The futility of Vintage
April 22nd 2008 02:35
“All those moments will be lost in time – like tears in the rain.”
-- Roy Batty, Blade Runner
“Why bother?”
-- Xan, Baldur’s Gate
Old Magic cards have a certain undeniable charm. A lot of them have funny, quaint, outdated rules text which makes you laugh when you read it out loud. Many of them do things that Wizards of the Coast hasn’t used for literally years. Others are illustrated by artists that don’t do Magic art any more (sadly, a couple of them have even passed away. The game did start in 1994, after all) and so don’t look like anything else. Some of them are horrifyingly weak, and others are horrifyingly strong.
I love old cards. I love looking at them, and I love playing with them. There aren’t very many chances to, though. There are very few tournaments, sanctioned or otherwise, for “eternal” formats. This is purely a question of economics, namely Wizards of the Coast’s. The company makes no money from secondary market sales of out-of-print cards, and some staples of Vintage and Legacy have been out of print for as long as 15 years. For true fans of Magic, the best way to ensure the hobby’s continued health is to let Wizards of the Coast support profitable formats – which means they have to encourage people to buy as many new cards as possible.
But even if we ignore that for a moment, and assume that somehow enough local stores and tournament organizers will be willing to run unsanctioned Vintage tournaments either at a loss to themselves or with very high entry fees that people may or may not be willing to pay, the problems aren’t over. If all these people want to play Vintage, and they all need the best cards or staple cards in the format, where are they physically going to get them from? (You and I know, of course, that there are more important things than always having the best cards or the best deck – but we also know what other players are like.) The Limited Edition had a print run of 10.4 million cards. The Unlimited Edition’s was 40 million cards. At 117 rares per set, that means 23,230 Black Lotuses (and the other staples from those sets) in the world. If about six million people play Magic, there is one Black Lotus for every 28.7 players. Considering that you also have to subtract the number of Black Lotuses that are sitting in unopened boosters in TrollAndToad.com’s storeroom, and subtract from that the number of Black Lotuses that have been lost and destroyed, accidentally or otherwise, in the last fifteen years, it’s actually a lot less than that. Of course, not everyone is interested in Vintage, much less in competitive Vintage, so everyone who has $800 to spare should just go right ahead and buy that Lotus on eBay.
Here where I live, work, and play, there was a Vintage mini-craze a few years ago. People were trading high and paying high for staple cards from later sets, refinancing their mortgages with the objective of getting a set of the power cards by 2010. I’ve remarked before on the stupidity of collecting trading cards with the objective of making money through winning tournaments, and I’m sure I will again – but it’s especially stupid in a format where the payout is either another rare card or is smaller than the prize pool at a Friday night draft because it’s unsanctioned. On top of which, this was during a time when the Vintage metagame was degenerate, first- and second-turn wins were possible and relatively common, and only griefers were having fun playing it. And now that the format has been shaken to its core by the innovative new cards released between 2003 and 2007 and most of the top decks win by attacking each other with character cards, interest has gone down because of the lack of sanctioned tournaments - so they've taken to hoarding old cards, whether they're playable or unplayable in Vintage, to show that they are superior collectors to everyone else. That doesn’t say anything very nice about the people I know.
So, competitive Vintage is forever beyond most people’s grasp. So what? If you want to collect those old cards anyway, just for their value or their nostalgia, you still can – and perhaps you’ll even enjoy it better. You’ll never have occasion to say “Stupid Taiga! If you’d been a Tropical Island, I would have won that game!” The days of Magic’s childhood may be lost in time, but if we’re willing to get lost with them, take our eyes off the prize and listen to our hearts, we might just hear something we like.
-- Roy Batty, Blade Runner
“Why bother?”
-- Xan, Baldur’s Gate
Old Magic cards have a certain undeniable charm. A lot of them have funny, quaint, outdated rules text which makes you laugh when you read it out loud. Many of them do things that Wizards of the Coast hasn’t used for literally years. Others are illustrated by artists that don’t do Magic art any more (sadly, a couple of them have even passed away. The game did start in 1994, after all) and so don’t look like anything else. Some of them are horrifyingly weak, and others are horrifyingly strong.
Magic vs. paying the rent: the eternal question
I love old cards. I love looking at them, and I love playing with them. There aren’t very many chances to, though. There are very few tournaments, sanctioned or otherwise, for “eternal” formats. This is purely a question of economics, namely Wizards of the Coast’s. The company makes no money from secondary market sales of out-of-print cards, and some staples of Vintage and Legacy have been out of print for as long as 15 years. For true fans of Magic, the best way to ensure the hobby’s continued health is to let Wizards of the Coast support profitable formats – which means they have to encourage people to buy as many new cards as possible.
But even if we ignore that for a moment, and assume that somehow enough local stores and tournament organizers will be willing to run unsanctioned Vintage tournaments either at a loss to themselves or with very high entry fees that people may or may not be willing to pay, the problems aren’t over. If all these people want to play Vintage, and they all need the best cards or staple cards in the format, where are they physically going to get them from? (You and I know, of course, that there are more important things than always having the best cards or the best deck – but we also know what other players are like.) The Limited Edition had a print run of 10.4 million cards. The Unlimited Edition’s was 40 million cards. At 117 rares per set, that means 23,230 Black Lotuses (and the other staples from those sets) in the world. If about six million people play Magic, there is one Black Lotus for every 28.7 players. Considering that you also have to subtract the number of Black Lotuses that are sitting in unopened boosters in TrollAndToad.com’s storeroom, and subtract from that the number of Black Lotuses that have been lost and destroyed, accidentally or otherwise, in the last fifteen years, it’s actually a lot less than that. Of course, not everyone is interested in Vintage, much less in competitive Vintage, so everyone who has $800 to spare should just go right ahead and buy that Lotus on eBay.
Here where I live, work, and play, there was a Vintage mini-craze a few years ago. People were trading high and paying high for staple cards from later sets, refinancing their mortgages with the objective of getting a set of the power cards by 2010. I’ve remarked before on the stupidity of collecting trading cards with the objective of making money through winning tournaments, and I’m sure I will again – but it’s especially stupid in a format where the payout is either another rare card or is smaller than the prize pool at a Friday night draft because it’s unsanctioned. On top of which, this was during a time when the Vintage metagame was degenerate, first- and second-turn wins were possible and relatively common, and only griefers were having fun playing it. And now that the format has been shaken to its core by the innovative new cards released between 2003 and 2007 and most of the top decks win by attacking each other with character cards, interest has gone down because of the lack of sanctioned tournaments - so they've taken to hoarding old cards, whether they're playable or unplayable in Vintage, to show that they are superior collectors to everyone else. That doesn’t say anything very nice about the people I know.
So, competitive Vintage is forever beyond most people’s grasp. So what? If you want to collect those old cards anyway, just for their value or their nostalgia, you still can – and perhaps you’ll even enjoy it better. You’ll never have occasion to say “Stupid Taiga! If you’d been a Tropical Island, I would have won that game!” The days of Magic’s childhood may be lost in time, but if we’re willing to get lost with them, take our eyes off the prize and listen to our hearts, we might just hear something we like.
So beautiful, and so expensive.
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