It’s been a while since I’ve written an article that didn’t involve Ben’s Corner. Life has been busy at StarCityGames.com, and I haven’t had as much of an opportunity to write this year as I did in the last. I asked Ted if I could have the last set of dailies for this year, as I’ve had quite a few topics on my mind, but not enough time to flesh them out into full fledged articles. Mr. Knutson cheerily obliged, but threatened bodily harm and imminent death should I turn in the articles, say, five minutes before midnight on Sunday.
Thankfully, these articles have been months in the planning.
I wrote an article in January of this year, an article in which I gave my predictions for ten trends and events that would occur over the year of 2005. How accurate were my predictions? Pretty spot on! Let’s dive right in and go over them.
Prediction #1: Ravnica block will be the next Invasion block
Prediction #2: Legacy will be the next Vintage
Prediction #3: The value of Extended cards will skyrocket in Magic Online
Prediction #4: Magic will experience unprecedented growth, especially in the European markets
Prediction #5: American Professional Magic will continue to take a nosedive to even more embarrassing levels
Prediction #6: Three cards will be restricted in Vintage by December 1st, 2005.
Prediction #7: 9th Edition will be a different, more diverse base set
Prediction #8: Wizards will throw more money into the Pro Tour
Prediction #9: Several Extended staples from Tempest through Masques will be reprinted in 9th Edition, Kamigawa block and Ravnica block
Prediction #10: Disciple of the Vault will finally be banned in Standard in June 2005
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#1: Ravnica Block will be the next Invasion Block – Yes!
“Ravnica should be similar to Invasion – a multi-colored set with a lot of playables that are good but not overpowering.”
This is pretty accurate. There are tons of good cards (the new Dual Lands, Loxodon Hierarch, Lightning Helix, Life From the Loam) that are quite playable, but none are absolutely dominant. Ravnica block revolves around the ten dual-color combinations in Magic, and is a return to the multi-colored days of Invasion.
#2: Legacy will be the next Vintage – Yes!
“With the right support (Grand Prix? Qualifier formats?), Legacy could be huge.”
The Legacy World Championship event at Gen Con outdrew the Vintage World Championship at Gen Con – even though the Legacy event was thrown, last minute, into the less-than-prime Thursday slot at the convention. Two Legacy Grand Prix were run – Philadelphia in November and France in December. While the Philly attendance was on the lower side (around 500), the French event broke over 900 players! SCG.com began our “Dual for Duels” Legacy tournament series, as sister series to our Power Nine Vintage Tournaments. What’s this all mean?
First of all, Vintage is not dying. There is an essential problem with the promotion of Vintage – the cards are too expensive to allow for significant growth in the player base. Wizards of the Coast absolutely cannot allow sanctioned Proxy tournaments, as it would debase their entire product line. Because of this, Legacy is the “old” format of choice for (un)official endorsement. The growth of Legacy does come at the expensive of Vintage – not in the sense of leeching off the format, but because players who are looking to play with older cards will begin with Legacy instead of Vintage from this point forward.
Legacy will continue to grow in 2006. However, trends point towards a faster growth in Europe than in the Americas or in Japan. Why is this? Many Europeans have playsets of key older cards (dual lands, Force of Will) because many of the high-profile Vintage events in Europe do not allow proxies. This allowed many, many more players to jump straight into Legacy than in the U.S., where proxy Vintage tournaments are common. I think that should Wizards choose to run another Legacy Grand Prix in the United States, the attendance will improve – maybe not dramatically over Philadelphia – but enough to indicate a steady growth in the format. There is major player interest in Legacy.
#3: The Value of Extended Cards will continue to Skyrocket in Magic Online – Yes!
“Cards such as Psychatog, Cunning/Burning Wish, Cabal Therapy, Circular Logic, and other soon-to-be-most-powerful cards in Extended will triple to quadruple in value as people go on a mad rush to put together decks from a very limited supply pool.“
Hope you bought these cards in January – they are all prohibitively expensive now. The only exceptions to this rule were the pain lands, which were reprinted in 9th Edition (from 7th and Apocalypse). Other than that, the value of Magic Online Extended cards has steadily risen as the online format finally synched up with paper Extended.
