I can appreciate your sentiment Nick but in practice I disagree with you. First of all, I don't like the implied characterization of people who don't care about about the title as people who register for the playmat or are players from other formats. When I top 8'd Champs the last two years I did not think it was an accomplishment because it was in tournaments that gave out some title. It was because they were two of the largest vintage events that have ever taken place. If that is not what you intended then let's chalk this up to me misconstruing what you wrote.

Theoretically, I understand the appeal of having a title. However, as others have said, in years past the title was not taken seriously outside of the US. Also, you can give someone a title all you want, but if they win Champs and aren't active in vintage afterwards it is difficult to consider them the champion of the entire format for another 364 days.

On a practical level, there seem to be two possible ways to keep the "purity" of the title, both of which have already been discussed. Either Champs is always in the US or it rotates. It is unfair to vintage populations in other places to do the former. The latter sounds ideal, except when you consider how many people it excludes from attending Champs each year. Not everyone that owns power is wealthy. I purchased mine with tutoring money while in grad school. I can't afford to drop 4 figures to go to Europe to play a card game. I can afford to drive a few hours with friends and share a hotel room. This is surely already the case for European and Japanese players who do not attend Champs in the US.

I think there is universal agreement that the scheduling of these events is terrible. It seems reasonable to have EU Champs in the spring and US Champs in the fall. If US Champs has 400 people and EU has 200, even if the winner of US Champs does not get the title of "World Vintage Champion" I think it's clear who would be considered as such. It's much like hockey. The existence of a Champion in Russia's KHL does not make the players on the Stanley Cup winning team any less excited about winning.

I am not trying to dismiss the importance you place in the title. Everyone can value what they want to. However I think there are many competitive players in this community who feel differently, and more to the point don't think the pros of preserving the title outweigh the cons.

The 65 players at bom are because it was just a vintage side event.
I can't predict how many people will come to Paris.
But last years vintage champs was just awesome

@diophan By no means did I intend on painting everyone who didn't compete for the title with one of three characterizations. They were meant as three examples of people who wouldn't care about the title. I know that those three characterizations can't possibly encompass everyone who doesn't compete for the title.

What the title means to the individual who wins it, and the community at-large is bound to be different for each person asked. I've gone to Champs in Indy with the Forinos, Mike Lupo, Josh Meckes, and others, and we went to win the title. If you had told us that there was a big tournament in Indy in August, none of us would have gone. I can run events out here, including events that get solid attendance. The title is what matters.

Honestly, I think rotating it is probably the best idea. Pick a T/O in Europe capable of running the event in the manner it should be run, and run it there once every two years. Run the American event here once every two years, and use Nick Coss as the American T/O. In the off years, run an American Championship/European Championship.

I also floated the idea of staggering Legacy/Vintage Champs so that in a year when the U.S. has the Vintage World Championship, Europe has the Legacy World Championship. There are positives and negatives to everything going on, but we could create a series that doesn't screw Coss this year, is more equitable for European Vintage players, and potentially helps both communities.

I think we can all agree that the best case is that each side of the Atlantic has a thriving vintage community. How do we structure these events so that they help drive that goal?

1. Have them concurrently but provide the title of "European Vintage Championship" for BOM and "Vintage Championship" for EW.
2. Hold the concurrently each year but alternate each year where the "Vintage Championship" is held with "European" or "North America/US" for the other event.
3. Have the EU based "Vintage Championship" in the spring and the US based "Vintage Championship" in the fall, which would allow players the opportunity to play in both -- and might provide very different metagames.
4. Separate Legacy and Vintage champs and have them at different alternating venues.
5. Other options?

I think it was a great decision for Wizards to move GP formats to be the same if they are on the same weekend -- except for in the cases of Legacy and now Vintage. They should be spread apart so that people can attend all of the infrequent events each year, and not just one. The "one-size-fits-all" approach doesn't work.

@Prospero said:

Pick a T/O in Europe capable of running the event in the manner it should be run, and run it there once every two years. Run the American event here once every two years, and use Nick Coss as the American T/O. In the off years, run an American Championship/European Championship.

The last sentence in particular seems like a fine compromise to me. You can call Nick Coss's yearly event whatever you want and I will still be very happy to attend it. It would become a bit weird if one year the American Championship has 400 people and the Vintage Championship in Europe has 300 people, but as I said the title doesn't matter much to me. What I do not want is for there to be no Nick Coss event in the off years.

I think alternating which Championship is the World Championship would be a great solution. There is still a sole world champion, and different locations can participate.

The more I think about it, the more I find cool design space.

The world championship gives out a painting of a piece of power each year.

The American/European event has a second tier Vintage staple given out. Mana Drain, Mishra's Workshop, Bazaar of Baghdad, Yawgmoth's Will, etc., are all great Vintage-only cards that we have at various points thought could be used as paintings for Champs.

If the European Champs offered a painting of Mishra's Workshop, I'd be significantly more drawn to attend.

