Lessons from a Bad Beat with Storm

Storm is one of my favorite decks to play in Legacy, and between the Gitaxian Probes and the Duress effects, you often work with perfect or nearly perfect information about the contents of your opponent's hand. The kills can often be accomplished with no variance whatsoever once you've identified what you need to play around, and for this reason, I find it extremely interesting to revisit interesting situations with the Storm deck. Developing the right heuristics for situations you may see again in the future is especially rewarding because it's important to identify the optimal line as quickly as possible in the context of a real game.

I recently played Storm again at the Card Kingdom weekly, the first time I've done so since a successful run at the recent Mirkwood event in which I split in the finals. I often like mixing up what I play at weekly events to expand my range, but as larger events approach (such as the upcoming Mox Boarding House dual land event), I often go back to the decks I feel most likely to play in order to get the necessary practice. I went a disappointing 2-2 at this weekly, but I wanted to discuss a game I played against Infect, where I took a good line that nonetheless the most statistically "bad beat" in my time playing Storm. But in retrospect, there were arguably even better lines, and I think this is an illustration that in Magic, even the smallest of margins (in this case, a fraction of a percent) is relevant, and that it's important not to "settle".

The situation is as follows: I'm up a game against Infect, and my opponent is on the play and has played a Tropical Island and a fetchland without taking any other action on his first two turns. I believe I Pondered on the first turn, then on turn 2, I led off two Gitaxian Probes (paying life).

• His hand: Invigorate, Berserk, Daze, Windswept Heath, Misty Rainforest, Crop Rotation
• His board: Tropical Island, Wooded Foothills
• His life: 20
• My hand: Lotus Petal, Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Infernal Tutor, Brainstorm, Cabal Therapy
• My board: Underground Sea, Misty Rainforest (both untapped), no land drop available for turn
• My graveyard: Misty Rainforest, Ponder, Gitaxian Probe, Gitaxian Probe
• My life: 15
• Storm count:2

Note: I don't remember the exact contents of my hand, but I remember the calculations I went through in the process, so I took some guesses above in order to reconstruct the game state to be consistent with what I remember.

 At this point, I make the following observations:

• I am dead next turn to Crop Rotation into Inkmoth Nexus on my end step if I do not take any actions.
• As I do not have a Lion's Eye Diamond in hand, I may need to use the Cabal Therapy in hand to help myself get hellbent, especially since I do not need to Therapy anything from his hand. The following options assume I use my Therapy to take away my Brainstorm.

1. I am one mana short of killing him by chaining Infernal Tutors into the natural Tendrils for 20 life through the Daze in his hand. Note that this assumes that at least one Cabal Ritual resolves with Threshold, which I can achieve, but which he can disrupt with Crop Rotation into Bojuka Bog if timed correctly, but it would have no effect, as that would add an extra spell to the storm count anyway and allow me to simply cast one fewer Tutor in the chain.*
2. Past in Flames would kill him if he doesn't have Bojuka Bog in his deck, but it would be a dead end if he does. I believe most versions of Infect do run it, and while some opponents may disagree, I think Bojuka Bog is a card that Infect should bring in for this matchup. I recognize my opponent as primarily a Modern player, and given that Modern Storm is even more dependent on the graveyard than ANT, I would expect him to be even more likely than most opponents to bring in Bog.
3. A hellbent Infernal Tutor would allow me to cast Ad Nauseam through Daze from 15 life (after cracking my fetchland) with 2 mana floating and no land drop if he doesn't Bog me to take one of my Cabal Ritual off threshold, or 0 mana if he does. Generating the necessary Storm if I find the cards to go off is trivial, so the extra storm from Crop Rotation is essentially irrelevant. Passing the turn is a possibility if he does Crop Rotate for a Bog, or if I'm able to make him discard a pump spell, as long as he doesn't rip that same pump spell on his draw step or Probe into that card. (Brainstorm or Ponder into the pump spell would not be lethal, as he wouldn't have mana to activate Nexus, swing, while being able to cantrip and play Berserk.)

* Note: I later noticed that it is possible for my opponent to take me off Threshold for both Cabal Rituals if he casts Crop Rotation for Bojuka Bog sufficient early, but it is exceedingly unlikely he would commit to such a play, as that takes away his clock and his best piece of disruption, unless I show him a Past in Flames, or at the very least, a Cabal Ritual. By casting Dark Ritual, followed by Lotus Petal, then cracking both the Petal and the fetchland in play, I will have achieved Threshold without having shown him any cards that are dependent on the graveyard, while having up to 5 mana available. This will allow me to put two Cabal Rituals on the stack if necessary (Cabal Ritual, opponent responds with Crop Rotation, I respond with another Cabal Ritual), while being able to play around Daze the whole line. I will assume going forward that the opponent would not take such an aggressive line, since it would trade his Crop Rotation (which represents his clock) and Bojuka Bog for my Dark Ritual and Lotus Petal, leaving me still with five cards in hand (unknown from his perspective, but two Cabal Rituals, Cabal Therapy, Brainstorm, and Infernal Tutor).

Of these options, the Ad Nauseam plan seems the most attractive, as it likely allows me to win or safely pass the turn, although it's not completely risk free. Since some of my friends were curious, I would guess I'm somewhere between 70-90% to win if I cast Ad Nauseam, depending on whether he takes me off threshold for Cabal Ritual; this is an estimate based with no calculations performed whatsoever, and based only on "gut-feeling" from my history of flipping cards to Ad Nauseam.

I decide on a better line (option 4). As I am one mana short of killing him with a Tutor chain through Daze, I can simply use one mana to cast the Brainstorm in hand to get an extra storm, Therapying anything left stranded in my hand if I can't cast it. If I manage to hit a ritual effect, an artifact, a discard spell, or a Probe, I can even further increase storm to allow for Tendrils for 22-24, thereby play around anything as obscure as Crop Rotation into Radiant Fountain.

