I was just reading a thread on Facebook were some people were complaining about "prize snipers" at store championships this season. They defined "prize sniping" as when highly competitive players travel long distances to compete at stores they don't usually go to, including in sparsely population areas, thus making it very difficult or impossible for local players to win prizes.

At first I disregarded this criticism of “prize sniping”. I live in a sparsely populated area, and I personally love meeting players from other towns - especially when they are strong players that I can learn from. Losing to a superior player is the best way to improve your game.

However, I then thought about a store championship I went to this season where virtually all of the players were from pretty far out of town (like 2-3 hours drive away), including my friends and I. Only a single local player turned up, despite that fact than within a 20-30 minute radius there's a reasonably good player base, and I had seen many of these locals at other tournaments earlier in the season. The store owner was quite surprised and disappointed and was pretty sure that the local players didn't bother showing up because they had advanced notice of a large group of strong players coming from a large city >3 hours away.

So… I don’t know… I feel pretty conflicted. On the one hand I think it’s really great to have players traveling between metas, and I personally feel like it’s a privilege to have strong players come from the city to show us yokels how to play. I myself have zero problem with this – I think it’s a good thing. On the other hand though, it’s also true we may be seeing some negative effects of having highly competitive champs from out of town to repeatedly stomp local players in low-level tournaments and getting the prizes. I don’t think this is an isolated incident, because on Facebook I’ve seen complaints about this from people in different regions.

Where you live, have you noticed local players being discouraged by out-of-town competitors? Is “prize sniping” something to worry about? Are there ethical issues with dominant players from large, competitive urban metas traveling to rural areas to vacuum up the acrylics and promo cards? I'm just curious to know what the opinions are on this...

At first I disregarded this criticism of "prize sniping".

You were on the right track. In order to see "prize sniping" as an injustice, you'd first need to presume that the prizes rightfully belong to the local players rather than the out-of-town people. So this reads as sour grapes, to me.

The fact that store championships can draw players from a wide radius is an indicator that the game is healthy and has a lot of appeal, not a bad thing. If someone wants to be able to beat the "strong players... from the city", the only resources required (outside of the initial investment in the game, of course) are time and information. No one has a particular monopoly on either one.

At first I disregarded this criticism of "prize sniping".

You were on the right track. In order to see "prize sniping" as an injustice, you'd first need to presume that the prizes rightfully belong to the local players rather than the out-of-town people. So this reads as sour grapes, to me.

The fact that store championships can draw players from a wide radius is an indicator that the game is healthy and has a lot of appeal, not a bad thing. If someone wants to be able to beat the "strong players... from the city", the only resources required (outside of the initial investment in the game, of course) are time and information. No one has a particular monopoly on either one.

Basically what I was going to say, but in much nicer words.

If I knew a bunch of really competitive people were coming in from out of town, I'd try extra hard to go to the tournament, and expect to have even more fun than I normally would, because it's great to test your skills against higher levels of competition.

under the assumption that prize-snipers beat locals

all the locals would get beat in the SC, and end up playing their local buddies anyway

seems win-win to me (despite loses involved)

It's nice to see new faces and lists in SC, which are by nature more competitive than local tournies so it's nice to see what other people have determined to be effective at higher levels of competition

also "prize-sniping" is a little pointless since the range rulers and stuff are pretty cheap to find (most likely cheaper than transport to out of reach places) and they give out the alt-art cards like candy, at least in my experience. Only had trouble getting happy-han and Tycho.

There's no issue at all as long as everyone flies casual. The moment someone throws around the term "prize sniping", (or the reverse which I guess would be "seal clubbing") it becomes real ugly.

Take this as a challenge for your local game store to ramp up your own gaming so that you can defeat the members of the (friendly) rivals from out of town in the next big tournament. It's like a lot of martial arts movies. Your dojo has been challenged!

At first I disregarded this criticism of "prize sniping".

You were on the right track. In order to see "prize sniping" as an injustice, you'd first need to presume that the prizes rightfully belong to the local players rather than the out-of-town people. So this reads as sour grapes, to me.

The fact that store championships can draw players from a wide radius is an indicator that the game is healthy and has a lot of appeal, not a bad thing. If someone wants to be able to beat the "strong players... from the city", the only resources required (outside of the initial investment in the game, of course) are time and information. No one has a particular monopoly on either one.