Magic Online is the most important playtesting tool to emerge in the past few years, and it has become an invaluable tool for developing new decks and/or finding unpolished gems in the rough in open play rooms. The scarcity of Odyssey and Invasion block cards, combined with the need for playtesting, has created a perfect supply/demand model, in which a paper copy of Pernicious Deed is worth a tenth of the value of an online copy.
#4: Magic will experience unprecedented growth, especially in the European markets – Yes!
“The attendance of European Grand Prix has skyrocketed past the levels of the Magic craze in Japan four-five years ago, with attendances often nearing the 1,400-1,500 player mark.“
I’m not going to lie – tournament Magic attendance took a huge hit last year. Between the way-too-prolonged dominance of Affinity and the unpopular Kamigawa block, many players shied away from sanctioned events – at least as compared to the past. Tournament attendance for casual events was up, but tournament attendance for competitive events was down.
Thankfully, Ravnica reversed this trend. While the States and Extended season attendances in the United States weren’t as high as they should have been given how healthy both Standard and Extended are as formats, European attendance has continued to be strong.
If the center of the European Magic universe was in Germany during the reign of Kai Budde, it has certainly shifted to France in 2005. The Ruel brothers (Olivier and Antoine), Pierre Canali and Gabriel Nassif all finished in the top twenty in the Player of the Year race. Granted, this pales in comparison to the ten slots claimed by the Japanese (Kenji Tsumura, Masashi Oiso, Katsuhiro Mori, Shuuhei Nakamura, Tomohiro Kaji, Tsuyoshi Fujita, Shu Komuro, Akira Asahara, Masahiko Morita, and Tomoharu Saitou), but it far outpaces the United States (Gadiel Szleifer, Antonino DeRosa, and Jonathan Sonne), which was the only other country to put more than one player in the top twenty.
There are a lot more American pros than French pros. While four-to-three might not seem like a beating, the numbers heavily favored the U.S. coming in. Going out, we just lost. This brings us to number five:
#5: American Professional Magic will continue to nosedive to even more embarrassing levels – Maybe?
“I expect the level of Magic play in the U.S. and Canada to slide even further than it’s slid now, to the point where our country isn’t even on the radar this season.“
The United States won a Pro Tour this year. Other than that, this year’s performance was abysmal as last year’s.
2005 Pro Tour-Columbus
1) Pierre Canali
2) Shuhei Nakamura
3) Nicholas West
4) Olivier Ruel
5) Gadiel Szleifer
6) Masashi Oiso
7) Ryuichi Arita
8) Geoffrey Siron
United States Players: 1 (Szleifer)
2005 Pro Tour-Nagoya
1) Shu Komuro
2) Anton Jonsson
3) Terry Soh
4) Murray Evans
5) Masashiro Kuroda
6) Frank Karsten
7) Jarno Harkonen
8) Vasilis Fatouros
United States Players: None
2005 Pro Tour-Atlanta
1) Nova (Gab Tsang, David Rood, Gabriel Nassif)
2) We Add (Adam Chambers, Andrew Pacifico, Don Smith)
3) Les baltringues de Ludipia (Benjamin Caumes, Nicolas Bornarel, Camille Fenet)
4) One Spin (Tomohiro Kaji, Kenji Tsumura, Tomoharu Saito)
United States Teams: 1 (We Add)
[To be fair, Nova had Canadians times deux. – Knut]
2005 Pro Tour-Philadelphia
1) Gadiel Szleifer
2) Kenji Tsumura
3) Steven Wolfman
4) Olivier Ruel
5) Ryan Cimera
6) Jeff Novekoff
7) Mark Herberholz
8) Andre Muller
United States Players: 4 (Szleifer, Cimera, Novekoff, Herberholz)
2005 Pro Tour-London
1) Geoffrey Siron
2) Tsuyoshi Fujita
3) Johan Sadeghpour
4) Antti Malin
5) Masashi Oiso
6) Tomi Walamies
7) Arnost Zidek
8) David Larsson
United States Players: None
2005 Pro Tour-Los Angeles
1) Antoine Ruel
2) Billy Moreno
3) Kenji Tsumura
4) Chris McDaniel
5) Tsuyoshi Fujita
6) Chih-Hsiang Chang
7) Ervin Tormos
8) Ryuichi Arita
United States Players: 3 (Moreno, McDaniel, Tormos)
2005 World Championships
1) Katsuhiro Mori
2) Frank Karsten
3) Tomohiro Kaji
4) Akira Asahara
5) Marcio Carvalho
6) Ding Leong
7) Shuhei Nakamura
8) André Coimbra
United States Players: 0
Total U.S. Players in the Top 8 of Pro Tours in 2005: 9 (counting teams as one)
Total U.S. Players in the Top 8 of Pro Tours in 2004: 8 (counting teams as one)
Total U.S. Players in the Top 20 Player of the Year points in 2005: 3
Total U.S. Players in the Top 20 Player of the Year points in 2004: 5
Total Grand Prix won by U.S. Players in 2005: 8
Total Grand Prix won by U.S. Players in 2004: 7
Pretty comparable. The United States is still getting destroyed by Asia and Europe.