Unfortunately, my Brainstorm hit three lands, leaving me without a way to get my Tutor hellbent. I cast Cabal Therapy on him instead, and he cast Crop Rotation for Nexus, so I took his Invigorate. I was able to draw a non-land spell on my next turn, and I attempted to go off, but he drew the Force of Will as his unknown card from his draw step, and I was dead shortly thereafter.

How likely was this to happen? I boarded out a land, so I had 14 lands in my deck, of which three were already either in play or in the graveyard, so 11 copies left in deck. There were at the time 49 cards in my library, so the probability of my Brainstorm hitting three lands (the only possibility that leaves me without being able to Therapy anything) is C(11, 3)/C(47, 3) was 1.02%. In other words, I was about 99% to kill him on my turn 2 and probably still likely to kill him on my turn 3 if he didn't kill me first or find a Force of Will.

I am still convinced I was correct to Brainstorm instead of taking one of the three lines above, but after thinking about the situation in retrospect, there are some things I could have done differently:

• First of all, after my Brainstorm failed, my Therapy targeting him should have taken Berserk instead of Invigorate. He likely has three more copies of Invigorate in his deck, whereas he is unlikely to have more than one copy of Berserk. No combination of pump other than Berserk + Invigorate (besides the exceedingly unlikely Brainstorm into a second and third Invigorate) would kill me on the next turn, and there was almost no way I wasn't going to go for it right away if I got another turn.
• I could have fetched before casting Brainstorm (option 5) to leave me with only C(10, 3)/C(48, 3), or a 0.79% chance of whiffing, which is about 22.3% less chance of whiffing than if I had Brainstormed without fetching first. However, if I took this line and still hit three lands, but I'd also be unable to get hellbent on my next turn, which would leave him with two draw steps to find the kill or a Force. Note that this means that an Invigorate or a Vines is also a kill in this situation, in addition to Brainstorm into one of the above, regardless of whether I took his Invigorate or Berserk. By taking option 4 (Brainstorming then fetching), as long as I avoid drawing land on my draw step (9/45, or 20%), I have the ability to try again next turn if I get one.
• There may have been an option 6 available to me: since the Brainstorm I cast was only there to generate storm and would actually have been better if it didn't resolve, I could have played it after casting Probe but before playing my land for turn to hopefully induce Daze. If he does so, I easily win with a Tutor chain into Tendrils (basically option 1), even beating Radiant Fountain if that's somehow in his deck. The only snag is I don't remember the exact contents of my hand after drawing for turn 2 (in other words, I'm not sure what my hand was before I cast Gitaxian Probe). It may have been important for me to resolve the Probe through Spell Pierce, which means that I might have already made my land drop before I cast Probe to see the contents of his hand.

Hopefully, this was interesting to you. The detail into which I went may border on neurotic overanalysis, but as a Magic player, I think it's important to maximize even the smallest margins because the extreme corner cases do come up. This is especially so for a Storm player, since we frequently work with perfect information, know exactly what combination of cards are necessary when going off, and need to make such calculations relatively quickly within the context of a tournament setting.

Comprehensive Analysis of SCG Attendance Numbers

There have been many inaccurate comments regarding SCG attendance numbers from Magic discussion groups on Reddit and on various threads on MTG Salvation, and my primary motivation for starting this blog was to tackle these misconceptions. While I have presented some of these data piecemeal in various posts scattered across the Source, I thought it would be useful to have a single point of reference where I can thoroughly present and analyze all the data I have available.

The fundamental question I want to address is how attendance numbers compare between the different constructed formats (Standard, Legacy, and Modern) on the SCG circuit. I want to disentangle confounding factors as much as possible with data that's available, including factors such as:

• Regional variations in attendance: Some cities on the SCG circuit have a larger player base, or a greater proportion of players who play one format than another.
• General trend towards increased attendance: The Magic player base has increased over the past few years, so I also want to adjust for these factors, especially when considering that some cities have not seen an SCG Open in years
• Differences between Saturday and Sunday attendance: Standard has generally been held on Saturday, while Legacy (and eventually Modern) has been held on Sundays, but there are a few exceptions that allow us to probe the difference between Saturday and Sunday attendance while controlling for format
• Existence of concurrent events: Midway through 2014, SCG announced the addition of Sunday Modern Premier IQs (PIQs). While these have mostly been concurrent with Legacy Opens or PIQs, there has been an instance in which a Standard PIQ ran concurrently with a Modern PIQ, and there will be such combinations and others in the future.
• Differences in prize support: For most of its existence, SCG ran a Standard and Legacy Open each weekend with equal prize support, initially $5K per open but eventually $10K. With the new Open format, there is only one $20K Open each weekend with two Sunday PIQs, which have always paid out $5K.

However, I am not able to address the following factors:

• Differences in registration time: The two PIQs each weekend are staggered so that one starts at 9 am and one starts at 10 am. As of this writing, the 9 am PIQ has always been Legacy, except at the Philadelphia $20K Legacy Open in which there was no Legacy PIQ and the 9 am PIQ was instead Standard. The 10 am PIQ has always been Modern. I am unable to figure out what the effect of an earlier registration time would be until we've had 9 am Modern PIQs and 10 am Standard/Legacy PIQs, preferably with a large enough sample size to perform meaningful analysis.
• Variations in format popularity: Standard with its regular rotation schedule and Modern with its de facto rotation via aggressive ban list updates wax and wane in popularity over time, and this factor cannot really be measured in isolation. Legacy is also susceptible to such effects as well, but to a lesser extent.
• Concurrent non-SCG events: SCG Open weekends often compete with a North American Grand Prix, or perhaps special Sunday activities such as the Super Bowl, Mother's Day, Easter, etc. I do not make any efforts to identify these events or to quantify their effects, except to note that occasional Sunday events have a disproportionately large effect on attendance.

