|
|
Post by Baron Sengir on Dec 12, 2011 12:28:10 GMT -6
I've been seeing a lot of discussions and flame wars on this topic on various forums and I wanted to hear everyone's opinion on the topic. Basically the one place I played at in November allows 10 free proxies and they charge you $25 to enter the tournament. As you may guess allowing proxies in vintage is pretty common. At first I wasn't sure how I felt about it, but after going through one tournament and thinking about it I really don't agree with allowing proxies if your going to charge me $25 just to enter. The main reason is because at this tournament the first place deck was a Dredge deck. The only expensive cards a vintage Dredge deck needs are 4 Bazaar of Baghdads which the guy proxied. Later I found out that the guy really only plays Legacy and only did the vintage tournament for the huge cash payout, since 30 people showed up. I mean he had no respect for the format or the old card in it and ran arguably the most broken deck in all of magic just because he needed the $300 or whatever it was. I suppose that is just the problem with cash payouts; people could care a less about the game and just run whatever will let them win to get the money. I really don't know that I'm going to go back to that place. Maybe I'll just wait for Pastimes to start doing Vintage, or at worst I'll play my casually once in a while. So I'm just wondering if I'm alone in thinking that Proxies seem weird to me in a tournament environment. I mean no one allows proxies in standard or legacy even so why in vintage? I know the cards a ton of money but then why play in it if you don't have them for your deck? Plus some of these player's proxies are so bad that I can't even tell what it does and some won't word the proxy correctly or write out the entire card even. |
|
|
|
Post by Maraxus of Keld on Dec 12, 2011 17:54:19 GMT -6
So I'm just wondering if I'm alone in thinking that Proxies seem weird to me in a tournament environment. I mean no one allows proxies in standard or legacy even so why in vintage? I know the cards a ton of money but then why play in it if you don't have them for your deck? Plus some of these player's proxies are so bad that I can't even tell what it does and some won't word the proxy correctly or write out the entire card even. That's pretty much the answer right there. The problem would be solved if Wizards of the Coast didn't have a huge reserve list of cards they refuse to reprint, therefore denying access to all the Magic players who don't want to drop the price of a friggin' car into their deck. You can say "if you don't have the cards, play a different format" but the fact is that the formats are different and certain cards, let alone certain decks, don't work in any format other than Vintage. There's lots of cards that are Vintage-legal only that don't cost a fortune, and if you want to use them in a competitive environment then that's the format you have to play. With regard to proxies, I feel that both proxy and non-proxy tournaments should exist, although I also think all officially WotC -sanctioned tournaments should be no-proxy. Then again, I also think they should make silver-bordered reprints of all the cards on the reserve list, including the Power 9, so many people would say I'm crazy. |
|
|
|
Post by Baron Sengir on Dec 13, 2011 8:40:03 GMT -6
Then again, I also think they should make silver-bordered reprints of all the cards on the reserve list, including the Power 9, so many people would say I'm crazy. Eh a lot of people agree with you, but Wizards won't reprint the old stuff mainly because there is little money in it for them compared to the new stuff. They would rather people buy the new sets and keep playing standard, not vintage or legacy.  And then of course you have the people who bought the power 9 that will get upset if they reprint them or allow proxies like the Collector's Edition Set in sanctioned tournaments. |
|
|
|
Post by Maraxus of Keld on Dec 13, 2011 8:52:17 GMT -6
See, that doesn't make any sense to me. The reason the reserve list exists is a promise to collectors that they will protect the value of these old cards on the secondary market by not reprinting them. I see why they do this, but I feel that it harms more people than it helps by denying them access to a lot of the classic cards. I also believe that silver-bordered reprints (which would not be tournament legal and thus would only be good for casual play or as proxies) would not significantly harm the value of the old cards. Heck, they wouldn't even be as good because you know they'd have new art and the ugly new card design anyway.
I find this hypocritical from the same company that doesn't care about older D&D fans who aren't interested in the current edition. So if you bought the old Magic cards they care about you, but not the older D&D stuff apparently.
|
|
|
|
Post by Baron Sengir on Dec 13, 2011 9:00:46 GMT -6
Yeah I agree with you. I guess they did make the Collector's Edition set but that set still goes for about $1000 for the full beta set and individual cards range from $1 to $200-$300 for the Black Lotus.
|
|
|
|
Post by Maraxus of Keld on Dec 13, 2011 18:27:34 GMT -6
|
|
|
|
Post by Maraxus of Keld on Dec 13, 2011 18:28:23 GMT -6
Now that I think of it, didn't that artifact set contain a Memory Jar? That's on the reserve list, so if they did then it means their promise not to reprint cards on the list is meaningless, and therefore there's no reason they couldn't reprint the rest of it too.
|
|
|
|
Post by Baron Sengir on Dec 13, 2011 21:10:07 GMT -6
Indeed it was in the Relics set.
|
|
|
|
Post by Maraxus of Keld on Dec 13, 2011 21:42:25 GMT -6
Well then, the reserve list is apparently so much BS after all. No reason they couldn't go ahead and reprint the other stuff too.