#6: Three cards will be restricted in Vintage by December 1st, 2005 – No!
“These three cards are Mishra’s Workshop, Dark Ritual, and Bazaar of Baghdad.“
Wrong on all three counts. Portal 1, Portal 2 and Portal 3 Kingdoms were made tournament legal for Vintage and Legacy play, along with Starter 1999. None have yet to make a great impact on Vintage. However, there is one candidate for strong restriction in Vintage right now – Gifts Ungiven.
As a side note, Vintage has undergone a bit of a format stagnation. There haven’t been any significant new developments in the format in quite some time, with the Gifts/Belcher deck being the last major innovation in the format. Yes, I am completely aware that decks like Stax, Fish, and Oath have thrown in a couple of new cards to become slightly more competitive. However, these decks are still Stax, Fish and Oath. Unless some cards are restricted, there is little hope of innovation returning to Vintage.
My recommendation? Restrict Mishra’s Workshop and Gifts Ungiven. Let the chips fall where they may afterwards.
#7: 9th Edition will be a different, more diverse base set – Yes!
“There’s no harm in having the base set be a buffet rather than a bowl of oatmeal, and I expect there to be a lot of variety in mechanics in 9th Edition that hasn’t been present in years.“
9th Edition, as a whole, was very well designed. Trample made a comeback, and the set is considered to be the best base set since Revised. Old tournament staples were reprinted (Hypnotic Specter, Quicksand, Kird Ape, the ten pain lands), new staples were born (Greater Good, Cruel Edict, Tidings), and lo the people were happy.
I had an article half-written dissecting the design of 9th Edition. Let me break down a couple of points here, as that article is not ever going to be completed at this point.
Swarm of Rats should have been Relentless Rats. Yes, I railed against Relentless Rats, but they would have been a better fit in the Uncommon slot for two reasons. One: Reprinting Relentless Rats would have made them more available to players, as anyone trying to build a Relentless Rats deck needs as many Rats as they can get their hands on. Two: It is not naturally intuitive to new players that you may only play four of a non-basic land card in a deck. Relentless Rats reads, “A deck can have any number of cards named Relentless Rats.” Adding that clause would give new players a pause, as they’d wonder why that would need to be on a card. This would, in turn, cause them to seek out the rules surrounding the any-number line of text, and would educate them about the four-of rule.
Each color should have one legendary creature. Look, we were smack dab in the middle of Kamigawa Block when 9th Edition was released, and Kamigawa Block was all about legendary creatures. Why not reprint a flagship Legendary creature from each color in 9th? This way, players would have an identifiable icon for each color (all of which were popular cards in the past), and the Legends rule could be explained as reminder text: (If two or more copies of the same Legendary permanent are in play at the same time, place them both in the graveyard) – or somesuch. The wording isn’t precise, but you get the idea.
Of course, I had all five legendary creatures in mind when I wrote my preview article. All five creatures had to be popular, representative of their color, and have little enough game text to allow for the Legends Rule reminder text.
White: Reya Dawnbringer.