For the past few years, I have been compiling attendance figures for SCG Open weekends based on their published standings for each event, which are accessible from their coverage archives. I retroactively went to the beginning of their series, starting in February 2009 in Richmond, with two blocks of missing data:

• I found no Legacy attendance data for five of their first six weekends in 2009 (Boston in June 2009 being the exception). In fact, I'm not even sure there were SCG Legacy tournaments on those weekends, as the coverage available is very different and very limited compared to what we have had access to since.
• There are five tournaments from October to November 2012 for which I have no Standard attendance figures, since the coverage page for those events contain broken links. I recorded Legacy attendance figures from those events at the time, but I did not start keeping track of Standard attendance until later, by which point the links were no longer active.

The history of the SCG tournament can be divided into five periods (note: all dates denote the weekend corresponding to the specified Saturday):

• Period 1: Until March 23, 2013, SCG held Saturday Standard Opens and Sunday Legacy Opens with equal prize support, although the amount of support at each Open went from $5000 to $5800, and later to $10000 (with an increase in entrance fees) as the series became more popular.
• Period 2: From March 30, 2013 to September 28, 2013, SCG consistently held Saturday Standard Opens and usually held Legacy Opens that corresponding Sunday. However, they also experimented with occasional Sealed, Team Sealed, and Sunday Standard events instead on Sunday.
• Period 3: From October 5, 2013 to July 5, 2014, SCG reverted to the tournament and prize structure from Period 1, except with $10000 in prizes for each Open.
• Period 4: From July 20, 2014 to December 6, 2014, SCG held a Saturday Standard Open ($10K), a Sunday Legacy Open ($10K) that started at 9 am, and a Sunday Modern PIQ ($5K) that started at 10 am.
• Period 5: Beginning with December 13, 2014, SCG has held a two-day $20K single-format Open (usually Standard). The other two constructed formats were featured in two PIQs that began at 9 am and 10 am. So far, when the Open has been Standard format, the 9 am PIQ is Legacy and the 10 am PIQ is Modern; when the Open has been Legacy, the 9 am PIQ is Standard and the 10 am PIQ is Modern. As of this writing, there has not yet been a Modern $20K Open.

I also wanted to call attention to a seemingly bold prediction I made on the Source when SCG announced its change to the most recent tournament structure:

Obviously, this change by SCG is a net negative to the Legacy community, but while reading the article, I was thinking they made a mistake even before I got to their schedule (until then, I thought Standard and Legacy would be equally represented at the $20K Opens). The Standard $20K Opens are a pretty exciting change if you're a hardcore Standard player, and it might induce Standard grinders to travel slightly longer distances to attend events they otherwise wouldn't. But any increased attendance SCG might get at these new Opens would be offset by plenty of other factors including: Casual Standard players who are unable or unwilling to commit to two days Casual Standard players who are hardcore Legacy or Modern players who would no longer play in the Saturday event if you have to play Day 2 to even have a shot of prizing Grinders who are competitive in Standard, but strongly prefer playing Legacy (or Modern), and would consider skipping the former despite the increased prestige SCG is trying to manufacture The vast majority of players at the current Standard Opens are casual players who think it's pretty cool that the SCG is in town, and while I imagine many of them would still play in the $20K Open, some of them will have schedule conflicts. In addition, keep in mind that SCG had already experimented with "Double Standard" events in 2012, and they were an unmitigated disaster, with the Sunday Standard Open having 38-52% fewer players than the Saturday one (in other words, comparable to what the attendance would have been with a Legacy format). It is unsure whether this can be attributed to scheduling conflicts (Sundays are generally more inconvenient) or player fatigue (a lot of players are probably put off by playing Standard for two straight days), but in any case, both these problems will plague the new proposed setup. In addition, you have players like myself who absolutely love Legacy and don't find Standard very appealing, but might have otherwise considered playing in Standard on Saturday to get some practice for the Invitational or to just hang out with friends. But to pay $50 to play a format that I don't even like, with the understanding that I have to play (and probably do reasonably well) on Day 2 to even min cash?! I would snap-drop from Standard to play Legacy on Sunday regardless of how I was doing, so there's simply no reason for me to register for the Saturday event anymore, since the practice simply isn't worth $50. I know I am far from the only player in my circle of friends who feels this way, and I imagine the sentiment is shared at least by some Modern players as well. Keep in mind that while the player base of Legacy and Modern players is significantly smaller than that of Standard players, the proportion of hardcore players in those formats (especially in Legacy) is significantly higher than the corresponding proportion among Standard players, and as a result, the total number of dedicated players in each format is more comparable than one might think. This is a large reason why attendance numbers for Legacy and Modern GPs are consistently higher than those for Standard GPs, so I don't think SCG's effort to emulate the Grand Prix model with their new Open series will be as successful as they would hope. There are a ton of Standard GPs within driving distance even in the often-neglected West Coast, and none of them have ever been appealing beyond the possibility of having a sweet Legacy side event. I must admit that I would be enthusiastic about these changes if the new Open Series schedule included a majority of Legacy Opens, rather than Standard, but that is only from my perspective as a hardcore Legacy fan. I still stand by the points I made that the entire concept of a two-day Open is a mistake for SCG, regardless of the choice of format for these Opens.

Essentially, I thought that the new tournament structure would not only be disappointing for the players, but also for the SCG organizers, and this post is an opportunity to explain why I came to those beliefs. The attendance results of these new $20K events have only strengthened my conviction for reasons explained below.

Historical SCG Attendance

Other than the exclusion of the aforementioned early Opens for which I have no attendance data, the graph below represents complete attendance data for all Standard, Legacy, and Modern Opens and Premier IQs run by SCG.

Note: There was a double SCG weekend on 9/27/14, with Standard and Legacy Opens being held in both New Jersey and Indianapolis. The two data points are slightly staggered for better visualization purposes (with New Jersey shown a day earlier). Graph last updated 3/9/15.

On the surface, it seems pretty clear that Standard tournaments have generally had better attendance than Legacy ones, and that Legacy ones are better attended than Modern ones. But how much of it is due to other factors than simply format preference and availability, such as a preference for Saturday events or the greater prize support available in Legacy Opens compared to Modern PIQs?

