Comments on: UTV #28: The Classic Format, in memoriam (Dec. 5 2005 – June 30 2012)

By: Vic (HayMarket8)

Vic (HayMarket8) — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 17:26:20 +0000

HayMarket8 is my username. I have been CQ but never posted. In fact, the post above was my first hear yet I have been a reader for over a year. I appreciate all that has been done for classic despite not being mch of a participant. I have entered a few events and been in a couple of ques that did not fire. The events that did not fire were dissappointing as I often have to arrange my schedule to get into them. It is what it is. Thank you for your response.

By: enderfall

enderfall — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 02:12:23 +0000

Hi Vic. Thanks for your thoughts. You are a prefect example for me, as I now can point to one specific person that has the cards, but just doesn’t have the time to play etc.

Is “HayMarket8″ your MTGO handle? I don’t recall seeing you in the TP room before, but if I missed you, I apologize. I try to chat up people in the TP room, but sometimes I get distracted or have only a few minutes to play, etc. Other times, the other person doesn’t seem to be interested in chatting (perhaps language barrier is an issue there, though).

Nonetheless, there is always room for players that have a limited amount of time to play in our community. There are other ways to participate that don’t include forking over 6 tickets to play in a DE. ClassicQuarter.com is a great place to simply talk about the format. You can post decklists, and just talk about anything you want. If you have never been to CQ, I encourage you to check it out. Like I said, just posting over there is helping the community. I have never seen new people shunned from CQ, so I fully expect you would be embraced upon signing up.

By: Vic (HayMarket8)

Vic (HayMarket8) — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 01:00:46 +0000

I have a full classic deck, most playsets of the needed cards for other decks and still do not play classic. It was my intention and was the reason I collected the cards and played enough to know the format (former paper vintage player).

The reason I do not play is mainly time. I feel that my schedule does not work with the classic community. That is my fault and I cannot blame others for it.

Another (albeit smaller) reason is I have found many members of the classic community to be a bit clique-y. Not snobs by any means. When no one knows me and I show up with a full legit classic deck, no on reaches out. No clan invites. No “hey! let’s play some more”. No “Do you play in the league? Why have I not seen you before?” Nothing. Games, Matches, Gone, despite several watchers. While I do not need someone to give me a reach-around to play classic, it would be nice to break the wall down and be invited into the “classic community”

I am not griping, people can do/play what and how they feel. I just thought I would note my thoughts on why my participation has been non-existent.

Oh…and the prize support in horrendous.

By: Mad_3570

Mad_3570 — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 23:58:55 +0000

As far as prize payout goes, maybe the prize should fit the format? Personally, I don’t believe that M12 boosters are an incentive to play in a Classic event. Why not offer Master Edition boosters as prize? Of course, you couldn’t offer 11 ME boosters for a 4-0 in a Classic daily, but why not 3 packs for 4-0 and maybe 1 for a 3-1 finish, or 4 and 2? This would have a dual benefit of enticing more people to enter a Classic event, and get more of the cards needed to build good Classic decks into the market (without flooding it). No one will ever open a dual land or a FoW in 11 packs of M12, but they might in 1 pack of Masters Edition.

I agree that since not many Classic events fire, a fixed day/time should be decided on for Classic events. Sunday Classic sounds like a good day to me with event times set up to match the peak hours of global time zones.

By: Twoflowers

Twoflowers — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 22:52:59 +0000

In my opinion, the problem that prevent the Qs to fire (and the community to regenerate) is the time shift. I’ve tried to enter an event last saturday (afternoon GMT). We were 6. I am quite sure that with the players Qing the event at 2.30 AM GMT Sunday morning we were more than 16.

Last winter I’ve attended my first (and only, unfortunately) classic event. I ended 2-2, despite the lack of Fow (I was playing a personal version of 4c noble fish).

Lack of P9 in the format shift the metagame in the shop direction, but this is a personal opinion. Like any magic player I would like to see the P9s online, still classic is (to me) the most fun format and the only I play with interest. Unfortunately I began with paper version in 1996 and I quit it in 1998. MTG without cards as demonic tutor or wheel of fortune (or the proper multilands) it is another game, to me.

I guess that as community we should try to find a combination of day/time in the available Qs that are viable for both european and american players.

In conclusion I have appreciated the article and the comments. Talk about a problem is better than ignore it.

By: Zimbardo

Zimbardo — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 20:34:22 +0000

One other thing I forgot to mention: the reason why I actually did dip my toes into classic briefly. The decks themselves are really, really neat in Classic. They do really cool shit! The synergies are intricate and cool. Also, playing with stuff like Demonic Tutor and Tolarian Academy is friggin’ awesome.

By: Zimbardo

Zimbardo — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 20:29:57 +0000

I’m sorry to see that Classic has hit a wall. Reasons why I didn’t get into Classic:
1) Investment was a bit too high for me; I can trade for one or two decks with the resources in my account, but I would rather play a format in which I can play a bunch of different decks. Playing the same deck in the format all the time gets stale, and it also doesn’t allow one to also play the metagame very much (yes, card choices can still address the metagame, but not as much as switching decks).
2) I didn’t find the games to be as fun as I had hoped when I tried it for a bit, but admittedly I suffer from that knowledge deficit that you mentioned.

Wizards has to be given plenty of blame for this problem. Rarely have they simultaneously seemed to 1) care about eternal formats much and 2) be smart about managing the health of those formats. They have done some good things, such as feature them occasionally in good ways and offer some special events here and there (that even includes 100CS). But then they shoot themselves in the foot a couple of months later by screwing up the schedule. And the prizes.

And yes, the prizes are a major problem. This has been discussed recently elsewhere, but it MATTERS that a format with much lower initial investment (block) gets higher prize payouts because of market price of packs. I don’t know how much better the prizes would have to be in Legacy / Classic to make those formats fire more often, but that is what it would take. And it’s not like Wizards would be propping up the format and handing out freebies – that is just what it would require for the format to make sense to more people in the same way that Standard and Modern make sense to them now.

By the way, I agree that more promos would be a perfectly valid idea, but I think straight up higher numbers of packs as prizes is way more appropriate. If Wizards wants to justify that idea, then I’m sure they are smart enough to calculate how many packs of product need to be opened on average to produce your average classic deck compared to Block / Standard decks. Guess what – it would be a higher number since you’re pulling rares from more sets! This proves the higher investment cost without forcing Wizards to commit the (evidently) heinous sin of acknowledging that a secondary market exists.

Whatever. I guess I don’t have time to play in events anyway, so I should detach myself a little more.