How I learned to stop complaining and enjoy the meta
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I watched quite a bit of the footage on Twitch from Eternal Weekend, and it was mostly good. The games were good, the decks were good and the field looked fun.
I have written a series of threads about the meta and I know there is a camp that is unhappy. I read through the 8 finishers comments and 3 people want restrictions that in my opinion would destroy Vintage. Overall, the format is healthy and if you are open to it, the format is fun.
I realized that certain styles of play and some decks that people love are dead and gone. This happens in every format. They killed Deathrite Shaman in Legacy to open up the format, and they killed Splinter Twin in Modern just to open up the format. And, they restricted Mentor and Thorn to open up Vintage.
It's annoying when some styles of play die, I have been lamenting losing StoneBlade for years but I have discovered new and interesting lines of play.
People have contempt if they do not get to play "their" game but overall you get to play your game if you are open to finding a way to do so. It is not guaranteed that you should be able to play "your" game.
Looking at the age ranges of the players in the top 8, the field got a little younger and looking at Vintage overall we need the new blood. There is room for everyone and we can all have fun - if we want to.
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Matt Sperling calling for CE/IE to be legal is far and away the best answer that any of the competitors gave. This year marked an interesting metagame shift where innovation happened because of manpower, not because of new printings. The optimization of Paradoxical Outcome and Survival of the Fittest is community work using various mediums to create think tanks. The legalization of CE & IE would allow for more accessibility and for innovations like this to occur more often.
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Those are valid points, but I don't think they answer the topic's question. For those like me who have no idea what that is, CE/IE are Collectors and International Edition (those with the golden border)
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CE/IE seems like a great idea, but at this point it would probably just start another round of buyouts. It would be awesome if there were a tournament of the same level of significance as eternal weekend that allowed proxies. Just the thought of that makes me think it would be a huge Vintage tournament, but who knows, maybe it would not be that popular. We are definitely past the point of average people playing sanctioned Vintage, and it is not likely to change. I love playing on MTGO, but I know that there are a lot of players who would like to play in paper tournament as well.
I'm not of the mindset that power nine cards need to lose their value for other people to play. The value aspect of the problem makes it really difficult to solve. However, I think that Vintage's increasing popularity will result in some type of solution. Decent sized proxy tournaments already happen, so hopefully they just keep getting larger and more frequent.
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The only problem with the "CE will save us" mentality is that CE moxes are now approaching the level where unlimited moxes were 1-2 years ago. Their supply has been soaked up pretty quickly into the market.
It would allow a lot of Old School players that only have CE the ability to crossover, so that might be something, but I don't think that $400-$600 CE moxes helps the price or supply issue at this point.
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@joshuabrooks everything is relative though, and even though the price of CE/IE power is super inflated, $2000 for 5 CE moxen is substantially more affordable than $2000 just for a Sapphire. If there ends up being a "correction" in both directions, then so be it. No one believes that legalizing CE will suddenly create 2000 person vintage GPs, but maybe it means EW pulling 500+ regularly. Maybe StarCity could reliably pull 220+ for vintage events. This could also allow more smaller TOs to host EW qualifiers, which by definition must be sanctioned. I just think its a no brainer move.
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@p3temangus said in How I learned to stop complaining and enjoy the meta:
@joshuabrooks everything is relative though, and even though the price of CE/IE power is super inflated, $2000 for 5 CE moxen is substantially more affordable than $2000 just for a Sapphire. If there ends up being a "correction" in both directions, then so be it. No one believes that legalizing CE will suddenly create 2000 person vintage GPs, but maybe it means EW pulling 500+ regularly. Maybe StarCity could reliably pull 220+ for vintage events. This could also allow more smaller TOs to host EW qualifiers, which by definition must be sanctioned. I just think its a no brainer move.
I totally agree, every bit helps, and if it does occur, it will put some upward price pressure on Arabian Nights/Antiquities/Legends cards unfortunately, but yeah, every bit helps, we're in agreement there, but I don't think it's a silver bullet.
If someone wouldn't buy a $600 mox a year ago, they probably won't buy a $600 CE one today (however, there is an argument that legalizing CE might make unlimited more affordable if people trade down/in).
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My overall experience has been that the paper meta has a great amount of diversity, at least in the first 2/3 of tournament rounds. At champs this year I played against 5 different decks (6 rounds, my r1 opponent was a no-show).
If you're only looking at MTGO challenges and paper top 8s, one could get the impression that the paper meta is less diverse than it is.
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@mediumsteve said in How I learned to stop complaining and enjoy the meta:
My overall experience has been that the paper meta has a great amount of diversity, at least in the first 2/3 of tournament rounds. At champs this year I played against 5 different decks (6 rounds, my r1 opponent was a no-show).
If you're only looking at MTGO challenges and paper top 8s, one could get the impression that the paper meta is less diverse than it is.
The paper meta has a lot of bad players playing bad decks at the bottom tables. Metagame diversity is high if I'm willing to count the no hoper who decided to play some unplayable "QUAD LASER FACT OR FICTION!" pile. (Of course, they're probably having a blast casting these cards--if you realized you're not going to win, you really ought to do what you want and have a good time playing!)
The X-0/X-1 bracket at champs, for X>5, is basically the MTGO metagame, and the vast majority (not all, but a pretty heavy majority) of bad decks have been trimmed away, and even the rouge decks aren't "WHY WOULD YOU EVEN TRY THIS", it's instead something standard with a twist instead.
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sure, I don't disagree. most people don't get to that point. and if you're spiky or lucky enough to get to 5-0 at champs, you don't get to complain.
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@joshuabrooks said in How I learned to stop complaining and enjoy the meta:
@p3temangus said in How I learned to stop complaining and enjoy the meta:
@joshuabrooks everything is relative though, and even though the price of CE/IE power is super inflated, $2000 for 5 CE moxen is substantially more affordable than $2000 just for a Sapphire. If there ends up being a "correction" in both directions, then so be it. No one believes that legalizing CE will suddenly create 2000 person vintage GPs, but maybe it means EW pulling 500+ regularly. Maybe StarCity could reliably pull 220+ for vintage events. This could also allow more smaller TOs to host EW qualifiers, which by definition must be sanctioned. I just think its a no brainer move.
I totally agree, every bit helps, and if it does occur, it will put some upward price pressure on Arabian Nights/Antiquities/Legends cards unfortunately, but yeah, every bit helps, we're in agreement there, but I don't think it's a silver bullet.
If someone wouldn't buy a $600 mox a year ago, they probably won't buy a $600 CE one today (however, there is an argument that legalizing CE might make unlimited more affordable if people trade down/in).
While I agree that every little bit helps, I disagree that just making CE/IE legal would help. There would be a 'price correction' in ce/ie cards as their over inflated prices over inflates even more. There would be no downward trend in ABU prices. The same people who are priced out of playing vintage now would be priced out of playing vintage still if ce/ie suddenly became legal. Dribs and drabs of cards being added to the pool will do nothing but help investors and big stores who hoarded cards. The rest of us will still be paying an arm and a leg. Nothing short of a supply influx large enough to deflate the price of ABU will truly help anybody but those who already have the cards.
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@gutocmtt thank you so much
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Legalizing CE and IE won't help a damned bit, other than make that already-limited supply even more expensive as there's now an inflated value to those cards outside Cube and Old School (and EDH for things like Gauntlet and Duals).