Effect of Saturday vs. Sunday Opens

The three "double Standard" weekends during Period 2 in which two separate Standard Opens were held on Saturday and Sunday provide some insight into whether players generally have a preference for one day over the other, as the tournament format, venue, and prize support were identical.

Location	Date	Saturday	Sunday	Sun/Sat
Orlando	3/30/2013	378	180	47.62%
Dallas	5/25/2013	441	247	56.01%
Salt Lake City	8/10/2013	245	153	62.45%

Clearly, from these data, there is a preference for Saturday Standard Opens over Sunday ones. But how does this compare to the ratio of Sunday Legacy Open attendance to Saturday Standard Open attendance? I show below a plot in which the fraction of the Sunday Open attendance is normalized to that of the Saturday Open attendance, for every weekend in 2013 in which there was a Sunday Legacy or Standard Open. (In other words, on this graph, the point corresponding to Dallas in May 2013 would show up as 0.56 since the Sunday Open had 56% of the players of the Saturday Open.)

Notice that the yellow dots, corresponding to the Standard Sunday Opens, fall roughly where the blue points, corresponding to the Legacy Sunday Opens would have fallen. This suggests that the lower attendance of Legacy Opens can largely be attributed to the fact that they have fallen on Sundays, rather than due to accessibility or a smaller overall player base for that format. Certainly, those are additional factors as well which will always present a barrier for some players, but I contend from these data that these factors are not as significant as many people believe.

It's certainly possible that some players who had initially planned to play both Opens on the weekend got too tired by the end of Saturday to continue onto the next day. However, this factor would have also served to depress Legacy attendance numbers on Sunday as well throughout essentially the entirety of the SCG Open series, so it's quite possible that Legacy numbers would appear higher if some of the 2013 Legacy Opens were held on Saturday instead. Moreover, the issue of fatigue or boredom is even more pronounced in the new "Period 5" system with two-day Opens, especially since it deters players who are only available on Saturday or only available on Sunday from competing.

Note that this analysis of 2013 spans a time (containing all of "Period 2" and parts of "Periods 1 and 3") in which only one major event was being held on a given Sunday. In fact, changes since then in "Period 4" (with two PIQs firing nearly simultaneously) and in "Period 5" (with Day 2 of the Open running at the same time as the other two PIQs) likely serve to further suppress the attendance numbers for Sunday Legacy events since then than the graph above would indicate.

Legacy as a Two-Day Open Format

Updated 3/9/15 with information through Baltimore.
 
To the approval of coverage-starved Legacy fans around the world, the most recent SCG Open in Philadelphia featured two days of Legacy, after the new "Period 5" system was ushered in with two Standard Opens in Seattle and Columbus. At first glance, the attendance number of 566 seems quite respectable: a greater number than the 449 players that competed in the Standard $20K in Seattle and the 508 in D.C., but fewer than the 659 who played in Columbus:

Location	Date	Format	Open
Seattle	12/13/2014	Standard	449
Columbus	1/3/2015	Standard	659
Philadelphia	1/10/2015	Legacy	566
Washington, D.C.	1/24/2015	Standard	508
Indianapolis	1/31/2015	Legacy	582
Houston	2/14/2015	Standard	428
Los Angeles	2/21/2015	Standard	542
Baltimore	2/28/2015	Modern	762

In fact, the 566 players who showed up for the Philadelphia Legacy $20K Open represents an even stronger showing than that number indicates by itself. In recent years, even before the switch to two-day Opens, Columbus has attracted significantly more players than Seattle, which has in turn attracted more players than Philadelphia (although it should be noted that Philadelphia had strong attendance numbers in 2009 and 2010). Shown below in yellow are events that correspond to the new two-day Opens, with asterisks indicating an Invitational weekend.

Location	Date	Standard Open	Legacy Open
Seattle	6/12/2010	253	191
Seattle	7/23/2011	390	184
Seattle	6/30/2012	409	187
Seattle	11/17/2012	?	164
Seattle	4/20/2013	557	261
Seattle	10/19/2013	521	253
Seattle	3/15/2014	580	321
Seattle*	12/13/2014	449	N/A
Columbus	6/2/2012	497	258
Columbus	1/5/2013	696	325
Columbus	6/15/2013	590	268
Columbus	1/18/2014	688	342
Columbus*	6/14/2014	705	450
Columbus	11/8/2014	757	259
Columbus	1/3/2015	659	N/A
Philadelphia	10/10/2009	318	147
Philadelphia	6/5/2010	521	236
Philadelphia	6/22/2013	467	220
Philadelphia	9/7/2013	402	280
Philadelphia	1/10/2015	N/A	566
Washington, D.C.	2/26/2011	693	290
Washington, D.C.	1/21/2012	438	234
Washington, D.C.	8/4/2012	630	350
Washington, D.C.	3/16/2013	553	268
Washington, D.C.	8/23/2014	468	285
Washington, D.C.	1/24/2015	508	N/A
Indianapolis	3/28/2009	432	N/A
Indianapolis	3/13/2010	668	286
Indianapolis	2/5/2011	544	267
Indianapolis*	6/4/2011	363	334
Indianapolis	10/1/2011	549	290
Indianapolis*	6/16/2012	498	315
Indianapolis	10/20/2012	?	204
Indianapolis	3/9/2013	775	326
Indianapolis*	10/26/2013	699	388
Indianapolis	1/4/2014	714	256
Indianapolis	5/31/2014	567	347
Indianapolis	9/28/2014	588	260
Indianapolis	1/31/2015	N/A	582
Dallas	8/29/2009	264	N/A
Dallas/Ft. Worth	1/9/2010	332	117
Dallas/Ft. Worth	3/19/2011	342	157
Dallas/Ft. Worth	3/10/2012	528	174
Dallas/Ft. Worth	11/10/2012	?	175
Dallas/Ft. Worth	1/19/2013	555	212
Dallas	5/25/2013	441	N/A
Dallas	11/9/2013	627	251
Dallas	4/12/2014	778	308
Dallas	8/2/2014	733	259
Houston	2/14/2015	428	N/A
Los Angeles	1/2/2010	316	142
Los Angeles	3/26/2011	360	216
Los Angeles	1/14/2012	396	180
Los Angeles	9/15/2012	396	235
Los Angeles	12/15/2012	469	269
Los Angeles	11/2/2013	652	281
Los Angeles	3/22/2014	694	374
Los Angeles	2/21/2015	542	N/A
Baltimore	9/18/2010	475	233
Baltimore	6/25/2011	450	318
Baltimore	10/22/2011	547	238
Baltimore	3/24/2012	565	264
Baltimore	12/1/2012	664	287
Baltimore	6/1/2013	570	298
Baltimore	8/24/2013	546	285
Baltimore	1/25/2014	643	402
Baltimore	7/19/2014	620	372
Baltimore	2/28/2015	762 (Modern)	N/A

