Ramblings About Vintage: some things I'd like to see in the future.

[BigMac]

I would love a better support for vintage. I also see a couple of advantages for wizards. If they would support it more, they could pull old school players back into other types of play. This would mean more cards sold on every level.

I also think that proxy environments do not help this happen. Do not get me wrong, i am not against proxies. But i think as long as a lot of tournaments are proxy wizards will not get interested. It is not just about the expensive cards, you can proxy virtually any card, this will always mean less cards sold.

As for big tournaments. I think Paris and the Dutch open (480 players with power 9 as prize support and 177 players with lotus jet prizesupport) proove that Europe has a lot of players willing to come to tournaments as long as there is some sort of prizesupport for unpowered decks. Looking at results it is very possible to do well with unpowered decks. If you pack hate and a constant kill condition you could do very well in this format. Playing non proxy could bring a whole new metagame as unpowered players will need to adapt to having no power. Nowadays there are enough new cards to make that possible.

Perhaps SCG could come to Europe for 1 or 2 of their power nine tournaments.

As for vintage worlds, not having a representative group of people like with normal worlds, is pretty bad. I am not even talking about the prize support there as i have no idea what it is exactly, but calling the winner world champion just makes me laugh. He could call himself North american champion. Just have a world championship in europe and see how many Americans would come over here, or Asia for that matter.

As for legacy as a formally DCI format, this format will only make certain cards more expensive. Then they will ban them from legacy as being to expensive and to rare, so i think it iwll not last. I hope it lasts as it is probably the only format i will ever have a shot at winning some money, but a long way from being as diverse as vintage.

Perhaps this is a lot of rambling, but it is just my oppinion.

[Manpriest]

Just wanted to touch on a point that was mentioned briefly earlier regarding unpowered decks and unpowered prize support.  I believe that if WotC supported T1, but took a slightly different approach it could be healthy for the format.  Let me explain (and yes, I agree with most of the arguments about why WotC will not support T1, just my thoughts).

Now I've never been to any of the major T1 events being that I can rarely afford it but if WotC held a few more sanctioned events a year for T1 with a prize structure that paid out normally as well as for "unpowered" decks or decks w/o restricted cards, whatever then they in and of themselves could generate a lot more interest in the format.  You would have many more people interested in and designing decks around competing for these prizes and sooner or later this interest would mature and these players would become familiar with/interested in power and truly competing in the environment.  Now I know this might mean a lot more scrubby decks in the first few rounds but it would also stimulate deck design around beating 'powered' decks with 'unpowered' decks and could be an overall healthy addition to the format.

I know several of the non-sanctioned events sometimes offer prizes for 'unpowered' decks but I think if this was done in a sanctioned environment it could truly stimulate some interest from a field of players that just don't want to attempt to conquer the price barrier.


Just my thoughts.

[Evenpence]

If we want more players in Vintage, there is ONE route to take.  I repeat, ONE route to take:

Wizards needs to support us more.  It is fully our problem that we haven't.

We have not written articles for them.  We have not given them support so that they can support us.  They have no idea (the majority of them) what is even going on in the format.

The heads of the Vintage Community (you, and everyone else know who you are) need to step it up and offer their services to Wizards.

By writing articles that get posted on the main page, and by working in unison, we will draw more players to Vintage.  I can ASSURE you that.

Having a "Vintage" section would be absolutely ideal, like they have for SCG, but I doubt Wizards will ever do that.

Big heads, work together and write a letter to Wizards.  If this could be headed by someone HUGE, like Jacob or Smennen, it would benefit everyone who cares about this format.

I'd be glad to write the majority of the letter, send it to one of you, and have you change it however you want if you need a skeleton or don't want to do alot of work.

[Jacob Orlove]

I don't think you understand how mtg.com works. At best, T1 is going to get a few feature articles per year because there is simply no way they can cut any other content for it.

Second, I think you're overestimating the value of mtg.com's readership (see this thread). Even if mtg.com gets a hundred thousand readers per week, almost all of them are either not in a position to care about vintage, or already play it. The value of getting articles up there is minimal.

There are good ways to promote the format, but I don't think mtg.com articles are one of them. Our format needs ambassadors, not figureheads. Go out and talk to the players at your store, proxy up some decks, see if you can get a small group interested. Ideally, a few people can turn into 8-man events, and a few of those in nearby stores can provide enough people to start running real tournaments, which, as Waterbury has shown, can grow almost without limit if the TO has time, patience, and dedication to the format.

[49 Cents]

Perhaps SCG could come to Europe for 1 or 2 of their power nine tournaments.

Even if they do, I don't think many players are going to participate in the tourney. If I recall correctly, the tournaments cost THIRTY bucks. Sealed deck doesn't even cost that much, and you are guaranteed to get cards from those events. We've never had a tourney that costs more than like 12,50 Euro!
I don't think I know any non powered players who are willing to pay 30 bucks to join. Even if proxies are allowed. I don't even think lots of powered players are going to show up..

[Evenpence]

Jacob, you're right.  That does seem atrociously small.  I wish more people played Vintage.  Our format is amazing.

[BigMac]

Even if they do, I don't think many players are going to participate in the tourney. If I recall correctly, the tournaments cost THIRTY bucks. Sealed deck doesn't even cost that much, and you are guaranteed to get cards from those events. We've never had a tourney that costs more than like 12,50 Euro!
I don't think I know any non powered players who are willing to pay 30 bucks to join. Even if proxies are allowed. I don't even think lots of powered players are going to show up..

