Re: Meeting in KL and the future of the Union

[MagicRage]

2. MSS, if the focus of WOTC's strategies is to recruit new players then why cut out a program that provides a tangible, real world benefit to young players. I would have loved to have a chance to win money for college. I would have played far more seriously as a young player if I had access to such programs. Speaking of advertisement what better way to boost interest than by getting school's and parents to view Magic as a vehicle for quality mental competiton and socialization that can also benefit young students moving toward a college education.

The problem I have heard from some people who had experiance with JSS & MSS (albeit not any Wizards/OP staff) is that the MSS as it was wasn't really working. You had poor turnout and the same people kept winning over & over so the goal of getting scholarships to a bunch of kids wasn't working either.

I hope they do bring back MSS is some form because yes the idea is great. But it needs to be implimented somehow different.

3. If you are looking to increase event turnout and drive up GP participation why cut prizes that are more accessible to the masses? The amatuer prizes allowed non pro players to have a realistic chance to do well and still win some prize. I have heard time and time again from people in my area that their is no reason to travel to a GP since "pro" players are going to win. Doesnt having prizes available for non-pro's seem like a great way to increase attendance.

I don't see why the Amateur prize thing is bothering people so much. They didn't take the Amateur GP prize away, they redistributed it amongst the regular prize for a GP which is Top 64. IIRC, if you finish 33rd thru 64th you used to win $100 and now you win $150 or $200. Yes, if you're an Amateur who makes Top 16 (roughly) your winnings would not be as high but if you're an Amateur who finishes in Top 64 but outside Top 16 or whatever your winnings are actually higher. Yes, the Pros benefit from this the most but it doesn't really bother me.

Though they did take away Amateur prize at PTQs (read: extra packs) I am told. I'm not sure if this lead to that Amateur Prize being redistributed as well or not?

[janos_wuryon]

Just to reply to the last post I finished 77th at GP Jersey just outside of the money and missed the amatuer prize by 1 spot ( 17th) If there had been no amatuer prize then I would have had 0 chance of making money at this event. The amatuer prizes are a great tool to bring in new players. Now I do think that WOTC could do something else to attract players ( like giving away prizes for showing up) but to remove what seemed like a great attraction for the Non-Hardcore GP player is a bad move.

[gleemax]

Just to reply to the last post I finished 77th at GP Jersey just outside of the money and missed the amatuer prize by 1 spot ( 17th) If there had been no amatuer prize then I would have had 0 chance of making money at this event. The amatuer prizes are a great tool to bring in new players. Now I do think that WOTC could do something else to attract players ( like giving away prizes for showing up) but to remove what seemed like a great attraction for the Non-Hardcore GP player is a bad move.

Aggreed, the amatuer prize was a wonderful tool for getting new players in. The thought process was that even if you finished like 100th place, you might still be the 10th best amatuer and win some cash. It was a great reasoning tool to use to convince people to try out cometative magic. Maybe the killed it so the can start having amatuer only tournaments at normal GP now?

[fatguy_poolshark]

Does anyone else find it odd that they are trying to get casual players more involved? Isnt the point of being casual that you really dont spend a lot of money, effort or time on the game? I still think the difference between a PTQ regular and a Casual players isnt skill, its money spent on the game. As a ptq regular and card shop owner i assure you my "casual" crowd doesn't hardly spend a dime in my store. Most buy a few packs when a set releases and maybe 2-3 packs a month. My tournament players but a box and draft until there fingers bleed....

Also what are they going to reallocate to? I mean a second tournament a week simply means that neither one would make(in most smaller areas, say 25-50k town). I saw it with summer of magic. We went from a regular of 14-18 players at FNM to half the time not having FNM make and NEVER having Sunday tournaments make....

[janos_wuryon]

Ok a couple of things.

1. The idea that there is this vast pool of casuals waiting to explode on the GP scene is simply wrong. As many people will attest the casual player doesnt play in many events. They come out to get new product then return to their comfy kitchens until the next prerelease. If there is going to be money spent on any one it will be wasted if they are the target group. Wizards grassroots are the PTA's. If only they would realize that.

2. If wizards thinks that creating new events during the weeks will bring out people then they are wrong again. I see it every where I go. Each store gets a dedicated group of people playing 1-2 times a week. More than that is hit or miss at best. Let's face it the average player age is creeping up and probably sits around 24-26 years old. At this age bracket and the one just below and above there are serious time constraints to deal with. Work, Wife, Girl, Party, College, sleep et al. there is only so much Time to play magic. God knows I wish it was more but facts is facts. Even younger players are limited by availability due to parents. This is why the GP's, PTQ's and such work well is because they are special events that you can plan to make it to. I get set months before a GP or PTQ. More weekly "promo" events aint getting me out of the house any more than normal.