What is noticeable is that the attendance figures for the Standard $20K Opens in Seattle and Columbus were lower than they were for the old one-day Standard Opens in 2014 and even in 2013 in the very same cities. In fact, the low attendance number for the December 2014 Seattle Open is more shocking since it corresponded to an Invitational weekend, which generally attracts more players than a normal Open weekend without an Invitational. Meanwhile, the 566 players that competed in the Legacy $20K Open in Philadelphia represents the largest crowd that ever gathered for an SCG tournament in the City of Brotherly Love.

Update (1/28/15)
Attendance figures for the Standard $20K Open in D.C. are also disappointing compared to historical numbers.

Update (2/1/15)
Attendance figures for the Legacy $20K Open in Indianapolis represent a Legacy Open attendance record. It's weaker than some previous showings for Standard Open in Indy, but exceeded the turnout from the previous SCG Indianapolis, despite being the first two-day Open to be scheduled on a Super Bowl weekend. 

Update (2/16/15)
Attendance figure for the Standard $20K Open in Houston is the lowest of any $20K Open yet. Because SCG has never traveled to Houston before, I included attendance figures from previous events in Dallas and Dallas/Ft. Worth.While it is possible that Dallas has a better Magic scene than Houston, I find it unlikely to account for such a significant dropoff in attendance, as Houston is the fourth most populous city in the United States (as well as a more reasonable drive from other previous SCG destinations such as New Orleans).
Note that attendance figures in Dallas have been strong for years, going from 528 in early 2012 to a peak of 778 in the middle of 2014. The only times it deviated from this generally increasing trend were for the May 2013 Double Standard weekend (drawing 441 and 247) and the Houston $20K 2-day Standard Open (428). This seems to be pretty conclusive evidence that the existence of a Legacy SCG Open helps their overall attendance

Update (3/9/15)
Attendance for SCG Los Angeles, with a $20K Standard Open, was once again underwhelming, despite the fact that Los Angeles has enjoyed strong attendance in recent years. Meanwhile, the first Modern Open in Baltimore impressed with strong attendance, although this isn't too surprising: Baltimore has historically had excellent turnouts, and in fact, the very first Modern PIQ also debuted in Baltimore and featured easily the best attendance of any PIQ in Period 4.

These observations support my claim that it is the Sunday schedule, rather than any general preference of SCG players for Standard over Legacy, that has hampered Legacy attendance more than anything else.


Direct Comparison to Modern Attendance and Indirect Comparison to Standard

SCG first announced its support for the Modern format on the Open Series circuit via the addition of 10 am Sunday Premier IQs, which were held roughly at the same time as the 9 am Legacy Opens. There was speculation from some that the Modern PIQs would quickly outgrow the Legacy Opens, but the actual attendance figures from this timeframe ("Period 4") do not support this claim:

It is not entirely fair to compare Modern PIQ attendance to Legacy Open attendance, given that the latter enjoyed better prize support and coverage during Period 4. However, what is noteworthy is that during this period, there was not a gradual increase in Modern attendance eroding the Legacy player base. In fact, the Modern PIQ in this timeframe with the highest attendance was the very first data point in Baltimore (205), and the PIQ with the lowest attendance was the final data point in Portland (77).

Location	Date	Legacy Open	Modern PIQ	Mod/Leg
Baltimore	7/19/2014	372	205	55.11%
Kansas City	7/26/2014	256	110	42.97%
Dallas	8/2/2014	259	151	58.30%
Syracuse	8/9/2014	230	147	63.91%
Washington, D.C.	8/23/2014	285	125	43.86%
Somerset	8/30/2014	443	189	42.66%
St. Louis	9/6/2014	285	108	37.89%
Atlanta	9/13/2014	263	139	52.85%
New Jersey	9/27/2014	260	94	36.15%
Indianapolis	9/27/2014	260	152	58.46%
Worcester	10/18/2014	225	91	40.44%
Minneapolis	10/25/2014	247	135	54.66%
Oakland	11/1/2014	190	83	43.68%
Columbus	11/8/2014	259	181	69.88%
Richmond	11/22/2014	225	111	49.33%
Atlanta	11/29/2014	240	116	48.33%
Portland	12/6/2014	228	77	33.77%

There was not a single Sunday during Period 4 in which the Modern PIQ featured more players than the simultaneous Legacy Open. Once again, that fact is not altogether unsurprising, as the Opens had better prize support and more coverage than the Premier IQs. However, it would not be correct to claim, as some did, that the higher Legacy attendance during this time was solely because the Opens had better EV. With half the prize support ($5K vs. $10K) but a 25% lower entry fee ($30 vs. $40), Premier IQs would represent the same EV as Opens at two-thirds (66.67%) the attendance, but only in Columbus in November 2014 did the ratio of Modern PIQ competitors to Legacy Open competitors exceed this number.

