Legacy is going to die.
Admittedly, it will never actually die die – someone, somewhere will be
playing it. Rather it’s going to go the way of vintage, relegated to its own
tight-knit, late-20’s, financially secure old guard that spend more time
thinking, discussing, and goldfishing the format than actually playing in
sanctioned events. It’s not going to happen overnight – SCG is still supporting
the format at their open series, and while there were rumors awhile back about
them switching it over to modern, nothing on that front has materialized.
There’s still a reasonably large contingent of players who loudly voice support
of the format online, and that will likely never really change. Additionally
SCG, as well as other vendors to varying degrees, still have a huge stock of
legacy staples that if the Open Series suddenly ceased to exist would see a
drastic devaluing and become considerably less liquid virtually overnight. This
stock of Legacy staples means that SCG has a vested interest in ensuring the
continued support for the format.
However, in spite of all of this, the writing is
on the walls. The inevitable heat death of Legacy became something of an axiom
once the reserve list was solidified, and on numerous occasions Wizards has
sworn up and down that it isn’t changing (and we’ve all been told time and time
again to stop asking.) In spite of this, for a brief shining moment, players
had hope that it could be revitalized and renewed as a relevant format to more
than just Open grinders. As Helene Bergeot said the words “fourth pro tour”
during live coverage, everyone’s collective heart skipped a beat – was it
finally coming? A Legacy pro tour? Seconds later though, Rich Hagon asked the
question on everyone’s mind and the dream was dashed just as quickly as it had formed.
No, the format wouldn’t be Legacy. Helene claimed that there simply weren’t
enough cards out there to support the format. She didn’t want players on the
pro tour to discover the best deck, but then be unable to play it because there
weren’t enough copies of the necessary cards on the market. Just imagine for a
moment SCG Blue team discovering the best deck included 4x Candelabra of Tawnos
or 4x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale. Enjoy finding 40+ copies of one of
those. And that isn’t even considering the implications of a Legacy PTQ season.
If Wizards was going to back Legacy, this would have been their chance. They
would have announced the fourth PT as a Legacy event, and they would have made
strides to increase accessibility to the format in any way they could, with
things like snow-covered duals or what have you. They chose not to though, and
what they didn’t do says more about Legacy’s long-term viability than what they
did do.
Aside:
I expect the first sign of changing times will be SCG lowering its buylist
prices on most of their Legacy cards. As they slowly run out of stock, they
won’t be in any hurry to fill back up. Once their Legacy reserves are depleted,
that’s when they may announce an end to Legacy opens. When they finally cancel
Legacy opens, SCG doesn’t want to be left holding the bag on hundreds of
thousands of dollars of now mostly-irrelevant stock.
Wizards has thrown their weight behind a different
format at this point. It is obvious; both through their actions and their words
that Modern is what Wizards envisions as the eternal format of choice in the
long-term. When the player that’s been enjoying FNM and Standard for 6 months
decides to branch out into another competitive format, Wizards wants him
picking up Kiki-Jiki and Karn Liberated, not Force of Will and Brainstorm.
They’re bending over backwards to provide the support through the community,
through tournaments, and through product such as Modern Masters. Legacy’s
chance at becoming a “full-fledged” format has come and gone. Modern has
supplanted Legacy as the WOTC-approved eternal format of choice, and that isn’t
changing.
So where does that leave us? Well the format is
obviously still quite popular, with seemingly more articles written about it
than Modern on a yearly basis. In spite of its following, though, the end
result is unavoidable. The pool of dual lands that exists is what we have, and
we aren’t getting any more. Physical card availability and quality can only decrease.
As fresh players crack their first booster and move through the stages of MTG
involvement, they’re going to take up Modern in far greater numbers than
Legacy. And as players filter out of the game, there will be a drastic
disparity between the number of players no longer playing Legacy opens and the
number sleeving up Lion’s Eye Diamonds for the first time.
Finally the point of all of this; what to do with
our Legacy collections? Legacy cards command some of the highest prices of
tournament-viable cards, with a wide swath of cards in the $30 to $100 range. I
believe that at this point, we should start moving some of those cards we have
stashed at home into trade binders to begin to liquidate while we’re still
able. Pick a deck or two you’d like to keep together and start considering
whether everything you have set aside is something you can trade away. All the
cards like Natural Order and Mox Diamond, which are considered Legacy staples
but are not actually played too often are the best candidates for this. Why are
these optimum cards to move first? They’re still fairly liquid at large events,
so it won’t be tough to move them. When the cascade of movement out of Legacy
occurs though (an event which will snowball and occur fairly quickly) they will
rapidly lose their liquidity. They aren’t terribly popular casual cards, and
there is very little EDH demand for them. Their price is supported by their
pedigree and Legacy playability, and when one of those all but disappears, they’ll
be the most valuable cards you own that you couldn’t give away if you tried.