3. Finally I think a great way to reallocate the money is to change the PTQ system. Instead of random one shot one winner events have a city champs style system for each state/region( like champs only more times a year) On set dates every local store runs a qualifier. the top 4-8 get invites to a larger event where the top x people get to go play for a PT spot. Then award 4 or 8 invites. This way people can plan to go play on these set dates and more people "win" at each level and More new players get a PTQ shot. To entice people further why not have the overall 1st place get the invite anfd plane ticket while the other get the invite alone.

[mercenarybdu]

Does anyone else find it odd that they are trying to get casual players more involved?....

Ya it is hard for anyone to bring in the casual players to join, especially when the FNM crowd is around with their power buyer talk.

I figured myself that the FNM players are what have driven a lot of casual people away from actually pursuing anything since the message they always project is "buy this buy that" "Oh you can't play with those specific cards because they're no longer T2 legal" "those cards aren't any good in T2" "<insert your eternal format myths>". The current PTQ crowd does something similar with slight changes here or there but the message is still the same once everything comes full circle.

This is why the casual crowd never sets foot in the dog fight. If you analyze the very few ways to play the game then you'll see that most of the formats are power buyer formats off the bat as they tend to rotate one way or another. Just look over my findings that even the Ferret (who even wrote a whole article about it on Starcitygames.com) would agree:

-Block is a

-T2 is a power buyer's format as it rotates every year. (FNM, and widely used everywhere you go.)

-Draft is another as you have to buy box after box of boosters just to practice and make the whole thing worth while. (FNM, and those who have the budget to do it often).

-Sealed is a Power Buyer's format (similar to Draft's case).

-Extended is a margin/power buyer's format as it rotates every 3 years. Although it doesn't quite look like a power buyer's format, the new sets force players to add onto their pools. (the prime PTQ format.)

-Eternal formats are margin buyer formats as they never rotate. With no rotations in place, players are allowed to buy at their own pace opposed to being forced to buy new product every year just to keep up. Which ever format they choose is up to them.

[rickiep00h]

Or: Standard is a gateway to Extended, which leads to Legacy, which, considering the scratch involved to get competitive, can lead to Vintage.

The cards I buy for Standard right now are legal in Extended until something like 2014. The cards I bought last year are legal in Extended until 2011 or so. The Kamigawa and Mirrodin stuff I've been buying are the same way. Compare that to the 80 bucks I shelled out for Polluted Deltas last month to play Dredge at a PTQ one time. I think it just goes without saying that Magic itself is an expensive hobby, and professionally has a very high entry threshold and extremely low EV compared to "real life".

As far as Standard being a "Power Buyer's Format" I'd like to mention the literally dozens of homebrew, cheap, cheap decks that you can see at FNM. I've seen mono-green Treefolk lately, and I myself built many "low-budget" decks during Rav/TSP/9ED Standard.

A high rotation rate does not necessarily make a format more costly. I'm pretty sure if I were to sell my collection right now, I could only get parts of the Power Nine, let alone a consistent, powerful Vintage deck. If someone is going to shell out hundreds of dollars for a deck, let them. I'll keep showing up with my decidedly non-expensive Goblins deck that does just as well as the $400 Standard BG Elves decks.

Back on topic I think that that the point fatguy is trying to make is that casual players don't SPEND money, because they don't WANT to spend money. Some people like tournament atmosphere. Kitchen-table players don't necessarily want to play the game by the proper rules, or don't want not play with all their cards (maybe someone should show them pre-banning Ravager Affinity), or think that all tournament players are rich snobby assholes because they don't want to take the time to try and beat the tournament players.

It's odd to target the casual players with tournament marketing because willfully casual players are NOT tournament players. That's the point.

HOWEVER, it does make sense that Wizards would try to entice them into tournament play, because they know that we actually ARE the ones that spend the most money playing the game. By turning the people that buy a Fat Pack into the people that buy two boxes, you increase your profits by a factor of 3 or 4, I'm sure.

Finally, I'd like to note that I'm not trying to flame anyone here, but I keep getting annoyed with people hijacking threads into something entirely different.

[MagicRage]

It's odd to target the casual players with tournament marketing because willfully casual players are NOT tournament players. That's the point.

I'm glad someone else understands this.

[kcolloran]

Yes there are players who have no interest in any kind of organized play and they're hard to target with certain kinds of formats. But to say that a casual player is a casual player because they're unwilling to spend money is wrong. Just because someone enjoys a certain type of game doesn't mean they're untargetable as a class of magic players. As an example I'll use myself. I like two kinds of magic: limited and uber-casual. On the limited side I am a tournament player. I play regularly in FNM drafts, go to all the prereleases and hit up other regional limited tournaments and would even play in PTQs if I had the chance. So with limited I do put money in the game. But since I don't like netdecking and testing to perfectly tune my deck and play the same deck and matchups over and over and over again. So I avoid constructed events for the most part, but if there was a way for me to play in organized events that played more like casual games than I would definitely be interested. And as I'm willing to buy singles for my cube, I'd also be willing to spend money to get the kind of Johnny-deck I like. So it's not a question about the type of games you play.

