Fostering a healthy Magic community with Wizard Den!

       So, if you all haven't heard yet... We're open for business! Wizard Den is proud to be a part of the magic community here in Boise and we hope to represent that community in the most positive way possible. One of our main goals is to be that shop that anyone can feel comfortable walking into and spending their day enjoying some magic related fun. We will strive to have competitive prices and friendly faces behind the counter.

       That being said, I'd like to talk about what I believe is important to strengthening and maintaining a healthy magic community in your area.

       A major aspect of our daily plans at Wizard Den is to make sure that we cater to everyone's needs. We don't currently sell anything other than Magic related products, but we make it a point to educate our customers that we are willing to order anything they could want from our distributors. It can still turn people away if we don't readily provide the services they want, but it's a start. I think that it's very important to make sure that every person that walks in the door knows that they can be helped no matter what they want.

       Along those same lines, we will always do our best to listen to the people's needs for events. I will always be looking for suggestions on daily events and I have no problem running multiple events daily. For now, we have an event schedule that you can find at WizardDen.com, but if the community expresses an interest in an event on a day we don't currently offer an event for, we'll do it! We're also open to suggestions for prizes on each and every event we host(even though it may effect the price of entry).

       Specifically to Boise, I feel that the Modern crowd has been dying off and the Legacy crowd even more so. We here at Wizard Den want everyone to be taken care of no matter what format you love the most, but it's difficult to meet the needs of everyone. We plan to have 2 weekly Modern events, Monday and Saturday, but no Legacy as of now. There was some drama a few months back that seemed to have driven off some legacy players and I think the only way we can get that back on track is, other than just scheduling events, getting those people here to play. We all love Magic and the formats we choose to play should not deter others from getting together to play. One of my biggest personal goals for Wizard Den is to get Legacy started up again in the valley and I can't do it without you, the players!

       We've discussed the legacy thing a bit here, and we've hit a lot of snags that seem to make it impossible. One aspect being prize support. If we offer good legacy staples for prizes, the people who don't have the money to get the tier-1 decks will be turned away, because they feel there's no way they can beat the people who already have the good cards, and those people get the good prizes to further monopolize the accessibility to the format.

       Another issue is the use of proxies. This will allow the people who don't have the money to get into legacy the ability to proxy the cards they need to play, giving them the best chance to compete in the event. However, it's not very fun if everybody proxies 40-50 cards in their deck. Seeing as how expensive some cards can be, this is likely to happen.

       With all of those difficulties(and others unmentioned), I think I've found a way to make everyone happy, at least a little. We will have a specified entry fee for the day. You get signed up into a group with other legacy players for the day. There are no rounds or pairings, rather you just jump into games with other legacy players and report who won. Every time you play a match(best 2 out of 3), whether you win or lose, you get points(# to be determined) and you get your name entered into a drawing, winners of each match might get their name entered twice so that there's still some benefit for winning. At the end of the night(or whatever determined time), we'll announce those with the most points and issue prizes accordingly, and do our drawings for the random prizes.

       I'm not sure if this is the best way to do it, but it would allow everyone who wants to play legacy to come in with any deck, and still get points whether they win or lose, but still slightly favor those who come prepared. Also, if you come and play more games than others, you will be favored slightly whether you've been winning or not, just on the sheer amount of games you played.

       I would really like to hear everyone's opinions on this idea and get your help to make it perfect for everyone! Let's get Legacy back in full swing in the valley and foster a great environment for magic players everywhere!