So how did things shake out in Period 5, when Legacy and Modern prize support became identical? Legacy had significantly more players than Modern in Seattle, while the reverse was true in Columbus:

Location	Date	Legacy	Modern	Mod/Leg
Seattle	12/13/2014	222	144	64.86%
Columbus	1/3/2015	162	250	154.32%
Washington, D.C.	1/24/2015	163	165	101.23%
Houston	2/14/2015	143	127	88.81%
Los Angeles	2/21/2015	137	157	114.60%

The specific location variations so far in Period 5 are not too hard to explain if you look at the data from Period 4. Portland was the location with the lowest ratio of Modern players to Legacy players, and given its relative proximity to Seattle (where SCG traveled the very next week), there was considerable overlap in the player bases at both events, so it makes perfect sense that the Legacy PIQ had many more players than the Modern PIQ. Conversely, Columbus represents the other end of the spectrum, as the one city of Period 4 in which the ratio of Modern to Legacy players was highest; at the Columbus $20K Open weekend, there were significantly more Modern PIQ players than Legacy PIQ players. I don't think these data are evidence of a trend towards a growing Modern player base at the expense of Legacy over time, but rather, manifestations of the preferences of the player bases for the respective formats regionally. I would guess that the size of the Legacy and Modern player bases--at least among players likely to attend an SCG--are comparable.

Update (1/28/15)
The recent Premier IQs at Washington, D.C., show nearly identical attendance for Legacy and Modern, consistent with what I predicted above. I personally would have expected some fallout from the seemingly unpopular B&R changes that hit Modern hard, but perhaps that reflects my biases as a player who enjoyed only Pod decks in Modern. On the other hand, as a reader pointed out to me, there is an upcoming Pro Tour for Modern, which has been shaken up due to these new changes, so perhaps many grinders felt it would be especially valuable to get some practice for the new meta.

Update (2/16/15)
The Premier IQs at Houston show a slightly higher attendance for Legacy than for Modern, but nothing too surprising.

Update (3/9/15)
The Premier IQs at Los Angeles showed a slightly higher attendance for Modern than for Legacy, but nothing too surprising.
What I find really fascinating are the results from the most recent two-day $20K Legacy Open in Philadelphia, since this was the first time in the history of the SCG circuit in which there was no Standard event on Saturday. This allows us to directly compare the attendance numbers of the 9 am Standard PIQ to those of the 10 am Modern PIQ:

Location	Date	Standard	Modern	Mod/Std
Philadelphia	1/10/2015	176	200	113.64%
Indianapolis	1/31/2015	147	160	108.84%

That is correct, there were more Modern players on Sunday than there were Standard players, for the same level of prize support! (Note that the number of players at this Standard PIQ would be considered on the low end for Legacy as well.) Granted, this represents a sample size of one, but this was the first opportunity we had to compare Sunday Standard attendance to that of an equally supported alternative for that weekend.

Update (2/1/15): The Modern PIQ once again drew more players than the Standard PIQ, and it's now 2-for-2 on Sundays following a Saturday Legacy Open. Standard clearly isn't as popular as most people expected it to be, and the 9 am start time for PIQs probably isn't particularly appealing either. The poor turnouts at these 9 am Standard PIQs are worse than Legacy PIQs would have generated in the same time slots.

That begs the question: if SCG attendance for its Legacy events is at least comparable to that for its Modern events, which is in turn comparable to that of Standard events, then why is there such a lopsided distribution of $20K Opens in favor of more two-day Standard events? (There has not yet been an instance in which a Legacy PIQ and a Standard PIQ were run at the same time to enable a direct comparison between the two formats.) There is the perception that SCG is singlehandedly keeping Legacy afloat, and while I do not believe that notion at all, SCG can likely incorporate more Legacy Opens on its schedule with no loss to their entry fees collected while assuaging any unfounded fears that Legacy staples will bottom out in demand. In other words, they can collect as much entry (or more) by having two-day Legacy events, and having more high-profile Legacy coverage probably has a greater beneficial effect on their sales of Legacy staples than Standard coverage does on their sales of Standard.

Update (3/9/15): The most recent SCG Baltimore was especially interesting because it allowed for a direct comparison of a Standard IQ to a Legacy IQ on the same day with equal prize support and coverage for the first time. Perhaps many people were surprised with the greater attendance for the Legacy PIQ, but this was the logical conclusion I predicted from previously available data.

Location	Date	Standard	Legacy	Legacy/Std
Baltimore	2/28/2015	217	230	105.99%

The $20K Open Series Has Been a Bust

I very much appreciate SCG for running an excellent tournament circuit, and even though their support for Legacy has diminished with their experiment with $20K Opens, I still hope these tournaments continue to become financially feasible. It's important that they collect enough in entries to pay for their prize pool, and then still have enough to pay their employees to travel out to distant locations, to compensate judges adequately, and to rent convention halls large enough to accommodate so many players for a weekend.

