So, I was just looking through the Star Wars Canadian X Wing FB group, and one of the stores hosting a regional posted the sheet that came in the regional kit. Reading through it, there are two things that caught my eye.

First off, for all of you that are concerned, your SC bye is treated as a full win, with 200 MoV and a full SoS. Not like it was ever thought to be anything but this, but it's good to have it confirmed.

Secondly, and more importantly, is the following paragraph:

To keep each Regional Championship tournament consistent with all others, please run your tournament with Swiss rounds and a cut in accordance with the chart to the right. All rounds must be at least 75 minutes in length. If you are expecting more than 100 players or are concerned about the length of the tournament, we strongly recommend running the top 8 cut the following day.

FFG has listened to all of ya'll complaining about the 60min time limit, and how it favors large ships that walk away with 1 hull due to time. I've never really found 60min to be a concern (when run correctly - it is a concern when the TO posts the pairings and then immediately starts the timer), but now it's not even an option.

Also, for those that care, the # of rounds and cut is as follows:

<17 4 4

17-32 5 4

33-64 5 8

65+ 6 8

First off, are you allowed to say "ya'll" in Canada? I thought you were only allowed to say that down where it's hot most of the time.

Second, that's great news! I did see that and I'm really happy about it. Even if I don't go to time, maybe I can run to the bathroom or take a moment to relax before the next game.

I do think that it's going to be rough, though, for Regionals. I mean, what time of the day do you have to start to make sure you get all your games in that day?

I'm still confused why so many places were using 60 minutes when that is the minimum according to the tournament rules and not the standard.

This is pretty awesome.

Swarms can make a comeback!

Soontir Fel can play more defensive!

And the day will be longer! Haha. More X WING!!

My store was planning on doing 15 minute set up and 60 minute rounds

Dear God, nine-hour tournaments (optimistically!) before the cut to top 8. At least 13 hours by the time the champion is named.

Bring caffeine, everyone.

*With 65 or more people, of which there will be at least a few.

75 minutes is too long for a big event. Guarantee more than 50% of the games will be finished in an hour, so now all those people who finished get an extra 2 hours of waiting around for a few people to finish their games.

If pairings are announced, tables found, asteroids and deployment completed and then the 60 min round starts there is really no excuse not to finish that game. I've played 17 tourney games of this format and finished every one, and seen maybe 15% go to time on other tables.

If rounds are 75 mins, I hope the organisers say fine, rounds start immediately after the previous finished. Gives you 15 mins to get set up and still have an hour for the actual game. If not, regionals is going to be so gruelling it'll become pretty un-fun.

Edit: for clarity

I'm still confused why so many places were using 60 minutes when that is the minimum according to the tournament rules and not the standard.

Only so many hours in which to complete a tournament especially if you get a big crowd.

Some TO's are shop owners who are hosting their first GSC and aren't the most adept at running a certain software or otherwise unfamiliar with getting X-Wing pairings done quite right.

Lunch breaks can add way more time than people think it will.

A lot of tournaments don't start until noon.

Keeping an event running at a good pace isn't always easy. It usually takes plenty of experience.

75 minutes is ideal but often impractical or impossible to pull off if you don't know what you are doing.

Thanks for the reply. I honestly was confused as to why.

Should just start them at 9am.

Should just start them at 9am.

Yup. If you start at 9, and you figure 90min per round, then your 6 rounds take 9 hours, which is 6pm. You give an hour break in the middle somewhere for lunch, so all except 8 people can leave at 7pm. You give them another hour for dinner, and you start elimination at 8pm. 2.5hrs for the first two matchs (there's practically no down time in between elimination matches) means that the final untimed match starts at 10:30. That's not too bad. It should be done by midnight.

Sure, that seems like a long day, but there were PLENTY of regionals last year going until 2-3am. Part of this was because they were starting at noon instead of in the morning. Part of it was that some were run much more efficiently than others which comes with practice (take a look at Thursday Gencon compared to Fri/Sat Gencon... Thurs had like 30min between rounds while Fri only had 10, and the same people were running it), which everyone running a regional should have by now.

So, with 75min rounds, 90%+ of the people will be done by 7pm. That's not unreasonable. If you have a 4hr drive, you can get there by 9am and you can get home by 11pm. I'd personally recommend getting a place to stay the night before if you're more than 3hrs away, but that's because I don't do well waking up early.

Dear God, nine-hour tournaments (optimistically!) before the cut to top 8. At least 13 hours by the time the champion is named.

