Eternal Extravaganza 6 was this last weekend in Baltimore, Maryland. Past events have normally been a big deal among Legacy and Vintage players. It was seemingly forgotten this year with only 170 people in attendance. By comparison, EE5 in the fall had about 115 people for the Vintage tournament, and 290 for the Legacy tournament. That’s a big dropoff.
I personally didn’t even know it was happening until the day before it started, and I live in the middle of what is probably the biggest Legacy community in the United States. My wedding is in a few months and Legacy Hero is following a similar timeline, so I thought I had missed the memo because of my busy schedule. But when I started asking around I realized that I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know that EE was going on last weekend. Everyone I could find who went either had marked it in their calendars after EE5 or just happened to search for it offhandedly and found the date.
The advertising for Eternal Extravaganza 6 was lackluster at best. The Magic community, especially the tight-knit Legacy and Vintage portion of it, is pretty good at spreading the word on its own. You tell a handful of people and word-of-mouth will get it to the rest of the community fairly quickly. This is why I was so surprised to see how few people knew about EE6—the series has been fairly popular since its inception, and the last one was only six months ago. The Legacy community didn’t suddenly shrink by half in that time. So what happened?
I think, unfortunately, the responsibility lies with Tales of Adventure, the store that promotes and runs the Eternal Extravaganza series. They have been known for putting on a great show in the past, but they really dropped the ball here. I’m dissapointed, and I don’t think I’m the only one. EE really helps hold Legacy together. We only have a handful of major eternal events left these days, and the two EE events at the beginning and end of each year really help make it work.
Let’s hope that in the future there are less issues with advertising. I spoke with someone who said they were involved with the event, and they said it was being discussed and addressed. We shall see. I hope we’ll be hearing more about EE7 soon!
Kate hails from Worcester MA and also does a bit of Card Altering. Check her Stuff out on Facebook! She mainly plays legacy and modern though will occasionally find herself playing EDH.