The thing you are missing here is that it hurts the store owners running the shops. If a bunch of out of towners come in whenever there are prizes and chase off all the locals, then the store basically wasted its money and time. Shops don't run tournaments out of the kindness of their hearts, they do it for business reasons.

They may lose their local customer base because this happens over and over again. Now if all of you out of towners are buying product while you are there, that is less of an issue, but somehow I doubt it.

At first I disregarded this criticism of "prize sniping".

You were on the right track. In order to see "prize sniping" as an injustice, you'd first need to presume that the prizes rightfully belong to the local players rather than the out-of-town people. So this reads as sour grapes, to me.

The fact that store championships can draw players from a wide radius is an indicator that the game is healthy and has a lot of appeal, not a bad thing. If someone wants to be able to beat the "strong players... from the city", the only resources required (outside of the initial investment in the game, of course) are time and information. No one has a particular monopoly on either one.

The thing you are missing here is that it hurts the store owners running the shops. If a bunch of out of towners come in whenever there are prizes and chase off all the locals, then the store basically wasted its money and time. Shops don't run tournaments out of the kindness of their hearts, they do it for business reasons.

They may lose their local customer base because this happens over and over again. Now if all of you out of towners are buying product while you are there, that is less of an issue, but somehow I doubt it.

If the owner is so worried then he doesn't have to promote the event to anyone but the locals.

At first I disregarded this criticism of "prize sniping".

You were on the right track. In order to see "prize sniping" as an injustice, you'd first need to presume that the prizes rightfully belong to the local players rather than the out-of-town people. So this reads as sour grapes, to me.

The fact that store championships can draw players from a wide radius is an indicator that the game is healthy and has a lot of appeal, not a bad thing. If someone wants to be able to beat the "strong players... from the city", the only resources required (outside of the initial investment in the game, of course) are time and information. No one has a particular monopoly on either one.

The thing you are missing here is that it hurts the store owners running the shops. If a bunch of out of towners come in whenever there are prizes and chase off all the locals, then the store basically wasted its money and time. Shops don't run tournaments out of the kindness of their hearts, they do it for business reasons.

They may lose their local customer base because this happens over and over again. Now if all of you out of towners are buying product while you are there, that is less of an issue, but somehow I doubt it.

If the owner is so worried then he doesn't have to promote the event to anyone but the locals.

Is that an option? I thought they had to declare any official tournaments. If not, my bad.

At first I disregarded this criticism of "prize sniping".

...If someone wants to be able to beat the "strong players... from the city", the only resources required (outside of the initial investment in the game, of course) are time and information. No one has a particular monopoly on either one.

Why would the out-of-town players assume that they had an advantage over the locals? A lot of the fun in traveling for X-wing is playing against new players. At our last store championship, we had a player that flew in to play; he placed at Worlds last year, and it was great to have him elevate the level of competition.

Related: If anyone from Austin is reading this, you stole our regional, and we're calling you out! See you in a month!

I read this as very the locals are xenophobic. I could see their complaint if they played and get beaten badly. But to not "defend your store" in a tourney seems very poor taste.

... pretty sure that the local players didn't bother showing up because they had advanced notice of a large group of strong players coming from a large city >3 hours away.

Pretty sure? Your group just magically knew that an angry mob of unbeatable demon players were headed to town so they stayed home? I mean you or your store being "pretty sure" means nothing. Unless you've gotten confirmation from each individual that they were afraid of new players, then you don't know that is WHY they stayed home.

And even so... it's not "sniping" prizes when nobody challenges them. Tournaments are meant for competition.

And the biggest thing: FFG doesn't award EVERY store a championship kit. They try to space them out. The entire idea is for as many players as possible to have at least 1 store that they can get to. I'm in Orlando, and people drive from all over Florida to attend Store Championships here - not to snipe prizes, but because there aren't Store Championships in their towns. What do you expect people to do?

Sounds like you want good players to be forced to stay home unless they live within 5 miles of a Store Championship.

I was sort of on the 'sniper' end of this with Netrunner this season. Myself and two other guys from the store I regularly play at ended up showing up, separately, at the St. Petersburg Store Championship, which itself only had 5 local show, for a total of 8 players. Myself and the two others from my regular store ended up sweeping 1st, 2nd and 3rd, so only one local player got a store champ play mat. Felt kinda bad about it as they were all self admitted newer players, but it's not as though we planned to show up and stomp people; we were looking to play some games. And honestly I was expecting a bigger turn out, with St. Pete being so close to Tampa, where we've had players come from for our tournaments before, especially after we had 22 for our local SC.

