By Stephen Menendian and Rich Shay
Introduction
Vintage is the Magic: the Gathering format that allows the oldest, most powerful cards. It is the format with the largest permissible card pool among sanctioned constructed formats, with over 12,000 cards and counting. The Vintage format is defined as much by its passionate players and dedicated community as it is by its powerful cards like Black Lotus. Interest in the format is illustrated by the recent Vintage Championship in Philadelphia, which drew over 450 participants from around the globe.
Despite all of the enthusiastic Vintage players out there and the interest among non-Vintage players, the format faces some unfortunate barriers to entry. First, the cards that define Vintage are often expensive. Certainly, innovation abounds and new cards are constantly seeing play; the deck that won the Vintage Championship contains Dragonlord Dromoka, a printing from Dragons of Tarkir, released this year. However, many of the core cards of the format are prohibitive in terms of their cost. Because Wizard of the Coast's interpretation of the Reserve List policy precludes their being reprinted, format-defining staples like Black Lotus are limited to their original 1993 print runs and are not going to become more accessible.
Another factor that makes paper Vintage less accessible is geography. Because of the rising cost of entry, generally areas with historical interest in Vintage Magic or the benefit of population density have enough players to hold regular Vintage tournaments. Most Magic players lack not only access to critical Vintage staples, but also access to competitors and established tournament scenes. In the United States, that means the Northeastern corridor and a few other scattered pockets of Vintage seedbeds. For these reasons, tournament organizers interested in Vintage confront the reality that nearly any other constructed format will draw broader player interest. Despite the intensity of passion held by its advocates, Vintage requires a critical mass of players and competitors, a challenging threshold for a format with a daunting barrier to entry.
The Promise of Online Vintage
One of the most exciting developments in the history of the Vintage format was its introduction on Magic: the Gathering Online. We have already discussed the challenges facing the expansion of the paper Vintage format. Magic: the Gathering Online (MTGO) is neither bound by the Reserve List, nor are its players bound by geography. Instead, MTGO provides a promising platform upon which Vintage can flourish.
The thousands of viewers tuning into the Vintage Super League is evidence of interest in the format and the continually increasing attendance of the Vintage Championships demonstrates a growing number of prospective Vintage players. Vintage has persisted in paper in spite of a paucity of official tournament support or large-scale sanctioned events because of its passionate, dedicated player base. The arrival of Vintage on MTGO inspired hopes among the Vintage community that we would see more support.
Unfortunately, Vintage on MTGO has not yet lived up to its potential. As Vintage enthusiasts, we eagerly adopted this platform as soon as the format was introduced in the summer of 2014. With over a year of Vintage on MTGO, we developed many insights derived from our own experience and dialogue with other active members of the Vintage community. Based on this, we believe that the experience of Vintage on MTGO can be greatly improved to support a sustainable, growing, and thriving player base through a few adjustments. Further, we strongly believe that Wizards of the Coast wants Vintage to succeed on MTGO. In that light, we present the following recommendations for improving the online Vintage experience.
Improving the Structure of Tournaments
Over the last year, MTGO has experimented with a variety of offerings for Vintage players to see what works and what does not. Meeting the needs of Vintage players can be a challenge, as Vintage players often have requirements that differ from Standard enthusiasts. Vintage Daily events were reduced a few months ago in the interests of trying to increase the number of events that “fired.” This effort was successful. Scheduled daily events more regularly met the required minimum number of players.
On the other hand, Vintage premier events were eliminated entirely. The only Vintage premier events that “fired” were ones organized by one of the authors of this letter and this was accomplished by promoting the event in the Vintage community. The Vintage premier event filled its capacity of 64 players (
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=46568.0).
Most recently, Magic Online has changed the format of dailies from four-round events to three-round events. This has caused some consternation among players, who feel as if support is slowly slipping away. While the smaller events have upsides, including a lower minimum number of players, and a smaller time commitment for busy participants, many Vintage players perceived it as part of a trend of gradually diminishing support.
Part of the frustration among Vintage players arises from the fact that the expense of acquiring or building an established Vintage deck, even for Magic Online, is not trivial. Many Vintage decks, even on MTGO, cost over a thousand U.S. dollars when acquired from scratch.
Unfortunately, with the changes to tournament offerings since the introduction of Vintage on MTGO, prize support for Vintage events is increasingly small, especially relative to the cost of entry. Winning an online Vintage tournament generates at most three booster packs as well as some Play Points (to be discussed below). A Vintage deck is an investment that, under the current online tournament structure, is unlikely ever to pay for itself, let alone subsidize the acquisition of key staples for additional decks and a growing collection.
What Vintage players who invest in MTGO want even more than better prize support are enough significant and meaningful opportunities to participate in high-level events against strong competition. Vintage players, more so than most other Magic players, are motivated by a passion for the format and a desire to make a name for themselves.
