Heirloom Format
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Inspired by the MTGO budget format Heirloom but with paper price limits
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Minimum deck size: 60 cards
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No more than 4 copies of any card, except basic lands
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Cards can be of any rarity
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The legal card pool rotates a month after each Standard set release based on card price thresholds checked on Scryfall with the following search:
f:vintage ((rarity:c and eur<=0.1) or (rarity:u and eur<=0.2) or ((rarity:r or rarity:m) and eur<=1)) and tix<=0.05
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Common cards under 0.1 EUR/0.05 tix
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Uncommon cards under 0.2 EUR/0.1 tix
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Rare cards under 0.3 EUR/0.2 tix
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Mythic cards under 0.6 EUR/0.5 tix
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Very low barrier to entry with decks costing less than $10, unlike Pauper where some “budget” decks still cost $60+
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If the format was popular enough to influence card prices, rotations would ban the most used cards, preventing the metagame from becoming stagnant
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Lets you play with cards that are bad in other formats but become viable here
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Encourages creativity in deckbuilding with quirky card choices
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Games decided by wits and luck rather than coin
I’m excited to hear your ideas for cheap MTG formats!
My LGS used to have a giant tub of 10-cent cards, mostly commons of course, but occasionally you could find an uncommon or rare. I would stand in front of it for half an hour picking out the ones I liked. I probably was not actually getting a good deal, but who cares?
I wish they still had it. I would love to just scoop an armful of cards out of that bin and draft them.
I think a draft event like this would be really fun actually. I would make the trip into my LGS to do this if they offered it lol. I just like how level the playing field is and how fun those games would get. You’d play with cards never even considered before and have to make them work somehow.