That said, I don't really have a problem with it. Yeah, it's a 'Store' Championship, but not every store/area gets one, and not every out-of-towner is showing up at this store for the first time ever just because they're after prizes, it may be the closest place they have to play. With that in mind, even if this is an issue, what do you do about it? Just saying people from out of town can't play doesn't work because you're possibly denying people entry to the only event that can do, and the honor system for 'did you already play in one locally' is impractical. Besides all that, if FFG really did have a problem with it they likely wouldn't have a ruling in place for handling someone who already has a Regionals Bye winning another.

And, for the record, I did buy some 40k models while I was there, and it's the site of X-wing Regionals this year, so I'll be back again for that and paying for entry.

I regularly travel 1-2 hours to play in tournaments. There are occasionally tournaments in my local area, but the closest store that has regular tournaments is 1.5 hours away. Now, when there are local tourneys, I definitely show up to support the local scene, but if there is a tourney a reasonable distance, I want to go play some competitive X-wing. I did win a few of these tournaments, but I don't feel like a "prize sniper" because I went to play X-wing, the prizes were just a great bonus.

If I knew that there were upper-tier players coming in to a local event, I would be even more pumped to try and defend my store, and pit myself against the best players. That is the bet way to improve your game!

I travel great distances to snipe prizes and exert my dominance as the Alpha-X-Wing player in a 500 mile radius. I want the locals to know that I am the endgame they will never be able to beat and that their entry fee belongs to me in the form of the local store's store credit that I won't spend until a new release comes out so I can come back months later and snipe the stock for that release from the locals too. I also enjoy seeing the disdain and crushed hopes and dreams of local players when my entourage comes with me to school them in their favorite Star Wars miniatures game. They need to know that there ain't no room for the weak in this meta. If you can't beat Decimator/Soontir or BBBBZ then maybe they should rethink their game to win their local prizes or just go play Attack Wing instead.

I read this as very the locals are xenophobic. I could see their complaint if they played and get beaten badly. But to not "defend your store" in a tourney seems very poor taste.

Seriously. Where was the sense of hometown pride? How could so many of the local players have declined to defend their turf against these dirty carpet(dice)baggers?

I was the only one from our local league to make the Top 4 cutoff at our store championship, and it is to my everlasting shame that I could not bring home the title. Next year, I shall have to avenge my dishonor.

Unless you have a group that's win at all costs and so thoroughly dominating the area that its demoralizing people than I don't see a problem. Theres usually an entry fee for the tourney so if out of towners show up the store makes more. I've made some fantastic friends in the process as well.

If the owner is so worried then he doesn't have to promote the event to anyone but the locals.

Is that an option? I thought they had to declare any official tournaments. If not, my bad.

Not tough to get around that. Limit numbers, "due to space," and require registration. Open registration to in-store sign-ups two weeks or so before advertising on the social media of your choice. Requirements met, tornement kept closed for the benefit of your regulars (and the wider X-Wing community damaged, but who cares as long as the LGS is ok, right?). FFG really need to start supporting clubs over shops with a vested interest in keeping their regulars happy.

I think it can be an issue for stores that have a "Flay Casual" sense of gaming. Maybe they don't want to fly with all the Phantoms and big, turreted ships. They don't play that way in their local meta. They play in a quiet corner of the world and are happy about it. As soon as some big-wigs with their super efficient lists that crush everyone, I can see resentment. I'm not saying I'm on board with them, but the guys at the local shop each week tend to play to have fun. Half of them won't even attend tournaments as they just don't want to deal with getting beat all the time. It's not that they aren't bad players, but they just don't want to fly the super efficient lists that have the advantage in a timed tournament. So, I can see these guys who play at their local shop want to have a tournament with a chance to win the special prizes without resorting to building "one of those lists".

Yeah, it's an official event and anyone can go. It's competitive and there are prizes on the line. Sometimes those are the types of events that gamers don't like, though, unless it's just the regular guys playing a regular game for a chance to win neat prizes. I've known plenty of gamers that just won't go to tournaments as they just don't like the competitive people that go to them. I'm trying to get some local guys to go to Regionals, but no one wants to bother as they won't have fun.

I am a "prize sniper"

That is, I happen to do well on average and I don't mind travelling to out of the way places - as my normal work schedule encourages it.

