Dear ChannelFireball and Wizards of the Coast:
We are writing on behalf of the Legacy community to voice our collective concerns about the scheduling of the North American Legacy Grand Prix in Niagara Falls April 19-21, 2019. As many of you are aware, the holiday of Passover begins on April 19th and April 21st is Easter Sunday.
There are two key issues. First, members of the Legacy community tend to be older than the average Magic player, and many Legacy players have children. Scheduling a Grand Prix on a major holiday, especially one popular with children, makes it almost impossible for these members of the community to attend. Even players who do not celebrate either holiday will face difficulties as airfare costs increase greatly on holiday weekends.
Secondly, locating the event in Niagara Falls causes many logistical issues for travelers. The community is all too aware that the format is only allocated one or two GPs each year. Legacy players have demonstrated their commitment to traveling from all over the world to play their favorite format. However, the Niagara Falls International Airport is a tiny airport that only services two minor airlines flying to Florida and South Carolina. The next-nearest airport is a 30-minute drive away. Locating the event so far away from a serviceable airport makes it extremely difficult for anyone outside the east coast of the United States to attend.
Scheduling this GP on a holiday weekend continues a troubling trend of Legacy GP dates and locations that make it difficult for young professionals to attend. The 2017 Louisville GP still managed to reach 1,600 players despite being the weekend after New Years, in a city with a small airport with very few direct flights. Legacy players have also been asked to take additional time off work for multiple GP weekends, as the event is often scheduled to start a day early on Friday (Las Vegas 2017, Seattle & Richmond 2018). Many members of the community work full-time jobs and have children in school, taking an additional day off to attend a GP is often not a possibility. This, coupled with increasing GP entry fees which have affected GP attendance across all formats, may have created a perception that the Legacy community is losing interest in the format.
On Nov. 28th, 2018, Denis from CFB Events wrote in a Reddit post: “There are likely to be fewer [Legacy GPs in 2019] compared to previous years, and this is a decision based on the attendance of these events in 2018.” We fear that the attendance impact of scheduling a GP on a holiday will lead CFB Events and Wizards of the Coast to conclude that Legacy Grand Prix do not have the player base to support them.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The passionate player base generally has the means and the desire to play large, competitive tournaments. One of the largest constructed Grand Prix of all time was a Legacy event (GP New Jersey 2014, with 4003 players). The Legacy community is filled with some of the most dedicated players, many of whom have been playing Magic: the Gathering for years, if not decades. Community involvement with Legacy is extremely strong to this day, despite the numerous headwinds our format faces.
It is disingenuous to say that Legacy Grand Prix have disappointing attendance when tournament organizers have made it increasingly difficult for the playerbase to attend events. Asking players to skip holiday celebrations with their families in order to play in their one GP for the year is the latest contribution to this trend. Based on what has been outlined above, we believe that the Niagara Falls event will be poorly attended. We don’t want this to reflect on the Legacy players who can’t attend, nor do we want our friends who do make the trip to have a disappointing experience.
We understand that this scheduling decision is unlikely to be reversed given the complexities of venue contracts and schedule. However, we implore Wizards and CFB Events to please:
- Not hold attendance for this event against the Legacy format when making decisions for scheduling future Grand Prix.
- Schedule a second North American Legacy Grand Prix in 2019 on a date that isn’t near a major holiday.
- Consider the location carefully to ensure that it is near a major airport to allow players from all over the country to attend.
In fact, we would advise Wizards against scheduling any MagicFest or Grand Prix on a major holiday weekend. While many of us who are parents are hopeful to share the joy of Magic with our children, we must also teach them priorities. Forcing parents to choose between taking their kids to a Grand Prix or enjoying a holiday with family is not ideal for anyone involved. This affects not only players but also the hard-working judges, vendors and artists who must make this choice as well when these dates are selected.
Many members of the Legacy community have supported Wizards of the Coast and ChannelFireball for decades. We would love to continue to support them for decades to come. Our hope is that we can work together to improve these events for everyone involved.
Sincerely,
Jerry Mee (Legacy podcaster)
Pat Euglow (Legacy podcaster)
Nathan Golia (Legacy podcaster)
Zac Clark (Legacy podcaster)
Phil Blechman (Legacy podcaster)
Ian McKeown (Legacy podcaster)
Thomas Smiley (Legacy podcaster)
Bryant Cook (Owner, theepicstorm.com)
Bob Huang (Writer, ChannelFireball; Legacy champion, 2016)
Rich Shay (Legacy streamer, who requests that we point out that the April weekend is Western Easter)
Julian Knab (Legacy streamer; Legacy Premier League)
April “CubeApril” King (Legacy content creator)
Max Gilmore (Legacy streamer)
Jamie Keller (Legacy podcaster)
Phil Gallagher (Legacy streamer; owner, thrabenuniversity.com)
Minhajul Hoq (Legacy streamer)
Eric Vergo (Legacy podcaster; Top 8, Legacy championship 2017)
Baiju Bhatt (Entrepreneur)
Brian Andersen (Legacy streamer)
Romario Neto (Legacy streamer)
Tim Akpinar (Legacy streamer)
Jordan Aisaka (Legacy streamer)
Jeremy Aaranson (Podcaster, Legacy TO)
Cary “Solnox” Ng (Legacy streamer)
Lawrence Harmon (Legacy streamer)
Richard Truong (Legacy streamer)
Scott Peitzer (Legacy streamer)
Anuraag Das (Legacy streamer)
Aaron Gazzaniga (Legacy streamer; writer, Hipsters of the Coast)
Tom Hepp (Legacy streamer)
Katie Bates (Legacy writer, Hipsters of the Coast)
Franky Rodriguez (Legacy streamer)
Zac Turgeon (Legacy streamer)
Anthony LaVerde (Legacy streamer; Writer, theepicstorm.com)
Greg Mitchell (Legacy streamer)
Josh Monks (Legacy streamer)
Callum Smith (Legacy streamer)
Eddie Zamora (Legacy streamer)
Michael “LewisCBR” Lewis (Legacy community organizer)
Kendra Smith (Legacy streamer, writer, L1 judge)
Adam Barnello (Cosplayer, previously of ChannelFireball and TCGPlayer)
Jody Keith (Legacy Streamer)
*Note: An early version of this letter was mistakenly posted in a Facebook group. In the brief time before the post could be removed, some Legacy players added their signatures to the letter. To respect their voices, and to illustrate the strong feelings about this choice among the player base, they are included below as well:
Jason Grigley
Chris Glade
Robert Starke
Travis Kesterson
Vaughn Schroder
Jason Wong
David Dimalanta
Kevin Cumberledge
Stephen Harris
Brian Bennett
Andrew Nelson
Bill Schlichting
Rich Sponholz
Ryan Hagge
Corey Sanders
Rob Schweitzer
Joshua Volke
Brendan Hagan
Russell Woods
Jeff Scofield
Curtis Evans
Tyler Gardner
Nate Sletteland