The return of the Modern Pro Tour! Legacy Grand Prix! It is an exciting time to be an eternal player. I’m sad that Vegas has dropped Legacy from its schedule—the three format weekend has definitely become a major go to event and I think they’re missing out—but I hope Legacy players are ready to descend upon Seattle and the UK next year for the two Legacy GPs. Plus there are two team constructed GPs where you will also be able to play Legacy.
It’s been an interesting week in the land of Legacy for more than just these announcements. Less than 24 hours before Wizards announcement Star City Games upped their prices for an NM Underground Sea to $500. Suspicious timing aside, this was an extremely disappointing change for Legacy players. Ebay sellers have already responded with prices in the last four days for NM Useas jumping to $300-$400 from the previous $200-$300.
Wizards has made some huge steps to make Legacy more accessible in recent years. They printed Eternal Masters, opened up what the FNM format can be (to literally anything, but that includes Legacy!) and they have printed lots of other Legacy staples in supplemental sets including Conspiracy and Modern Masters. I know it isn’t easy to abolish the Reserved List so I appreciate the steps that Wizards has taken to make Eternal formats more affordable.
Unfortunately for players, Magic cards are an unregulated market, which is more than disappointing. It isn’t just the price of duals that are out of control, and the Magic community knows it, Eternal staples are becoming extremely expensive and it’s awful. While Wizards are restricted by the Restricted list they never made any promises about the secondary market. Companies can receive leaked information, use it to adjust their prices, and while it could be considered morally scummy, that’s about it. Wizards has always been really intense about leaks so it’s hard to believe they’d let anything like this happen.
I do wonder if Wizards has ever considered adding some strong monitoring to the secondary market. WOTC definitely has the power to: they have strict rules already that people who carry their product have to follow so they can easily roll that over to the secondary market. They will never have control over Ebay and individual sales, but those numbers are dictated by TCG, SCG, etc, websites that need direct access to new product from Wizards.
Yes, the idea of Wizards regulating the secondary market has lots of implications, both good and bad, and it would be nowhere near simple. If they did make this change, however, it would prevent accusations toward SCG, who obviously didn’t appreciate the Twitter response to the situation. And maybe it would make eternal formats more affordable. It’s definitely a complicated issue but also an interesting one that is rarely discussed. Regulation might not be the correct answer but isn’t it worth discussing?
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.