That I also get to meet super cool people that share my interests, and play fun games (for everyone) of X-Wing with - as well as meet new and interesting lists - is just an added bonus.

Are there people out there that purposely look for small events to go and try to win at just because it is easy? I think those guys can be called prize snipers.

I think it can be an issue for stores that have a "Flay Casual" sense of gaming. Maybe they don't want to fly with all the Phantoms and big, turreted ships. They don't play that way in their local meta. They play in a quiet corner of the world and are happy about it. As soon as some big-wigs with their super efficient lists that crush everyone, I can see resentment. I'm not saying I'm on board with them, but the guys at the local shop each week tend to play to have fun. Half of them won't even attend tournaments as they just don't want to deal with getting beat all the time. It's not that they aren't bad players, but they just don't want to fly the super efficient lists that have the advantage in a timed tournament. So, I can see these guys who play at their local shop want to have a tournament with a chance to win the special prizes without resorting to building "one of those lists".

Yeah, it's an official event and anyone can go. It's competitive and there are prizes on the line. Sometimes those are the types of events that gamers don't like, though, unless it's just the regular guys playing a regular game for a chance to win neat prizes. I've known plenty of gamers that just won't go to tournaments as they just don't like the competitive people that go to them. I'm trying to get some local guys to go to Regionals, but no one wants to bother as they won't have fun.

Pretty sad that they can't have fun playing x wing and think so little of themselves and there ability. Tournaments are fun and people go there to have fun. Yeah some people have fun winning, some people have fun flying certain ships and lists. If people think they won't fun I argue they're more worried about losing than having fun...

It's not that they don't have fun playing X-wing or don't think much of their ability. They don't like playing the other people that tend to go to tournaments with prize support (especially if they travel over 2 hours). They tend to be people who play with power lists and some can be rude. Why bother paying for an event playing lists they don't want to fly against with the possibility that your opponent is a jerk?

The jerk players are less of a case with X-wing, but there are other game systems where this is definitely the case.

If the owner is so worried then he doesn't have to promote the event to anyone but the locals.

Is that an option? I thought they had to declare any official tournaments. If not, my bad.

Not tough to get around that. Limit numbers, "due to space," and require registration. Open registration to in-store sign-ups two weeks or so before advertising on the social media of your choice. Requirements met, tornement kept closed for the benefit of your regulars (and the wider X-Wing community damaged, but who cares as long as the LGS is ok, right?). FFG really need to start supporting clubs over shops with a vested interest in keeping their regulars happy.

I think you are missing the fact that FFG has a vested interest in keeping the shops happy. FFG is a business, LGS are businesses. Of course they want to make sure they are making money off of these things.

I understand that some people feel it is their 'right' to buy their figures from online stores cheap then go around to shops that are providing space to play for their customers and demand that they get to have the same level of service provided to them, including spending money on prize support that will end up not providing any profit to the store. It does seem a little selfish though.

You were on the right track. In order to see "prize sniping" as an injustice, you'd first need to presume that the prizes rightfully belong to the local players rather than the out-of-town people. So this reads as sour grapes, to me.

The fact that store championships can draw players from a wide radius is an indicator that the game is healthy and has a lot of appeal, not a bad thing. If someone wants to be able to beat the "strong players... from the city", the only resources required (outside of the initial investment in the game, of course) are time and information. No one has a particular monopoly on either one.

The thing you are missing here is that it hurts the store owners running the shops...

First, I don't think this is a legitimate concern. If tournaments are popular and profitable for the store, they're popular and profitable regardless of the makeup of the competitors. If local playersget demoralized and stop attending tournaments, then the tournaments will be less popular and profitable than club or league nights, and store owners can make their decisions accordingly.

Second, even if it were a legitimate concern, there are lots of ways to mitigate the problem. In addition to the solutions Major Tom suggests, there's a pretty straightforward way to "tax" people coming in from out of town:

(1) Charge an entry fee.

(2) Offer a waiver for the entry fee as a participation prize on club/league night. (That is, everybody who plays at least N times during the league season gets a pass on the $20 entry fee.)

Tah-dah! You've incentivized participation in the stuff that really earns you money, plus earned more money on the people attracted by the tournament you're running.

...If someone wants to be able to beat the "strong players... from the city", the only resources required (outside of the initial investment in the game, of course) are time and information. No one has a particular monopoly on either one.

Why would the out-of-town players assume that they had an advantage over the locals?

They shouldn't! But that advantage seems like one of the assumptions underlying the OP.