Location	Date	Standard Open	Legacy Open	Modern Open	Standard Open (Sun)	Standard PIQ	Legacy PIQ	Modern PIQ	Entry	Prize Pool	Net
Seattle	4/20/2013	557	261	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	$32720	$20000	$12720
Seattle	10/19/2013	521	253	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	$30960	$20000	$10960
Seattle	3/15/2014	580	321	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	$36040	$20000	$16040
Seattle	12/13/2014	449	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	222	144	$33430	$30000	$3430
Columbus	1/5/2013	696	325	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	$40840	$20000	$20840
Columbus	6/15/2013	590	268	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	$34320	$20000	$14320
Columbus	1/18/2014	688	342	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	$41200	$20000	$21200
Columbus	6/14/2014	705	450	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	$46200	$20000	$26200
Columbus	11/8/2014	757	259	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	181	$46070	$25000	$21070
Columbus	1/3/2015	659	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	162	250	$45310	$30000	$15310
Philadelphia	6/22/2013	467	220	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	$27480	$20000	$7480
Philadelphia	9/7/2013	402	280	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	$27280	$20000	$7280
Philadelphia	1/10/2015	N/A	N/A	566	N/A	176	N/A	200	$39580	$30000	$9580
Washington, D.C.	3/16/2013	553	268	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	$32840	$20000	$12840
Washington, D.C.	8/23/2014	468	285	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	125	$33870	$25000	$8870
Washington, D.C.	1/24/2015	508	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	163	165	$35240	$30000	$5240
Indianapolis	3/9/2013	775	326	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	$44040	$20000	$24040
Indianapolis	10/26/2013	699	388	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	$43480	$20000	$23480
Indianapolis	1/4/2014	714	256	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	$38800	$20000	$18800
Indianapolis	5/31/2014	567	347	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	$36560	$20000	$16560
Indianapolis	9/28/2014	588	260	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	152	$38480	$25000	$13480
Indianapolis	1/31/2015	N/A	N/A	582	N/A	147	N/A	160	$38310	$30000	$8310
Dallas/Ft. Worth	1/19/2013	555	212	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	$30680	$20000	$10680
Dallas	5/25/2013	441	247	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	$27520	$20000	$7520
Dallas	11/9/2013	627	251	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	$35120	$20000	$15120
Dallas	4/12/2014	778	308	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	$43440	$20000	$23440
Dallas	8/2/2014	733	259	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	151	$44210	$25000	$19210
Houston	2/14/2015	428	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	143	127	$29500	$30000	($500)
Los Angeles	11/2/2013	652	281	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	$37320	$20000	$17320
Los Angeles	3/22/2014	694	374	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	$42720	$20000	$22720
Los Angeles	2/21/2015	542	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	137	157	$35920	$30000	$5920
Baltimore	6/1/2013	570	298	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	$34720	$20000	$14720
Baltimore	8/24/2013	546	285	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	$33240	$20000	$13240
Baltimore	1/25/2014	643	402	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	$41800	$20000	$21800
Baltimore	7/19/2014	620	372	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	205	$45830	$25000	$20830
Baltimore	2/28/2015	N/A	N/A	762	N/A	217	230	N/A	$51510	$30000	$21510

Since 2013, SCG has offered $10K per Open with a $40 entry fee and $5K per Premier IQ with a $30 entry fee. For the new $20K Opens (shown in yellow), the entry fee is instead $50. SCG's margins at the new $20K Opens are lower than they have been under the older system, and I am almost certain that their non-prize expenses incurred at these Opens are also more significant.

To illustrate how much SCG has been hurt by the new tournament structure, consider that Columbus (June 2014) and Seattle (March 2014) both grossed more in entries with two Opens alone than the newest iterations (Columbus, Jan 2015; Seattle, Dec 2014) did with three events. And this is despite the fact that $10,000 less was paid out in prizes!

Update (1/28/15)
The new D.C. Open actually grossed more in entry fee than previous D.C. Opens since 2013, but it did not nearly make up for the increased prize support SCG offered. Note also that the cities have now been rearranged to reflect the chronological order of the $20K Opens, rather than alphabetical order.

Update (2/1/15)
Despite reasonable attendance numbers, net margins from the SCG Indianapolis $20K Open were lower than any Open in Indianapolis within this timeframe. Interestingly, attendance numbers have been on a downward trend in Indianapolis since the beginning of 2013, and the Super Bowl this weekend certainly didn't help the cause, but I simply don't think the $20K Opens with two Premier IQs will get any better for SCG in this regard.

Update (2/16/15)
The first trip SCG ever made to Houston was an absolute bust. While there is no basis for direct comparison with previous SCG Houstons (as none exist), it drew much fewer players and much less in entry fees than previous trips to Dallas and Dallas/Ft. Worth, despite Houston having a much larger metropolitan area. The May 2013 Double Standard weekend in Dallas previously stood out as a particularly poor venture in terms of attendance, but the $20K Standard Open in Houston has the dubious distinction of being the first SCG weekend I've charted to actually lose money on prize support alone. Even in a region where the Legacy scene isn't particularly strong (which was their justification for removing Sunday Legacy in May 2013), holding Legacy is a good idea as it brings in players for Standard.
Despite all these data, SCG has announced their 2015 Season 3 and 4 schedule to be littered with $20K Standard weekends. I'm not sure whether they're not analyzing their own attendance figures, whether they think $20K Opens will eventually grow more popular despite no trend to suggest this (in fact, a decreasing trend exists if anything), whether SCG Live viewership (which I haven't analyzed, but for which I've been told Standard outpaces Legacy) is a more important consideration than Open attendance, whether they think over-saturating Standard coverage and events helps their sales more than committing those resources to Legacy, or whether Wizards directly provides them incentives to promote Standard at the expense of Eternal formats, but it has to be something other than consideration of attendance figures.


Concluding Remarks

The changes to the SCG tournament circuit have been a disappointment to many players. While this sense of disappointment is especially keen among Legacy players because of the reduction of coverage of our preferred format, it is likely one that is shared by players who play other formats as well, as evidenced by underwhelming or even decreased attendance numbers despite increased promotion and prize support from SCG for the new structure.

The last time SCG changed its tournament structure to the detriment of Legacy, they experimented with formats such as Sealed, Team Sealed, and Standard in the Sunday slot before determining that it was a mistake to exclude Legacy Opens. I hope that the early failures of the $20K Open Series similarly prompts SCG to revert to the old system with Sunday Legacy Opens. However, if that cannot be the case, I believe they should add more Legacy two-day Opens to their schedule, as the data suggest that such Opens would result in attendance at least comparable to that of Standard two-day Opens, while maintaining player confidence in the format that they have worked so hard to associate their name with.

January 2015 B&R Update

Quite an eventful B&R update today, with shake-ups to Legacy, Vintage and Modern as listed below, with my comments as follows.

Legacy

• Treasure Cruise is banned
• Worldgorger Dragon is unbanned.