Bring caffeine, everyone.

*With 65 or more people, of which there will be at least a few.

I'm really just thinking out loud, but this is how I'd want to see things done if I were in charge of a 100+ person Regional tourney:

• Preregistration is strongly encouraged, with a soft cap of 128; registration at the door will be $10 more expensive than preregistration online or by phone, and will only be accepted if there's room left and time left and the TO crew feels like it.
• Registration and initial pairing runs from 8:30am to 9:15; the first timer starts at 9:30.
• Every round, the 75-minute timer starts as soon as everyone is paired and at the table.
• Breaks between rounds are ideally 10 minutes, but no more than 15.
• The first two rounds are run before lunch.
• Everyone gets a catered lunch break from 12:30-1:30. (Helps make sure everyone's in the store and ready to start the rest of the tournament promptly.) First round of door prizes is drawn here.
• The next two rounds are run from 1:30 to 4:30.
• Everybody gets a 30-minute break for a bathroom break, snacks ("catered" again, meaning I buy four cases of bottled water plus nuts, fruit, and chips from Costco), and the second round of door prizes.
• The last two rounds are run from 5:00 to 8:00pm.
• The top 8, or top 16 if I could talk FFG into some variation from the plan, are run the following day starting at 9:30am. The same rules apply except for the untimed final round; we'd go two rounds, lunch, then two more rounds.

Everybody gets fed regularly, everybody gets a good night's sleep before and after, and nobody working the tourney has to put in an 18-20 hour day. Sounds pretty much perfect to me...!

Should just start them at 9am.

Yup. If you start at 9, and you figure 90min per round, then your 6 rounds take 9 hours, which is 6pm. You give an hour break in the middle somewhere for lunch, so all except 8 people can leave at 7pm. You give them another hour for dinner, and you start elimination at 8pm. 2.5hrs for the first two matchs (there's practically no down time in between elimination matches) means that the final untimed match starts at 10:30. That's not too bad. It should be done by midnight.

Sure, that seems like a long day, but there were PLENTY of regionals last year going until 2-3am. Part of this was because they were starting at noon instead of in the morning. Part of it was that some were run much more efficiently than others which comes with practice (take a look at Thursday Gencon compared to Fri/Sat Gencon... Thurs had like 30min between rounds while Fri only had 10, and the same people were running it), which everyone running a regional should have by now.

So, with 75min rounds, 90%+ of the people will be done by 7pm. That's not unreasonable. If you have a 4hr drive, you can get there by 9am and you can get home by 11pm. I'd personally recommend getting a place to stay the night before if you're more than 3hrs away, but that's because I don't do well waking up early.

I don't think this is a particularly safe assumption. Regionals in Florida this year are at a different location from last year, at a store that's only been open for about a year. They run regular X-wing tournaments regularly from what I gather, but I can't imagine they've run something like Regionals.

I'm still confused why so many places were using 60 minutes when that is the minimum according to the tournament rules and not the standard.

Because that's the minimum, and most rational businesses will do whatever they can to save time and money. There's also nothing in FFG's documents that set a minimum number of rounds for a SC, only a recommended number, hopefully FFG will change that too so we don't see 15 player tournaments with only 3 rounds (not enough) or 28 player tournaments with 5 rounds and a cut to top 8 (too much).

I'm still confused why so many places were using 60 minutes when that is the minimum according to the tournament rules and not the standard.

Because that's the minimum, and most rational businesses will do whatever they can to save time and money. There's also nothing in FFG's documents that set a minimum number of rounds for a SC, only a recommended number, hopefully FFG will change that too so we don't see 15 player tournaments with only 3 rounds (not enough) or 28 player tournaments with 5 rounds and a cut to top 8 (too much).

The store championship documentation came with how many rounds were supposed to be run. Of course any store can always look at that as a recommendation as FFG cannot force them to run that many. Same document came with all the SW LCG kits and every other game.

Part of this was because they were starting at noon instead of in the morning. Part of it was that some were run much more efficiently than others which comes with practice (take a look at Thursday Gencon compared to Fri/Sat Gencon... Thurs had like 30min between rounds while Fri only had 10, and the same people were running it), which everyone running a regional should have by now.

I don't think this is a particularly safe assumption. Regionals in Florida this year are at a different location from last year, at a store that's only been open for about a year. They run regular X-wing tournaments regularly from what I gather, but I can't imagine they've run something like Regionals.

