Heirloom Format

  • Inspired by the MTGO budget format Heirloom but with paper price limits

  • Minimum deck size: 60 cards

  • No more than 4 copies of any card, except basic lands

  • Cards can be of any rarity

  • 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

  • Common cards under 0.1 EUR/0.05 tix

  • Uncommon cards under 0.2 EUR/0.1 tix

  • Rare cards under 0.3 EUR/0.2 tix

  • Mythic cards under 0.6 EUR/0.5 tix

  • Very low barrier to entry with decks costing less than $10, unlike Pauper where some “budget” decks still cost $60+

  • If the format was popular enough to influence card prices, rotations would ban the most used cards, preventing the metagame from becoming stagnant

  • Lets you play with cards that are bad in other formats but become viable here

  • Encourages creativity in deckbuilding with quirky card choices

  • Games decided by wits and luck rather than coin

I’m excited to hear your ideas for cheap MTG formats!

  • @[email protected]English
    5•1 year ago

    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.

    • MikeM
      4•1 year ago

      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.