The World Championships have come and gone and there is a long enough break before the next major events, DMF LA and the start of the RCQ season (unless you were fortunate enough to be able to travel to Metamart’s 5k in Texas). So now is a time of reflection for 2011 and a look ahead to the tournament scene in 2012. As expected the Top 16 of Worlds was full of excellent players, many of them were VIPs or recent Top 8 DMF/Continental finishers. The multiple format tournament had the cream of the crop rising to the top, and as expected many players who spent their time preparing for constructed exclusively faltered in the limited rounds.

There is a lot from a deck building, playing, or drafting perspective to analyze about the event, but for me there were other issues facing the community that were brought up in Rotterdam as well. Two major hot button issues stood out for me as the weekend was going on: what is the state of Classic for 2012 and beyond, and the issue surrounding whether or not the tournament scene vibrant enough to handle the rapidly rising singles prices. Today I want to tackle the first issue of Classic.

It began during the player meeting on Day 1. When the OP schedule was being revealed, Kyle asked the Worlds players a question in jest of “and who all loves Classic?” It was not a mixture of cheers and silence. It was not even full silence. Instead, it was a room full of booing (and being from Philadelphia I know a thing or two about booing). There was no doubt as to what the tournament players were saying, Classic is currently not a good format and they have little desire to play it competitively. Now, a lot of that reaction may have been influenced by the format of Worlds, in that it contained a large percentage of rounds of Classic, but what stood out to me was the class distinction between the vocal minority of casual tournament players compared to competitive tournament players.

One of the hot button issues facing our “real world” today is class warfare, or the “1 percent.” There seems to be a similar issue going on in the WoW community as well. When it was announced that Core was going to be the primary constructed format for the game going forward there was a lot of negative forum posts pertaining to this change. As with any major tournament announcement those who are against the changes will always have a louder voice. They will usually profess to be representing a larger percentage of the audience, but in reality most of these opinions are self motivated. They are based on the secondary values of collections going down in value, even though it is clearly the newer cards that rise in value more rapidly than older sets. There was a minority that simply enjoyed playing Classic compared to Core. They preferred the best of three and side deck matches of Classic compared to Core. Note, I am not personally saying these opinions are wrong, but that opinion is supported by the tournament community at large.

In casual conversations with many players I talked to going into Worlds, it was obvious that most spent a lion’s share of their valuable testing time with Core instead of Classic. For some Classic was a simple retread of decks they have played in the past with no updates from recent sets at all. The simple truth is that many of us have obligations in real life that prevent us from spending hours upon hours testing for events, and with Core being played at our Battlegrounds and the format changing by a larger percentage. See, adding Throne of the Tides changes Core by a larger percentage of available cards compared to the last time Classic was played, even with multiple sets affecting it. That means there was more to be discovered and exploited in Core compared to Classic. I believe this was why many players chose to spend their time on Core.

The second major issue comparing Core to Classic is the nature of OP and the tournaments themselves. I have mentioned this in the past, but I want to bring it up again: there really is no metagame in WoW because of the nature of the events. Each major event from Darkmoon Faires, to Continentals, to Worlds is fundamentally different from the one before it since they are spread out to encompass new sets. This is done purposely and is good for the game, but has the consequence of not having a normal TCG metagame concept. One event does not influence the next in Core and it falls to the players or teams to actually create the potential metagame for the event itself prior to the event. This is a consequence of why you see teams of individuals succeed where individuals potentially fail, and is why the US dominated at Worlds.

Sure, it is possible that additional major events with the Metamart tournament series may change this, but that too may not be enough, at least initially, depending on when and where they are scheduled. The upcoming Realm Championship Qualifier season is the only exception each year to a local metagame developing, but that is dependent on having multiple events in your area over the course of the Core season, and the results of these events being publicly available so that “net decking” can even occur.

So back to the aforementioned player opinion, it was obvious that the players in Worlds were audibly dispassionate about the continued support of Classic as a viable format. I believe this is due to the perceived vast open nature of the format, but it is in reality a format dominated by a few specific cards or archetypes: Overkill, Tuskarr Kite, Ancestral Awakening, Shaman Death Rattle cards, efficient Mage interrupts, “broken” combos like Unending Breath/Water Breathing or Wondervolt, and selective Warlock hand destruction to name a few. It becomes impossible to create a metagame for the tournament with the options available so players fall back on these known archetypes. How can this be good for the tournament player?

The important point is that tournament players are going to play whatever format they are forced to play in. Clearly the multi-format nature of Worlds did not turn off players from attending the event and even traveling long distances (good to see the US bringing the most players to the tournament). Therefore if OP wants to pander to the vocal forum minority of players who did not even attend the biggest event of the year by having Classic DMFs or continuing to have Classic as part of the World Championship, serious tournament players will continue to play the format, but clearly this is not what they “want” to do.

I understand that players want to play with all of their cards, and many even enjoy playing with these powerful older cards, but clearly the community that is actually attending, preparing, and creating the events do not enjoy the format. Again, it is possible that the increased number of Classic events in 2012 with the advent of the Metamart Event Series, will reverse this opinion and breathe new life into opinions of players on the format. I believe if Classic did not have a best-two-out-of-three format, or if Core adopted that same structure, support for it would be reduced. You see, tournament players will play any format as long as it is supported. You will never read a serious player say “I refuse to play in xyz event because it is Classic” or “I will no longer play WoW until Classic is supported” because we love the game and the competitive nature of it, so we would never take off from a major event for the sake of the format. So the empirical evidence may exist to show that Classic is a community supported format (ie. Attendance at the event) but for one moment in time when the question was asked:

“Who here loves Classic?”

Only a cacophony of boos were heard throughout Rotterdam.