X Wing is no longer a new game. Large tourneys are to be expected. Heck we had a SC with 46 people in it this year. The medium sized events the store *should* have already hosted as a requirement for earning a regional should prepare the store to run a large event successfully. Plus, Swiss pairings are nothing new. I would expect any store large enough to host 128 X wing players is large enough to have run lots of Magic and other events that use a very similar structure (MoV being the difference).

If pairings are announced, tables found, asteroids and deployment completed and then the 60 min round starts there is really no excuse not to finish that game. I've played 17 tourney games of this format and finished every one, and seen maybe 15% go to time on other tables.

This depends entirely on the players present and is outside your control. In the two small Store Championships I went to, both used 75 minute rounds and over half the games went to time. My experience may not be typical, but it is not that uncommon for games to go to time even at 75 minutes - especially if someone is using MoV to their advantage and slow playing (which is technically against the rules but impossible to determine and enforce).

Should just start them at 9am.

Yup. If you start at 9, and you figure 90min per round, then your 6 rounds take 9 hours, which is 6pm. You give an hour break in the middle somewhere for lunch, so all except 8 people can leave at 7pm. You give them another hour for dinner, and you start elimination at 8pm. 2.5hrs for the first two matchs (there's practically no down time in between elimination matches) means that the final untimed match starts at 10:30. That's not too bad. It should be done by midnight.

Sure, that seems like a long day, but there were PLENTY of regionals last year going until 2-3am. Part of this was because they were starting at noon instead of in the morning. Part of it was that some were run much more efficiently than others which comes with practice (take a look at Thursday Gencon compared to Fri/Sat Gencon... Thurs had like 30min between rounds while Fri only had 10, and the same people were running it), which everyone running a regional should have by now.

So, with 75min rounds, 90%+ of the people will be done by 7pm. That's not unreasonable. If you have a 4hr drive, you can get there by 9am and you can get home by 11pm. I'd personally recommend getting a place to stay the night before if you're more than 3hrs away, but that's because I don't do well waking up early.

I don't think this is a particularly safe assumption. Regionals in Florida this year are at a different location from last year, at a store that's only been open for about a year. They run regular X-wing tournaments regularly from what I gather, but I can't imagine they've run something like Regional

X-WING REGIONAL TOURNAMENT – MAY 9, 2015

To speed up the check in process please have your squadron list printed or written out for review.

Event Schedule:

8:00 AM Store opens.

Check-in at the front table when you arrive at the store.

Submit your squadron list for review. You will be given your participation prize and a tray that will be used to hold what you need to play.

You will then be directed to a table to unpack your squadron. All excess bags, backpacks, and storage containers should be returned to your vehicle for the duration of the tournament.

8:45 AM Deadline to Check-In

8:55 AM First round pairings will be announced and tables assigned.

Rounds will be 60 minutes long. There will be 15 minutes for setup.

1:30 PM (approx) Lunch will be provided as part of your event entry after Round 3. There will be a selection of subs and chips.

The lunch break will be brief, so there will not be time for you to leave the shopping center to eat.

2:00 PM (approx) Resume Play

7:00 PM (approx) After Round 6 we will announce the Top 8 and break for dinner.

The Dinner break will be an hour long.

8:00 PM (approx) Top 8 Single Elimination Tournament begins.

This is how Critical HIT Games plans on running the Florida Regional Event

Part of this was because they were starting at noon instead of in the morning. Part of it was that some were run much more efficiently than others which comes with practice (take a look at Thursday Gencon compared to Fri/Sat Gencon... Thurs had like 30min between rounds while Fri only had 10, and the same people were running it), which everyone running a regional should have by now.

I don't think this is a particularly safe assumption. Regionals in Florida this year are at a different location from last year, at a store that's only been open for about a year. They run regular X-wing tournaments regularly from what I gather, but I can't imagine they've run something like Regionals.

X Wing is no longer a new game. Large tourneys are to be expected. Heck we had a SC with 46 people in it this year. The medium sized events the store *should* have already hosted as a requirement for earning a regional should prepare the store to run a large event successfully. Plus, Swiss pairings are nothing new. I would expect any store large enough to host 128 X wing players is large enough to have run lots of Magic and other events that use a very similar structure (MoV being the difference).

I was at the location for a Netrunner Store Championship, their X-wing regionals is capped at 64, and from what I could tell the store looks like it may be able to hold half that number realistically, so I'm not sure how they're planning to manage that number. The largest Orlando area X-wing SC this year was 28, I can't imagine St. Pete did better given it's such a pain to get there. My point being, not everywhere has experience with the kind of numbers a Regionals level event is going to draw.