You also don’t need to be very worried about them skyrocketing anytime soon and
kicking yourself over lost value. Their prices have been quite stable for some
time, and there is no indication that they will be seeing substantial increases
in value at all. It’s highly unlikely you’ll see them worth more than what you
trade them away for ever again. If all of the sudden you need them back, it
won’t be difficult to reacquire them for what you got rid of them for (or even
less.) I’ve personally sold my Natural Orders recently, moved my spare Judge
Karakas to my trade binder, and plan on doing a full sweep of all my Legacy
cards soon to see what can go. Similarly, I would also recommend putting extra
Forces into your binder. Their spike came and went. They’ve been pretty stable
for a while now, and I’m quite sure the days of the $100 Force of Will is
behind us. Remember also that the card isn’t on the reserved list. While we’re
probably not seeing it in a core set anytime soon, I wouldn’t be surprised if
we see a promo copy before the end of 2013. It’s not a major EDH player, and
there is close to zero casual demand for it. This is a card whose value is
completely supported by Legacy playability.
All the smaller cards you’re holding – Daze,
Submerge, Sword to Plowshares and the like – can probably all be moved to the
trade binder as well. Keep a set for yourself, but extras are not going to do
you much good any longer. You’d rather trade them now for retail value than get
rid of them in three years at half price because you’re glad you could get
anything for them at all. The odds of Submerge tripling in value is far, far
less than the odds that you sit on them for years and find they’ve depreciated
by 70%. I’d also ship all your non-vital non-foil Onslaught fetches, but that’s
because I think we’ll see them before the end of 2015, and quite possibly 2014.
(The foils are worth keeping – just look at old foil shocks. We’ve seen that
the original printing of cards can still command a solid premium, especially in
foil. When you consider that the original printings of those fetches will also
be the only foil old-border ones, it’s probably reasonable to assume they would
actually go up when they’re printed
in standard again.)
What should we be keeping? Anything in that
ultra-staple reserved-list tier 1 is likely a very safe hold. I would probably
hold onto Duals, as people will always want them, even if there isn’t really a
reason to have them. Other cards like Lion’s Eye Diamond are pretty safe. Cards
that have tremendous value due to rarity and collectability rather than high
playability – Candelabra of Tawnos, Tabernacle – are also fairly safe holds.
Tabernacle isn’t $300 because of Legacy play.
“Well,” you may be angrily tweeting to me, “if I’m
getting rid of all of these Legacy staples that have been such safe holds for
all of this time, what am I supposed to trade into that’s safe?” I’ve been
pondering that myself for the last several weeks. Trading Legacy staples into
more Legacy staples isn’t really the direction we want to head. If you can pick
up Duals for your Intuitions then by all means go right ahead, but you won’t
have that available to you at all times. However, trading into anything not on
the reserved list obviously has the inherent risk of being reprinted.
Aside:
if we’re trading mostly out of reserved list cards and into reprintable
product, that implies we’re going to need to do some real shifting of our trade
collection strategy. When almost everything in your binder is under threat of
reprint, the basic timeframe for which you can hold any particular card and
have it remain profitable becomes finite. This means that the savvy trader
needs to be aware of when every card in their binder was last printed, and its
likelihood of reprint in new announced product. This creates some subtle
urgency to be constantly flipping older, higher-value cards that are prime
reprint targets into stock that is relatively safe for middle and longer term. This
is a departure from the old standard of feeling very safe in reserved list
holdings. Large collections will become inherently more risky, as there will be
a real price ceiling on anything Wizards can reprint, especially cards legal in Modern.
So what’s a safe pickup now? I’d avoid things like
Kiki Jiki, Vendilion Clique, Karn Liberated and other Modern staples that are in
vogue unless you plan on moving them in a relatively short time frame. All
three are subject not only to reprints, but the waxing and waning of seasons. Instead,
look for cards that will be reprint and PTQ-season resilient. Old-border foils
are probably fairly safe, since a reprint will not infringe on the aesthetic
value of the card, and in fact could cause it to rise in price (Rancor did
exactly this.) For this reason I think foil Onslaught fetches are a great
(albeit expensive) choice, while the non-foil Onslaught lands are not what I’d
be trying to get into. Look for cards that would be tough to reprint outside of
special promotional material – things like Sakashima the Impostor or Eldrazi
are not just going to be slipped into core sets, so those are fairly quite safe
in both foil and non-foil. I’d also look for popular lowish and middle range
casual favorites that are standard-rotation-resilient that you can move
reasonably quickly if you have reason to fear a reprint. Beyond that, I don’t
have any great suggestions at the moment. This is relatively new territory, and
insightful traders are going to have to do some digging to insulate themselves
from market forces further down the road.
While the end of Legacy as a major format is
basically undisputable, the time frame in which that occurs is very much open
ended. I highly doubt it will occur in the next year, and it could easily be
five years. Given that, I wouldn’t be in a rush to get rid of your stock of
Legacy reserves. You have plenty of time to decide what you want to hold onto
and what you think could be worth still having assuming demand drops
significantly. Don’t put your cards up at fire sale prices, either. There’s enough
time to make good trades with those cards. It isn’t like the fall rotation
where right around this time of year everyone is suddenly dumping thousands of
cards into a market that isn’t all that interested in them. Keep in mind too
that price fluctuations can still occur between now and then. Those Diverts
you’re sitting on could very easily experience a spike before all is said and
done. Also remember that even as the format dwindles down, it’s not going to
disappear completely. Vintage still sees play by some number of people, and
that format is considerably more exclusive than Legacy is. This discussion
isn’t so much to get us out of Legacy completely, but rather reduce our
vulnerability to eventual market shifts.
Good trades everyone.
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