Old School and PreModern filters and support.

A lot of really great ideas on here already, especially for CEDH stuff.

I feel like MTGO should really embrace the things that make the client special, the stuff that you can't do on Arena, as it does show off the whole of the game, I feel like having better access to popular player created formats on the client would make those formats easier to build and play besides in the freeform room.

Old School and Pre Modern have been exploding in popularity. There are multiple leagues for these formats hosted on discord servers and and melee and gatherling, but I would like to see offical support for the formats. I'm not saying RCQs, but much like Pauper and Commander, embracing this fun, unique formats on MTGO could be a boon.
 

MTGO_TonyM

Developer
Could you point me to places on the Web showing the growth of these formats? (Player-run events on MTGO, tabletop events, other areas)
 

iron_lungs

New member
I want to second what everyone else has posted so far. Between the bi-weekly leagues and 16-player brackets that MOS organizes, there is growing player demand for the Premodern format on MTGO. As Paulmaster noted, tcdecks.net has a repository of results for premodern events, and while the Magic Online Society events only post the top 8 decks, these events regularly draw 40+ players with an international player base .

Premodern has a vibrant and growing paper community across the globe (evident from the variety of tournament results posted to tcdecks.net. In addition, the monthly online webcam series (organized on Facebook) has been drawing over 100 players each month recently.

Other evidence of the format’s growth can be seen in increasing coverage both in terms of YouTube content and print (Michael Flores, for example, regularly discusses premodern in his weekly coolstuffinc.com column, and Phil Nyugen’s recently created newsletter “Banding” at mtgbanding.substack.com has found a ready audience).

I believe one of the biggest impediments to the formats growth on MTGO is simply the fact that it is difficult for a new player interested in the format to find where the other players are. If you aren’t on the Premodern or MOS Discord, it isn’t readily apparent how to find other players on MTGO quickly. Increased support for Premodern as a format would help facilities the growth of this format and provide new forms of engagement for new and existing MTGO users.
 

TarmoGal

New member
As a big Premodern fan, I would love official support for the format on MTGO. It's a fantastic format with a vibrant and growing community, and an official queue (and maybe leagues, as well) would only grow the format and introduce a ton of players to a card pool many are largely unfamiliar with.
 

Thecroce

New member
Would lovevto see mtgo support. Our lgs started hosting recently and turnout has been better than pioneer. The premodern facebook has grown to thousands of members in past few years. The discord is very active and both online and paper tournaments have excellent turnout
 

cyberpunker

New member
Just to give a few links:
  1. Magic Online Tournament October 2022 League # 2 (36 Players) https://gatherling.com/eventreport.php?event=Pre-Modern+Monthly+League+5.01
  2. Magic Online Tournament November 2022 League # 1 (44 Players) https://gatherling.com/eventreport.php?event=Pre-Modern+Semimonthly+League+5.02
  3. Magic Online Tournament November 2022 League # 2 (44 Players) https://gatherling.com/eventreport.php?event=Pre-Modern+Monthly+League+5.03
  4. Magic Online Tournament December 2022 League # 1 (44 Players) https://gatherling.com/eventreport.php?event=Pre-Modern+Monthly+League+5.03
  5. Magic Online Tournament December 2022 League # 2 (44 Players) https://gatherling.com/eventreport.php?event=Pre-Modern+Monthly+League+5.04
  6. Magic Online Tournament January 2023 League # 1 (36 Players) https://gatherling.com/eventreport.php?event=Pre-Modern+Semimonthly+League+5.05
  7. Magic Online Tournament January 2023 League # 2 (43 Players) https://gatherling.com/eventreport.php?event=Pre-Modern Monthly League 6.01
 

eslomao

New member
I have a lot of friends who already play paper premodern but are hesitant to play on MTGO because it is really difficult/time-consuming to find games. Official support for MTGO will be huge for all of them.
 

MagicalHacker

New member
This is probably also likely to include PreDH, the format recently popularized by Sheldon Menery such that Moxfield and Scryfall have both added the format to their websites as well.
 

GoblinWelder

New member
+1 for Premodern support. The biweekly leagues fluctuate between 40 and 60 players and there are a lot of people playing a couple Premodern games outside the league. So there definitely is some demand. Two things would be great in my opinion:

1) Having our own rooms in the Specialty tab, we often have people accidentally joining our rooms in freeform because they misread the description.

2) Having Premodern deck construction rules enforcement. It's easy to even accidentally eg. play a 59 card deck because a Freeform deck has to meet no requirements at all.

Alternatively to point 2), and other casual formats on mtgo would profit from this too, is to create a more restricted Freeform format, that reflects the general constraints of regular mtg formats. MD has to always include 60 cards, sb no more than 15 cards, up to four copies of any card that's not a basic are allowed. That would be a cheap way to ensure that some of the properties are at least met that would make a deck legal in any of these casual formats.
 

vandwedge

Active member
Oh yeah, Premodern getting the attention of a sanctioned format would be amazing.

I know there's a market for it. If people are playing MtGO instead of Arena, it's usually because they like old cards, and premodern is THE way to interact with them.

As for Daybreak's benefit, I've spent more on Premodern in 2 weeks than I have on all of Magic in 2 years. Others will do the same.
 
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