What it really comes down to is your mindset. This union should be for people who care about having a vibrant organized play scene, with a focus on the pro tour. Just because I enjoy different things about magic than others do doesn't mean we can't come to an agreement about what's best for the majority of players going forward.

[mercenarybdu]

Or: Standard is a gateway to Extended, which leads to Legacy, which, considering the scratch involved to get competitive, can lead to Vintage.

The cards I buy for Standard right now are legal in Extended until something like 2014. The cards I bought last year are legal in Extended until 2011 or so. The Kamigawa and Mirrodin stuff I've been buying are the same way. Compare that to the 80 bucks I shelled out for Polluted Deltas last month to play Dredge at a PTQ one time. I think it just goes without saying that Magic itself is an expensive hobby, and professionally has a very high entry threshold and extremely low EV compared to "real life".

As far as Standard being a "Power Buyer's Format" I'd like to mention the literally dozens of homebrew, cheap, cheap decks that you can see at FNM. I've seen mono-green Treefolk lately, and I myself built many "low-budget" decks during Rav/TSP/9ED Standard.

A high rotation rate does not necessarily make a format more costly. I'm pretty sure if I were to sell my collection right now, I could only get parts of the Power Nine, let alone a consistent, powerful Vintage deck. If someone is going to shell out hundreds of dollars for a deck, let them. I'll keep showing up with my decidedly non-expensive Goblins deck that does just as well as the $400 Standard BG Elves decks.
......

I've exploited formats to the bone and am always cautious about how much I actually spend in total. Casual player do the same as they vary from person to person in spending habits, and never in my entire study have I found a single budget deck take a large title before other than U/G Madness (Legacy only), any variation of a red sligh deck (I've discovered in all formats), up to Raffinity (which every 8/10 would be Extended Players play, ironicly one of them happens to be the Card Proffessor).


The casual player is like the Eternal player when it comes to spending habits most of the time. They buy only x and y amount with whatever z they have on them.

x = the amount of packs or sealed product (which is obvious for them to buy at any given location of the globe whether in a retailer or local shop)
y = singles (if they are in a card shop)
z = money/funding they have on them

If they are in a card shop they are going to look at the singles and pick out what they like without ever thinking of whether they could have gotten it at the better price some place else. Of course they'll buy a few packs from mainly the latest Block but in a card or collectibles shop they are sometimes going to risk it and go for the most expensive packs. I know because I've went to over a few shops in Nor Cal and notice this amongst the casual crowd or even people who don't know busted beyond Affinity (when that is a shallow point on the larger scale).

What would attract the casual crowd to play in sanction events are only a few factors. Sealed is one of them as they don't have to deal with a ton of pick orders to build a particular deck if they were to play in a draft. T2 is what drives them away once they have had a taste of how much people have dished out to put together that particular seasonal deck. Extended attracts a good amount of the new majority as they go no further than Mirrodin Block and sometimes Onslaught but it still does something similar besides just the card pool. I noticed that when they ask a "normal" (I mean FNM or PTQ) player what an "eternal format" is all about, every 8/10 delivers either discouraging myths or they don't know what the format is actually about.

Overall the very reason why not too many of the casual crowd come into the fold has to do with a dozen things. The first is the budget, because if it doesn't support it then it's not going to run. The second is awareness; a lot of the casual crowd doesn't know too much about formats, draft picks, the programs available, to even organizations. The Last is the fact that since the gap between FNM/PTQ players are so largely apart with disputes and whatsoever, the casual crowd would rather not get tangled up in the mess than dive right in. All are so absolutely true that it even make an FNM player say "grandpa you're lying, there's no troops at the border!"

[Ragette]

Okay iv read this thread a few times now and im still confused.
did we actually get anything besides answers at KL ??
if so could someone please point it out as i have missed it 4 times now.

[mercenarybdu]

Okay iv read this thread a few times now and im still confused.
did we actually get anything besides answers at KL ??
if so could someone please point it out as i have missed it 4 times now.

-the reasoning why States, Champs, and MSS/JSS was cut.

-why they made all of these drastic changes to the player's club program.

-what they are doing about it in rough times.

-recognizing Levy's organization while not mentioning any word about it on their blog.

....ever since then they made another change to Extended for rotations as it was made to keep the company floating as well as the tourney scene.

[Ragette]

-the reasoning why States, Champs, and MSS/JSS was cut.

-why they made all of these drastic changes to the player's club program.

-what they are doing about it in rough times.

-recognizing Levy's organization while not mentioning any word about it on their blog.

Thanks for this =]
when reading the thread, it seemed like we were only told what they wanted us to hear and that was that =/
but now i can actually see we did get something done =]