@Prospero Hey Nick - I think there really are plenty of ways this change could have been made for the best of both Vintage communities. And I think that what's so frustrating about it is that it really feels like it's been thrown together on the back-of-the-envelope (again!). I appreciate the hard work that someone like Helene has do, but there doesn't seem to be anyone working alongside her or above her saying, "A European Eternal Weekend? Great. But how could we make it awesome?"

I suspect that's an indication of how thinly spread resources are at Wizards. Their instinct is to try & please all their different playing communities. But they come across as reactive (with mediocre results), rather than strategic. Which for the makers of a strategy game is, well, a painful irony.

Just a bit of clarity, too, as I notice some people comparing apples and oranges: Baazar of Moxen ran a once yearly event at Annecy, which became really big - and in 2013 or 2014 I believe, as an extension of that, they ran a one-off Paris event. Then they stopped all that and went and ran GPs. And it's only in the past 12 months or so, they've revived events under their own banner, with a series of BoM events - hence a new stop at Annecy and Paris (with much smaller attendances).

Anyway, I really hope Wizards finds a better way to plan these two events next year. It's great they listen to players, it's great their instinct is "Let's offer European players something, too", but these thread-bare thrown-together plans don't really help anyone. You have to wonder really where all that record profit is going... (spoiler: rhymes with Ass Pro)

It's really frustrating to see how Wizards keeps making decisions like this without fully considering all of the stakeholders - what they engage in events/programs for and what changes might help both Wizards and those other stakeholders achieve their goals - then they act surprised when people are upset. Sometimes they make changes to their plans, and then promise they'll do better in the future. Then they do the same thing all over again. We've recently seen this happen with the Pro Players Club program.

Here supposedly they made this change in consultation with Nick Coss, but I have yet to see a single other Vintage player say they were asked for their opinion, or any indication from Wizards that they were considering what the Vintage/Legacy community actually wants instead of making assumptions about what the Vintage/Legacy community wants.

Allow me to add a completely different perspective, probably one that isn't too popular.
The "vintage champ" who wins the event will always have an * next to it, only for the reason that not all the best players actually participate in the tournament.
Whether it be due to the lack of cards to play sanctioned, or the lack of will to travel to the event, I've never considered vintage champs to be an indicator of the best players, more so the best players out of who actually were able to show up.

just my opinion, sure nick does fantastic work organizing it, but in my eyes it's just an event I'll probably never get to.

@Juggernaut-GO I hear what you are saying. I respect what you are saying because it's not wrong. But in my humble opinion, that's just not how competition works. I have no problem with holding tournaments in... anything. Magic, Chess, Tennis... whatever. And calling the winner the champion of whatever. As for an asterisk, I actually think they would just be pointless, because they would represent something that is in fact, always present in competition. Imagine if every time there was an injury or illness in one of the top 25 tennis players, the winner of Wimbeldon got an asterisk... there would be one every single year. Same for the World Series, the Superbowl... The NFL would never market their sports by saying, "Congrats to the Broncos!, Winners of the Superbowl so long as one considers their good fortune with regard to staying relatively healthy with regard to other teams who might have otherwise beaten them..." That's basically what an asterisk would be.

Staying healthy, and showing up is just part of competition... any competition. It isn't a person's fault when they can't get there, or get sick or whatever... its just the game... every game. So whatever. Just give the Champ their due... they showed up and won.

@Klep Who cares what Wizards says... I'm calling the winner of that tourney the World Champ. Period. I still call the White Sox's home ball park Comisky Park (Even though that guy was kind of a jerk)... If U.S. Cellular wants to pay me an annual fee to call it something else, I would take their phone call.

How about just recognizing a Vintage US champ and a Vintage European champ and calling it a day?

@Topical_Island Agree with that NFL comparison to a degree, my greater point was that it's kind of silly to label someone the world champion just because they ran good in one particular tournament. It's always been an inside joke between me and my more casual vintage friends.

In this case, one would crown the Broncos super bowl champs from a random regular season game, rather than the real super bowl.

But there are people who value titles and think they make themselves more important, but if one were to come into work the day after winning vintage champs bragging about being the new fucking world champion of vintage magic, the co workers would say something along the lines of "hey bro, that's fantastic, now go put down some more fries before the lunch rush comes."

I think the idea of having a US and Euro champ is completely fair. There are probably thousands of vintage players in Europe who over the past decade + never made the trip to play in the championship event here in the United States and they likely see us calling it the world championship tournament as big of a joke as I do.

Since when has Vintage been about being fair? I know players here in the U.S. That, for whatever reason, can't make the trip and don't live near regular vintage tournaments. This conversation would be different if we actually had vintage Grand prix, or whatever. Maybe..

Take Top 4s from America, Japan, and Europe Champs, have a mini-tournament as part of the MtG World Championship, winner is World Champion. EZPZ

I just want an invitational card.