So why is it that in the States it bring that many players. Perhaps there will be somewhat less than in Paris. Say half of those. It still is a huge tournament if it has 200+ people in it. I do not see why the States could have enough interest and other places could not. Most vintage players are somewhat older and have somewhat more money than the average kid starting with magic. So i really do not see why in Europe there would not be enough people showing. With the right prize support i think a lot of people will come to play and try to capture some glory and perhaps a nice card. The legacy grand prix had 900+ people participating. A good prize support will always attract people. With that many people attending perhaps the prize support would get better, or the entrance fee could go down a bit. If just enough people show up.

Another thing you can take into account is the fact that in the States a lot of these tournaments are held. With that kind of prize support in Europe untill now just the 1. If we had like 1 to 3 every year i think people would flock to attend. I also think if the states had a few less every year a lot more people would try to attend the few there would be, making such a tournament bigger which could mean a lower entree fee as well.

But again, just a thought.

[forests failed you]

but man,

how spicey would a vintage invitational be?  That would be so fing cool, especially if they did feature matches... because all the feature matches would be awesome to read about.

[Dozer]

Feature matches are among the articles that get the least hits in the coverage Wizards posts. I worked for them at GP Dortmund, and we were told that we had to do feature matches because they are a mandatory part of the coverage, but they get the least hits. I think that's exactly what happened on SCG as well. People, especially casual readers, don't like feature matches much. They are great tools to learn about the game, but only if they are well written. Featuring a match so that the read is interesting but you still get across the major action and the important things that happen in a game is not easy, and feature matches are often a tedious read. Sometimes I can't even read the ones I wrote myself, because I find my attention straying away from the words on the page.

It's the stories that make a coverage. While a play-by-play record is important, I think what the readers are looking for are just the key plays of a match highlighted and the rest curtly explained. That is so hard to write, especially on the fly, that I don't see it happening at all. So, more feature matches aren't the solution if coverage picks up again on SCG. Starcitygames reaches more players with the tournament itself than it does with the coverage, that's my guess. The people who would want to read the coverage are at the tournament, apart from the few Europeans half of which don't even care.

It's not all bad, though. Here's an idea for the big SCG weekend: Have someone tailing Randy Buehler during the weekend tournaments, if he agrees. He's a personality big enough to generate a lot of interest, and both the general Magic crowd and the Vintage people might be interested in that. Just follow his weekend through from beginning to end. You'd get a unique perspective on Vintage, on Randy and the perception of Magic inside R&D. If I were there, I'd offer to do that, but I think enough good reporters should queue up for such an opportunity. Right?

Our format needs ambassadors, not figureheads.

Very true. Figureheads develop by themselves, the format does not. For example, look at GP Dortmund: There was no Vintage side event, even though probably half of Germany's big Vintage names were there (and not playing on day 2). Why? No idea, only that no-one actually coordinated to set one up. If there is no store or TO ready to do that, it won't ever happen. And that's not a good thing for the format and the players.

Dozer

[Lunar]

Ive been working on the said "ambassador" role for some time here in northern California, and I must say that it is finally starting to pay off...Clearly the work myself and friend Tony have put into getting more players works as weve gone from 4 total T1 players in the are to at least 20 in the past 8-10 months...sure this is really tedious slow work, but I think it is worth it to grow the format.

On the other issue of prize support...Clearly the better support the better the turnout...Two decembers ago at Worlds in San Francisco we saw over 90 players play for a Lotus, 9 months later at PT LA we saw 11 players play for half a box of Ravnica...what do you all think is the primary reason for that big of a drop off? Dozer hit it on the head really, in one instance we had a major card shop offering the prize, in the other we had wizards giving out packs...Players need to be the ones talking to the shops or if that fails you might need to do what I do (or even a handful of steps further and what Ray does) and do things yourself, I started up my own events and things have gone smashingly so far.

Its up to YOU if you want to grow the format, dont wait for somebody else to do it for you.

[Samite Healer]

I agree with Brian's mindset in this discussion.  There is absolutely no excuse for not giving out any byes based on rating, especially after having THREE Vintage World events.

I would also argue that it is definitely in Wizard's best interest to support Type 1 because it generates more profits for them in the long run.  If Vintage didn't exist, it is quite likely that several players that only play this format just wouldn't play Magic at all.  I am primarily a Vintage player now, and if SCG events, Worlds, and random sanctioned T1 events didn't exist, it is likely I wouldn't play at all.

If I didn't play at all, then there is no chance that I go down to the local card shop and randomly pick up my friend's Type II deck and start goldfishing it, testing it, and possibly getting interested in it.  Likewise, there is a lot less of a chance that I go to test with people for the next Waterbury or SCG event and a draft randomly breaking out (which obviously makes WotC money).

[UR]

I agree that the eternal rating should be used for something (even though mine sucks  ). Right now the only reason to play sanctioned Vintage would be the player rewards which, if you are playing Vintage, aren't that hot. Byes at large tournaments are perfectly acceptable and I don't think anybody would really mind.

How is that for format expansion?  The standard pros WANT to play our format because they think it is interesting and really cool.

No, they don't. Ofcourse some of them do, but I have very different experiences with pros regarding Vintage.