To ensure that players will invest in MTGO and stay invested, it is necessary that there are sufficient, periodic opportunities for high-level tournament competition, not just small daily events. Therefore, we recommend that MTGO offer: 1)quarterly, large-scale Vintage events comparable to those of the highly successful Vintage Holiday Festival, which had over a 100 players; and 2) a monthly premier event.
The previously scheduled weekly premier event faltered because it offered too many opportunities to enroll without focusing interest or attention on any particular date. The same logic that led the organizers of MTGO to reduce the number of dailies applies with greater force to premier events. Offering a single premier event per month would almost certainly focus maximum attention and anticipation for that event.
Additionally, monthly events would sync with the rhythms that Vintage players have come to expect from paper Magic, as many regular Vintage events are held monthly. Vintage players tend to be slightly older than the average Magic player and have less time to commit to weekly or even daily events. These players prefer to plan further in advance and could more readily plan around a monthly schedule.
We predict that a monthly premier event would regularly enroll the minimum number of players and would lure more Vintage players to the MTGO platform who have decided not to invest at this time while dissuading skeptical Vintage players from selling off their collection. Larger, quarterly events on the scale of the Holiday Festival would simultaneously reinforce and receive support from the monthly premier events.
The Holiday Festival Vintage tournament was a notable and impressive success. Despite being a qualification tournament, over 110 players enrolled to play. With high-profile players not only participating, but winning the event (Luis Scott-Vargas won the tournament), it drew interest from non-Vintage players as well.
Considering the success of the event, it is mystifying that it has not been replicated or followed-up in at least some manner. Just as monthly premier events would draw more paper-Vintage players to the MTGO platform, quarterly events on the scale, size, competition and prestige of Holiday Festival would prove to be an even bigger draw, not only in terms of participation, but of interest and discussion. Regularizing these tournaments – or indicating an intent to do so – is an easy way in which the organizers of MTGO can indicate a long term commitment to supporting Vintage on this platform while cementing support and dispelling doubts among the existing player base.
The main problem for so many MTGO Vintage players is not simply the lack of support, but also the perception that MTGO offers so little for adherents of the format. To combat this perception, the organizers of MTGO must not only act, but they must manage the expectations and concerns of its users more effectively. Although many recent changes have been well-intended, they are not always perceived positively among users. Announcing either a monthly premier event or a quarterly large-scale event would go a long way toward assuring current MTGO Vintage players of the platform's long-term promise for the format, assuaging any concerns they may have from recent changes or disconcerting trends, as well as serving as a lure to recruit more paper Vintage enthusiasts onto the platform.
Suggestions for Improving Play Points
A recent change to MTGO is the introduction of Play Points. Play Points are digital objects that cannot be traded between players but which can be used only to enter events in MTGO. The constructed tournament prize structures have been changed such that a large proportion of the prizes being awarded are in the form of Play Points, rather than online booster packs. Play Points make it easier for tournament players to enroll in events. Rather than having to convert packs to tickets, it reduces the transaction time for enrolling in new events. To a player who plays Standard and Drafts, Play Points may also be desirable. That player can accumulate Play Points by playing Standard, and then redeem the Play Points to enter Booster Drafts, which in turn award booster packs as prizes.
However, this system is less ideal for the average Vintage player who has less interest in drafting. The sole value of Play Points to such a player is entering more Vintage events. Because Vintage MTGO tournaments now pay out primarily in Play Points, a very successful online Vintage player is likely to accumulate a large number of Play Points. Unfortunately, because they cannot be traded or easily converted into anything that can be traded, Play Points have diminishing utility as more are accumulated. Beyond what can be used to enter events, excess Play Points have little to zero value; for example, 10,000 Play Points and 100,000 Play Points have effectively the same utility.
In this way, Play Points make it much more difficult to accumulate Event Tickets or invest in one's Vintage MTGO collection through success in Vintage events. Under the old system, in which more liquid booster packs were awarded as prizes, players could pursue the objective of leveraging success in Vintage tournaments into expanding their online Vintage collections. Under this new system, that dream is gone. Taking away that motivator is very discouraging for Vintage players who aspired to succeed online and grow their collections.
Admittedly, this may not have been a very realistic scenario under the old system, but this possibility served an important incentive to Vintage players. After all, not many players actually play on the Pro Tour, but the Pro Tour's existence helps sell booster packs and inspire participation in tournament magic.
One solution to this problem is clean and easy. Allowing some number of Play Points to be converted into a booster pack would give Vintage players a way of deriving value from excess Play Points. This will also discourage players from selling their MTGO accounts laden with excess Play Points, which would be against the MTGO terms of service.
We are certainly aware that one of the reasons for the introduction of Play Points was to reduce the number of excess booster packs in circulation. We do not believe that a reasonable implementation of solution (e.g. 40 Play Points for a booster) will lead to a large number of booster packs being introduced to circulation. The majority of players would still use Play Points to enter events. It would remain inefficient for a player to trade Play Points for packs, exchange those packs for Event Tickets, and then use those Event Tickets to enter events.