|
|
|
|
Post by Baron Sengir on Dec 14, 2011 9:03:46 GMT -6
Pretty much, though I don't think they will ever do the power 9 just because of the amount of backlash they would get from the community, but I think the rest of the cards on that list are fair game.
|
|
|
|
Post by Maraxus of Keld on Dec 14, 2011 12:16:40 GMT -6
On this subject, last night I googled "why did memory jar get reprinted?" without the quotation marks, and although I didn't find the answer I found out that there are quite a few people who feel the way I do: that the entire reserve list, including the Power 9, should be reprinted. Essentially, there's one school of thought that says the reason Vintage has such low popularity compared to other formats (apparently Legacy is really hot right now) is because of the huge buy-in cost. That's no surprise, but something else that hadn't occurred to me before is that because of the smaller print runs from back when Magic was new, there just aren't that many of those expensive staple cards in existence. Of course, that's part of the reason why they're so expensive, but it also puts a hard cap on the number of people that can competitively play in no-proxy Vintage tournaments. I mean, you'd know better than I do since you have actually gone to a couple of these, but if you disallowed proxies then it pretty much excludes anyone who's not willing to throw down a couple thousand bucks to buy certain cards that pretty much every competitive Vintage deck needs. And this problem is only going to get worse the longer Magic keeps going. As long as Wizards honors their reserve list policy, they are not going to print any more of these old cards, and so the number of them in circulation is only going to get smaller. With those considerations, it's no wonder that Vintage isn't that popular compared to other tournament formats. I've also heard that there was quite a bit of outrage over the ban/restrict announcements back in 2008 when Brainstorm, Flash, Gush, Merchant Scroll, and Ponder were restricted. I don't know what decks were affected, but the claim is that these restrictions severely cut down on the number of competitive decks in the format. Still though, I believe that's a minor problem in comparison to the larger problem. It's my belief that in order for Vintage to ever compete in popularity with formats like Legacy or Standard, certain older cards need to be reprinted. However, I'm pretty sure that Wizards of the Coast doesn't actually care that much about Vintage, since it seems to me that the majority of Vintage tournaments are not sanctioned by them. So probably nothing will change, and the prices on those old cards will continue to go up as Wizards continues sacrificing the health of the format to appease some collectors by holding to a promise that almost no one asked them to make in the first place. |
|
|
|
Post by Baron Sengir on Dec 14, 2011 12:29:45 GMT -6
Yeah the amount of rares from alpha and beta was very few. Alpha had around 2.6 million cards printed and only like 1100 rares. Beta had between 4-5 million cards printed and only 4600 rares. So if you think about the number of rares that have been destroyed over the years or lost than that leaves very little left. As far as Unlimited I'm not sure but I think the amount of cards printer were around 35 million and rares were probably between 10,000-15,000.
Vintage definitely struggles to get people playing and at the last tournament I went to there were 26 people which is amazing for vintage, however the shop allowed proxies. Like you said if they hadn't allowed proxies there might have been 5 people there; maybe 10, but I doubt it, and the deck lists of players wouldn't have been as strong because of missing key cards.
Proxies at least let people build a stronger vintage deck, as long as the proxies look good and are accurately worded.
|
|
|
|
Post by Maraxus of Keld on Dec 14, 2011 16:43:01 GMT -6
Anyway, I can see why, as someone who has dished out the cash for some of those expensive classic cards, you wouldn't want other people being able to play them without that kind of buy-in. But from my perspective, those cards should never have gotten that expensive in the first place because Wizards should be reprinting them so people who get into the game now can play with those cards and still afford to go to college.
Keep in mind that there are now lots of people playing Magic who were not even born yet when many of these cards came out. People who were born after Ice Age came out now have driver's permits. So while it's amazing that the game has not only survived but thrived for this long, many of those awesome old cards are completely out of reach because of this idiotic reprint policy.
|
|
|
|
Post by Baron Sengir on Dec 14, 2011 16:53:31 GMT -6
Keep in mind that there are now lots of people playing Magic who were not even born yet when many of these cards came out. People who were born after Ice Age came out now have driver's permits. So while it's amazing that the game has not only survived but thrived for this long, many of those awesome old cards are completely out of reach because of this idiotic reprint policy. Now your just making us all look old. ;D But its true the game has lasted a very long time and seen many generations play it. |
|
|
|
Post by Maraxus of Keld on Dec 14, 2011 17:14:02 GMT -6
How do you think I feel? I was buying Ice Age, 4th Edition, Fallen Empires, and Homelands when they were still available in booster packs, without ridiculously inflated prices. Well, in the case of Ice Age anyway. Can't say I've ever seen Fallen Empires or Homelands sell for any kind of real money.
If only I'd gotten into the game a year or two earlier, I might have some of these ridiculously expensive cards for my self. On the other hand, I might have foolishly traded them away for crap like I did with the one Force of Will I got from an Alliances pack back in the day.
|
|
And then of course you have the people who bought the power 9 that will get upset if they reprint them or allow proxies like the Collector's Edition Set in sanctioned tournaments.