Reya is the most valuable card out of Invasion due to casual and multi-player interest. She’s a large, flying angel, and one that would appeal heavily to people buying 9th Edition.
Blue: Ambassador Laquatus.
I know that Wizards is trying to get away from Merfolk, but having a legendary one in a set couldn’t hurt. Blue is the color of milling (further pushed by Dimir), and so the ability of Ambassador Laquatus would be both representative of Blue and would have tied in to Ravnica block quite nicely.
Red: Either Rorix Bladewing or Kamahl, Pit Fighter.
Both are hasty, and each one showcases a different aspect of Red – big flying Dragons versus the Prodigal Sorcerer/Direct Damage ability. Tahngarth, Talruum Hero, in place of Karplusan Yeti might have been all right if Tahngarth didn’t have too much text already to fit space for reminder text.
Black: Ascendant Evincar.
Simple and to the point – it helps Black, at the expense of others. On top of this, they could have made the Evincar a Legendary Creature – Vampire, as it should have been to begin with. Phage would have been great here, if not for the reminder text problem.
Green: Silvos, Rogue Elemental.
A large, trampling regenerator. Silvos personifies three main aspects of Green (fat, trampling, regenerating) and would have also been a great reintroduction of the trample ability to the main set.
#8: Wizards will throw more money into the Pro Tour – Yes!
“I’m not sure if this will be in the form of an additional Pro Tour stop, additional advertising, more Grand Prix, more money at the Pro Tour/Grand Prix or what“
The Pro Player Lounge. New player-of-the-year payouts. The Pro Players Club. Pro Player cards. Free trips to exotic locales such as Hawaii, Prague, and the Louvre (and/or Charleston, SC – Huh?). High-tech, live webcasts at Pro Tours. Wizards has definitely stepped up the level of the Pro Tour over the past year, and this fact is undeniable. Pros now can get paid just for showing up to tournaments – and others get free airfare on top of these appearance fees! Wizards did take out a stop of the Pro Tour, but overall there was a lot more going for the Pro Tour in 2005 than in 2004.
#9: Several Extended staples from Tempest through Masques will be reprinted in 9th Edition, Kamigawa block and Ravnica block – Maybe?
“With the rotation of ten sets out of Extended in November (6th Edition, Tempest, Stronghold, Exodus, Urza’s Saga, Urza’s Legacy, Urza’s Destiny, Mercadian Masques, Nemesis, Prophecy), several cards will be lost for good to the format – unless they are reprinted first.”
Eradicate, Scour, Splinter, Sowing Salt, Quash, Shard Phoenix, Verdant Force, Paladin en-Vec were directly salvaged from old Extended and brought into new Extended. Other staples were altered to be slightly more balanced/tweaked (Armageddon/Thoughts of Ruin, Propaganda/Ghostly Prison, Mogg Fanatic/Frostling, Urza’s Legacy Manlands/Betrayers Genjus, Wall of Blossoms/Carven Caryatid), but overall there weren’t a ton of reprinted Extended cards. Some, but not as many as there could have been.
#10: Disciple of the Vault will finally be banned in Standard in June 2005 – Yes!
“Aaron Forsythe has addressed the Disciple/Affinity issue in his MTG.com column, but let’s face facts – Disciple is the problem card in Affinity if you’re not going to ban the artifact lands.“
Wizards not only banned Disciple, but they banned it three months earlier than I predicted, and took the artifact lands with it. Then they banned Disciple of the Vault in Extended. I’m giving myself full points on this one, because A) Wizards sees Disciple as the biggest problem card in the deck in more than one format and B) Wizards cut their losses and banned it earlier (which was already too late to stop Affinity from damaging the attendance of FNMs across the country).
How’d I do? I had seven definite hits, two maybes, and one completely wrong prediction. Overall, I’m pretty happy with my performance. I don’t have as many predictions for 2006 as I did for 2005, but I’ll be talking about the trends of Magic in upcoming Ben’s Corners – so look for my next predictions there. If I’ve learned one thing it’s this: I have got to stop making predictions about Vintage!
Ben
Tomorrow: The story of a card named Rare.