I'm mildly surprised to see Treasure Cruise banned, as Legacy is a format that can handle all but the most degenerate strategies, and Treasure Cruise, while powerful, doesn't quite qualify. However, this ban certainly doesn't come out of nowhere, as it gives incredible resilience and staying power for low mana cost as well as opportunity cost with respect to deck construction. The card allowed for some enjoyable matchups where a Treasure Cruise player was behind, but could get back into it by topdecking and perhaps chaining multiple Cruises, but it allowed for far more where a topdecked Cruise from an advanced or equal board state would simply allow a player to bury an opponent in card advantage. I believe the format is a more enjoyable one with Treasure Cruise gone.

This update probably pushes UR Delver from the consensus deck to beat to a tier 2 strategy, and probably gives rise to the traditional RUG Delver (Canadian Threshold) and UWR Delver again. BUG Delver (Team America) likely sees a rise as well, as the discard element it brings to tempo matchups isn't fundamentally outclassed by a topdecked Treasure Cruise. Deathblade and Shardless BUG are likely benefit for the same reasons, as both had somewhat weaker matchups against UR Delver but are favored against most of the other Delver variants. Jund becomes playable once again, as it can better trade resources via discard and removal; moreover, Dark Confidant and Liliana aren't obsolete in a field full of Lightning Bolts and Young Pyromancers. Decks like Elves, Infect, and Death and Taxes, which were somewhat suppressed by the rise of Forked Bolts and Pyroclasms in the meta, are once again in my short list of best decks in the format.

Aside from UR Delver, decks like UWR Stoneblade and Jeskai Combo also suffer from the loss of Treasure Cruise. Storm likely suffers, as the presence of Treasure Cruise resulted in fewer copies of Spell Pierce and other forms of cheap interaction in the meta; moreover, much of the representation of UR Delver (a slightly favorable matchup) in the former meta turns into RUG Delver, UWR Delver, and BUG Delver (matchups which range from even to very unfavorable). I know I had been set on playing ANT at the Mirkwood event for dual lands this weekend with the expectation of no changes to the B&R list, but everything is up in the air at this point.

I'm also surprised to see Worldgorger Dragon unbanned, but only because there are quite a few harmless cards on the B&R list that the DCI rarely bothers to remove. In a format where you could bin Griselbrand and bring it back in one of several ways, I do not see Worldgorger Dragon being a significant factor when you are restricted to second-tier reanimation effects like Animate Dead and Necromancy and require a third card to actually combo off, even if it allows for the potential of annoying draws.

Vintage

• Treasure Cruise is restricted.
• Gifts Ungiven is unrestricted.

I'm not as knowledgeable about Vintage as I am about Legacy, but the restriction of Treasure Cruise comes as absolutely no surprise to me. Prior to the printing of Khans, Jace, the Mind Sculptor was regarded as the most likely candidate for restriction (as the most powerful unrestricted card that doesn't represent a "pillar" of the format), and Treasure Cruise dwarfs it in many ways (in addition to powering up Young Pyromancers which frequently overwhelm Jace). Moreover, with the changing of the Delver mechanic, the ability to draw three cards through the taxing effects of Shops was absolutely disgusting.

I'm a fan of the unrestriction of Gifts Ungiven. I don't know what shenanigans Vintage masters can concoct given access to four copies to chain into alongside the likes of unrestricted Regrowth and Snapcaster Mage, neither of which were available the last time Gifts was legal in Vintage. It's very scary, but it's possible that the format has sped up enough to make this card reasonable, and in any case, Vintage is the format of truly broken spells. Gifts is one of the most skill-testing cards in all of Magic, and I think this is an exciting change to the format.

Modern

• Dig Through Time, Treasure Cruise, and Birthing Pod are banned.
• Golgari Grave-Troll is unbanned.

Not at all surprised to see Dig Through Time or Treasure Cruise get banned, as they offer card advantage and selection far beyond what is acceptable in Modern. I was a bit surprised to see Jeskai Ascendancy escape the axe though: despite the lack of dominance in results, other combo cards have been banned for as much or less, and its fundamental turn is significantly faster than what the DCI has previously allowed in Modern.

I'm extremely disappointed that Birthing Pod got banned, even though I know it was on the DCI's radar. Coming from the perspective of an older player who primarily plays Legacy, Birthing Pod was a sweet engine card that sought to gain incremental value through toolbox creatures, something that has been missing from Legacy ever since Survival of the Fittest got chopped: Elves exists but has less toolbox versatility, while Nic Fit isn't really a top-tier deck. It was really the only redeeming feature of the Modern format to me, as aggro, control, ramp, midrange, two-card combo (e.g. Splinter Twin), and engine-combo (e.g. Storm, Ascendancy) all exist in Legacy in faster and more resilient forms that allow for more interaction on both sides.

Pod was clearly one of the top two decks in the Khans Modern format, but its level of dominance was nowhere near that of Survival in Legacy, nor that of other offensive "fair" decks that had key components removed from Modern. Whereas Modern fair decks have survived with the banning of key cards such as Wild Nacatl, Punishing Fire, Bloodbraid Elf, or Deathrite Shaman, substituting them with suboptimal replacements, this is the first time in Modern that the key engine card of a fair deck was banned. It will certainly kill the entire archetype.

Without the burst card advantage afforded by the likes of Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise and without the midgame engine of Birthing Pod to keep things in check, fair midrange value GBx decks like Junk and Jund likely become the decks to beat in the new format. While I have the cards available to play these decks, the GBx-dominated midrange derp-fest that put 6 copies into the top 8 of GP Detroit was a miserable one that I wanted no part of back in 2013, and it's one that I want no part of anymore.

Hello!

I'm a big advocate of the Legacy format, and you may recognize me as lordofthepit on the Source or lordothepit23 on MTGSalvation. I have been compiling data about the Legacy metagame as well as attendance figures from large tournaments (mostly SCG), and I thought it was time to start a blog so I could have a permanent place to share this information.

I will also occasionally write about decks I'm playing and share tournament experiences.