Though, they are sensibly starting at 9AM, though that means I'm probably getting up at 5... and I guess from the post right above me they've got a plan, so we'll see how it goes.

Part of this was because they were starting at noon instead of in the morning. Part of it was that some were run much more efficiently than others which comes with practice (take a look at Thursday Gencon compared to Fri/Sat Gencon... Thurs had like 30min between rounds while Fri only had 10, and the same people were running it), which everyone running a regional should have by now.

I don't think this is a particularly safe assumption. Regionals in Florida this year are at a different location from last year, at a store that's only been open for about a year. They run regular X-wing tournaments regularly from what I gather, but I can't imagine they've run something like Regionals.

X Wing is no longer a new game. Large tourneys are to be expected. Heck we had a SC with 46 people in it this year. The medium sized events the store *should* have already hosted as a requirement for earning a regional should prepare the store to run a large event successfully. Plus, Swiss pairings are nothing new. I would expect any store large enough to host 128 X wing players is large enough to have run lots of Magic and other events that use a very similar structure (MoV being the difference).

I was at the location for a Netrunner Store Championship, their X-wing regionals is capped at 64, and from what I could tell the store looks like it may be able to hold half that number realistically, so I'm not sure how they're planning to manage that number. The largest Orlando area X-wing SC this year was 28, I can't imagine St. Pete did better given it's such a pain to get there. My point being, not everywhere has experience with the kind of numbers a Regionals level event is going to draw.

Though, they are sensibly starting at 9AM, though that means I'm probably getting up at 5...

They are converting all their plastic tables used for card games into miniatures tables so that all the tables will be a comfortable height to play on and will be removing all the chairs so there will be enough room to host 64 players. The store holds large miniature events on a regular basis.

Should just start them at 9am.

Which would work great but many shops don't open until 10am on a Saturday. In those scenarios you have registration from 10-11.

I'm not disagreeing with you it's just easier said than done.

Should just start them at 9am.

Which would work great but many shops don't open until 10am on a Saturday. In those scenarios you have registration from 10-11.

I'm not disagreeing with you it's just easier said than done.

Stores can always open early for special events

They are converting all their plastic tables used for card games into miniatures tables so that all the tables will be a comfortable height to play on and will be removing all the chairs so there will be enough room to host 64 players. The store holds large miniature events on a regular basis.

Fair enough, that was just the impression I had while I was there. I don't meant to knock the place, it was a nice store, it just seemed, compared to where Regionals were last year, small, but if they think they've got it sorted I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

They are converting all their plastic tables used for card games into miniatures tables so that all the tables will be a comfortable height to play on and will be removing all the chairs so there will be enough room to host 64 players. The store holds large miniature events on a regular basis.

Fair enough, that was just the impression I had while I was there. I don't meant to knock the place, it was a nice store, it just seemed, compared to where Regionals were last year, small, but if they think they've got it sorted I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

I did not take it as you knocking the place, I just play there on a regular basis and know that the store owner has been putting a lot of work into getting the store ready for regional. Part of that has been listening to some of us that went to several different store championships and listening to our suggestions about what we liked and did not like about how some of them were ran. The short tables being one of the complaints we had about some stores, after 8 hours of play it is no fun playing on a table that you have to be hunched over especially when you are used to playing on nice miniatures tables.

They are converting all their plastic tables used for card games into miniatures tables so that all the tables will be a comfortable height to play on and will be removing all the chairs so there will be enough room to host 64 players. The store holds large miniature events on a regular basis.

Fair enough, that was just the impression I had while I was there. I don't meant to knock the place, it was a nice store, it just seemed, compared to where Regionals were last year, small, but if they think they've got it sorted I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

I did not take it as you knocking the place, I just play there on a regular basis and know that the store owner has been putting a lot of work into getting the store ready for regional. Part of that has been listening to some of us that went to several different store championships and listening to our suggestions about what we liked and did not like about how some of them were ran. The short tables being one of the complaints we had about some stores, after 8 hours of play it is no fun playing on a table that you have to be hunched over especially when you are used to playing on nice miniatures tables.

Can I add another suggestion? I really hate it when the tables are the 2.5ft plastic tables that are typically used for card games pushed together, and pushed up against a wall. It makes it too difficult to get around and see anything if it's on your opponents side. I realize the 5' tables are going to be necessary due to the stock on hand, but it also means that you should be able to walk to the side of it in order to see what's going on.