As far as tournment structure, the new changes to the extended format effect everyone equally. With the recent release of the new changes there seems to be a fairly simple, yet overlooked question: where does our investment go after the cards rotate? Some of us are fortunate to own a set of Baneslayer Angel and can choose any of our sets of Planeswalkers to compliment our decks. We should feel very fortunate we have the cash flow to have such great treasures as we are surely in the minority of the Magic community.

Too often, the upper quartile can only see things from their perch and oftentimes miss the view of the 'underlings.' This holds no different in the Magic community especially among writers and Pro Players. As most of their friends in the community are also writers or other Pro Players, it is easy to see why one might often lose sight of the other side of the coin. Much more than 'kitchen-table Magic,' there is a group that gets overlooked by most of us and they are the local tournament players. You know, the ones who go to a Grand Prix or PTQ and don't realize a one-and-five record should have checked "drop" on the slip a few rounds ago. These players make up the bulk of the community and are rarely recognized.

Now, a competitive player in both Standard and Extended may find their deck rotating out of standard (we can use Faeries for the example). Previously, there was no need to worry because they still have a full four years left to get use from those expensive cards. Unfortunately, under the New Extended rotation, you only get four years total use out of a card like Bitterblossom. While Thoughtseize may make a splash in Eternal formats, the rest of the Fae deck is not likely to see play anytime soon. A player could choose to reinvest only to end up with no playable cards from their deck.

There are many benefits in this new Extended, which seem to be for the best. However, this particular issue may not apply to the loudest players (local store champ, Pros, writers, etc) but it is an issue that applies to the larger portion of the Magic community and cannot be overlooked by the 'Powers that Be,' unless they want to see a dip in the secondary market and also their own. This is a common arguement among players that the secondary market does not drive sales of the primary. Beyond that, these players are more likely to buy packs to try to crack a seventy dollar Jace, The Mind Sculptor, as opposed to spending the money on the single outright. The truth of the matter is there is some mystique to cracking packs that we all love and for most players, it is a neccesary evil to try and get their chase rares.

A possible solution that has been suggested includes a middle ground between Legacy and Extended. Some have been opposed to it but it seems like a very good idea. Think about this: under the new Extended the last four years of Magic are legal. This means there are (with the release of Scars of Mirrodin) sixty-seven Core, Base, or Expansion sets in Magic! Sixty-seven! Now fifty–five (eighty two percent) of these will not be legal for anything except Vintage and Legacy; we are excluding of course formats like EDH or Pauper. This also doesn't include any Portal sets which are also Vintage legal! This is a breathtaking amount of cardboard slinging over the years.

The first 'format' introduced was Standard or Type 2. Before that it was just Magic: The Gathering. Extended was introduced to allow players to use some of their favorite cards, while eliminating some synergy issues with overpowered combos some of the older cards may have caused. Be honest, in terms of 'broken' cards the two notorious bad boy blocks are? That's right. Mirrodin block and Urza's block together hold eight cards on the Restricted List for Vintage. They also hold seven cards on the Legacy banned list and boast the two cards to get 'emergency banned' in Skullclamp and Memory Jar. The reason this is important is we need to find a way to get around these bumps that are Urza's and Mirrodin. It has been suggested the format start from Mercadian Masques which would avoid Urza's Block, but require some work on the part of Wizards to figure out what to ban from the onset.

This proposed format would allow cards like the Ravnica lands to retain their playability and not just get lost and fall by the wayside of the original duals. In essence it would allow some of our more favorite powerful cards to remain powerful and playable but allow Legacy and Extended to breathe independently and not be neutered in the process by creating an amalgamation of formats. While this is not an original idea, it is very necessary given the state of the new Extended. Wizards is a business and is at this to make cash. They are most likely doing it to bridge the gap from Standard to Extended. Sometimes six years in Magic is still a long time to catch up on with all of the cards available. With the new Extended, a four year rotation is much closer to Standard and will increase the player base. However, they need to finish the job and create a format to bridge the gap between Extended and Legacy. The gap may be too great to get all of the players over, but there will be players who will appreciate their devotion to Magic is being rewarded by allowing their cards to maintain value and playability.