order to improve the tournaments and the assistance. If that's not the case, then... well, we can just wish upon a miracle or expect Wizards to do something relevant.

[Darkenslight]

I'm not sure if this is relevant (cross-posted from The Source), but that might be one way to improve the costings of Eternal formats.  I highly doubt Wizards would go for it, but it's a potential solution.

One of the things I would do is have Sanctioned Eternal tournaments that feed into the respective World Championships, with special edition prizes (for example, Top 8 of each tourney get an alt-art Force of Will/other staple).

[Delha]

Welcome to America - the land of the pricetag.  Nothing's free.  I certainly can't find free venues, staff, and advertising, nor people willing to sell me their cards for cheap "just to be nice."  My guess is that if people were in a position that COULD do this, they already would be and Vintage would be kicking ass.  Since this is not the case, I am assuming most are in my boat.  Even if people could get "cheap" prizes, they'd probably just sell them and pocket the profit as opposed to taking the loss. 

Maybe you just suck at looking. There are plenty of huge organizations/events that depend on volunteers to run them. Less than 2 weeks ago I helped run the Festival of Books in Los Angeles, an event that drew about 150,000 attendees. IIRC, the final volunteer count for the year was in the neighborhood of 900.

And that's not even the best example I can name off the top of my head, just the simplest.

[TheWhiteDragon]

If it is so easy to find freebies and get undercosted prizes, why is it not happening outside of CA or New England?  And those are not quite 100+ tourneys for sure either.

[Delha]

If it is so easy to find freebies and get undercosted prizes, why is it not happening outside of CA or New England?  And those are not quite 100+ tourneys for sure either.

I never said it was easy. I spent over a decade working for or overseeing the volunteer program at the largest anime convention in North America, and I can tell you firsthand that it's NOT a cakewalk. All I was claiming was that your statement of "Nothing's free" was provably false.

At the end of the day, it comes down to this: The people who are driven by profit (WOTC, for one) have already clearly failed to keep the Vintage scene thriving. The only ones still going are unsurprisingly those with a deep love of the hobby and willing to dedicate an amount of effort disproportionate to the cash return. You clearly don't understand the motivation here, especially given your quote below:

Might as well just mail 100 vintage players $10 to keep playing and come out with the same loss.

The entire point, which you've clearly missed, is motivating people to come out and PLAY.

Let's say we set a goal of assisting with relief efforts in Japan. CHaPuZaS is donating $1000 to the Japanese Red Cross, and you're saying that's just the same as setting that cash on fire in a parking lot. Sure, the money's gone either way, but the difference is that one accomplishes a goal, and the other accomplishes nothing.

[BC]

I'm purposefully necro-ing a 2-year-old thread because I wanted to point out that Wizards is potentially taking my #2 piece of advise from this post for Vintage/Legacy Champs this year.  Hopefully they will also take my #1 piece of advise (I don't have much hope for #3), and the "Eternal Weekend" will be awesome.

[Nefarias]

I was really confused at first because GP Providence is, once again, a few weeks away, but it isn't Eternal this time