The only players who would likely want to trade Play Points for packs would be those who have too many Play Points to use to enter events or who are getting out of MTGO entirely. In other words, this solution would only be useful to a small minority of players, but it would be extremely valuable to them and an option for everyone else while remaining an aspirational incentive. Further, it would make the entire system much more player-friendly. It would let users feel more confident in accumulating Play Points, knowing they can still recoup value from their Play Points should they choose to quit MTGO, without resorting to selling their accounts.
Although the introduction of Play Points makes sense for most players, much like the changes to the range and quality of tournament options for Vintage players, it has been perceived by many Vintage players as part of a negative trend. The perception of these changes often trumps their underlying logic. The solution we recommend serves the goals of the recent changes while also preserving the integrity of the system in the eyes of Vintage users.
Additional Suggestions for Improving the Online Vintage Experience
In the real world, Vintage tournaments occur far less frequently than tournaments of other formats. This is in large part a result of the dearth available cards and invested players, as discussed above. One unfortunate consequence of this is a lack of Vintage tournament results. We realize that Wizards of the Coast does not publish all results on MTGO and we understand the reasons why. However, in the case of Vintage, we believe that those concerns are either misplaced or not as pressing. Vintage is a format that suffers, if anything, from a lack of data, not an over-abundance. Rather than over-define a metagame, more deck results would help players better understand the metagame of an often misunderstood format.
Moreover, we believe it would be beneficial to everyone, including non-MTGO users, to have more results available. Having more results published would mean having more decklists to use as resources for new players, providing more ideas for deckbuilders, and showcasing more of the diversity of the format. The format is not easily solved, and the Restricted List could be used to address whatever problems may arise. In short, publishing more Vintage results would go a long way to helping advance the format. We recommend that every Vintage tournament result be published, and that more data on Vintage and data-tools be made available for analysis.
A further suggestion is related to making more paper Vintage decks playable on MTGO. It is not possible, nor necessarily desirable, to make the paper Magic experience identical to MTGO. In some respects, such as the play clock, MTGO provides a superior platform than what is logistically feasible for paper Magic. However, there is one area where MTGO should more closely reflect paper Magic.
There are strategies in Vintage, past, present, and presumably more in the future that use repeated loops as a central part of their gameplan. The Worldgorger Dragon decks are one prominent historical example of this. A more salient example of this is the deck that recently won the Vintage Championship. This deck uses Auriok Salvagers, Black Lotus, and Pyrite Spellbomb as a way to win the game. In paper Magic, the player essentially announces repeated combos and how many times they are being repeated.
On MTGO, this is not possible. Executing a repeated looping combo can take hundreds of clicks, expending precious clock time. This should be corrected. We wish to avoid being overly prescriptive on how to resolve this problem, but wish to emphasize that fixing this would help enable some decks that are perfectly good in paper Magic, and even important parts of the Vintage metagame, but are not operationally feasible on MTGO. However it is accomplished, we recommend that a simple functionality be programmed into Magic Online to make these strategies more playable.
The fact that the deck that won the most recent Vintage Championship is not functional on MTGO is a serious problem. But for Vintage players, this runs deeper than a technical problem. The importance of enabling this functionality in MTGO is exemplified by community pillar and reigning Vintage Champion Brian Kelly. Brian has stated that the only reason he has never used MTGO is because he is not able to test the majority of his designs because Auriok Salvagers and Black Lotus do not function together online as they do in paper Vintage. Instead, he has found other ways to test his decks. This highlights the lack of loop functionality as both a technical and community issue.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we believe that a number of simple steps on the part of Wizards of the Coast could greatly enhance the online Vintage experience. Vintage is a format with ponderous real-world constraints. However, these constraints do not exist online, and Wizards has the ability to tap into a very devoted and enthusiastic Vintage community. The steps we recommend are summarized as follows.
1.Introduce additional, larger-scale tournaments. This includes a) a monthly Premier event and b) a larger, quarterly event.
2.Allow Play Points to be converted to a tradeable commodity, such as booster packs.
3.Publish more tournament results from online Vintage events.
4.Enable repeated-loop interactions on MTGO.
To some extent, these suggestions are as much geared toward solving technical problems as improving the perception of the platform and the experience of the average Vintage player. While undoubtedly well-intentioned, some of the changes to the Vintage experience on MTGO, from the tournament offerings to the introduction of Play Points, have been poorly received in some quarters of the Vintage community.
Moreover, when viewing any of these issues in isolation, the bigger picture is easily missed, and well-meaning changes may form a larger perceived trend of gradually diminishing support. We believe that these changes will help Vintage find even greater success on MTGO and greatly improve the experience of the average Vintage player.
Sincerely,
Stephen Menendian & Rich Shay
