Much disappointment. It looks like 1 Flight of 200 on Thursday at 10:00 with Finals on Friday. Big change from last year (2 days of pre-lims with Finals on Saturday.)

Last year I did Thursday and regretted giving up the first day of the convention and found myself wishing I had just taken my chances getting in on Friday. Was hoping this year I would maybe even have a chance to pre-register for the second flight, only for there to not even be one.

Guess you'd better be able to take 2 days off work if you want in. Bummer for anyone that can't.

And they bumped it up to the start hour of the convention to boot, so there isn't even a chance to make a quick hit to the hall before the tournament.

I think I'm sadly a pass this year.

Do you have a link to this?

You have to log into your Gencon account to see the event listing.

I was hoping there would be an small tournament (last year they had an escalation tournament). It looks like just Nationals this year (there are some third party events, like Dogfight and Trenchrun, but I don't think they are run by FFG)

Given the success of the 2-day prelims I'm surprised FFG changed the format.

Fantasy Flight might have requested more space to grant them more space for more players.
Not to mention, they now have more (Star Wars) games to plan for.

Gotta say, I too am a bit disappointed in this format. 200 players on Thursday starting at 10am. Top 16 on Friday, single elimination.

I would have highly preferred a system similar to what they did last year, but with a few tweaks.

1) Two flights of 128 on Thursday and Friday

2) Allow preregister for both days

3) Cut to top 16 from each day for a Saturday Top 32

4) Do NOT allow players from Thursday (that didn't make it) to play on Friday

5) Double elimination on Saturday for Top 32

This would have resulted in 6 Rounds of playing on Thurs/Fri, and then 6 more rounds on Saturday. That way, neither day is overwhelmingly long, you have a reason to keep playing after you lose a second match (haven't run the numbers, but I'm pretty sure 4-2 or even 5-2 will make top 16), and you're not immediately eliminated from the hunt for the trophy if you get matched up with one of the best players in R1 of the elimination.

Edit:

Assuming Win/Loss in every match, at the end of 6 rounds of 200 people, there will be 4 people at 6-0, and 18 people at 5-1. So only 12 of those 18 5-1 people will make the cut. Better not lose a single game!! I also didn't include any regional byes, so presumably 20 or so people will have byes, lending itself even further to the point that only half of the people at 5-1 will make the cut.

Hopefully since they just posted it, they will come back and change it. They changed it last year from having it be qualifiers to determine top 64, and then 6 more rounds to determine top 8, and then double elimination to determine a winner. Well, I guess the only thing they changed was the double elimination part for the top 8.

If it ends up being 7 rounds of prelims though, top 16 is reasonable. Again, ignoring byes, and assuming win/loss in every match, there will be 2 7-0, 11 6-1, and 32 5-2. So in order to guarantee yourself a spot, you have to only lose one game, but it allows an outside chance of going 5-2 and making the final cut!

Gotta say, I too am a bit disappointed in this format. 200 players on Thursday starting at 10am. Top 16 on Friday, single elimination.

I would have highly preferred a system similar to what they did last year, but with a few tweaks.

1) Two flights of 128 on Thursday and Friday

2) Allow preregister for both days

3) Cut to top 16 from each day for a Saturday Top 32

4) Do NOT allow players from Thursday (that didn't make it) to play on Friday

5) Double elimination on Saturday for Top 32

This would have resulted in 6 Rounds of playing on Thurs/Fri, and then 6 more rounds on Saturday. That way, neither day is overwhelmingly long, you have a reason to keep playing after you lose a second match (haven't run the numbers, but I'm pretty sure 4-2 or even 5-2 will make top 16), and you're not immediately eliminated from the hunt for the trophy if you get matched up with one of the best players in R1 of the elimination.

Edit:

Assuming Win/Loss in every match, at the end of 6 rounds of 200 people, there will be 4 people at 6-0, and 18 people at 5-1. So only 12 of those 18 5-1 people will make the cut. Better not lose a single game!! I also didn't include any regional byes, so presumably 20 or so people will have byes, lending itself even further to the point that only half of the people at 5-1 will make the cut.

Hopefully since they just posted it, they will come back and change it. They changed it last year from having it be qualifiers to determine top 64, and then 6 more rounds to determine top 8, and then double elimination to determine a winner. Well, I guess the only thing they changed was the double elimination part for the top 8.

If it ends up being 7 rounds of prelims though, top 16 is reasonable. Again, ignoring byes, and assuming win/loss in every match, there will be 2 7-0, 11 6-1, and 32 5-2. So in order to guarantee yourself a spot, you have to only lose one game, but it allows an outside chance of going 5-2 and making the final cut!

Since last year was 7 rounds for 128 I think it's a safe bet to expect this year will be at least 7 rounds. I'm totally ok with this setup. Prevents the circumstance of last year where the Friday flight was far smaller and much less competitive than Thursday.

As someone coming over from New Zealand for Gencon (not specifically to play X-wing, but a large part if it), this is highly disappointing.

200 with a top 16 is insane. I thought Worlds was a poor format last year with only the top 16 making the cut from each flight of 128 (total 32) (as opposed to 32 at Gencon [total 64]). Why the restrictive cuts, particularly if they are single elims. It's not even worth playing on the second day of you have the chance of being 1 and done.

The cut should aim to be the top 25% of players, and Gencon is looking at close to the top 8%. I am sure there are logistical considerations (the growth of all their games), but this doesn't look like much of a marquee event to me. Looks like they are phoning it in, and putting everything into Worlds instead. But then again if they think this is a sensible format, don't get your hopes up about Worlds either.

Any hope of a change for at least a larger cut?

As a twitch watcher, the more elimination games between well known players, the more fun I have watching.

As someone coming over from New Zealand for Gencon (not specifically to play X-wing, but a large part if it), this is highly disappointing.

200 with a top 16 is insane. I thought Worlds was a poor format last year with only the top 16 making the cut from each flight of 128 (total 32) (as opposed to 32 at Gencon [total 64]). Why the restrictive cuts, particularly if they are single elims. It's not even worth playing on the second day of you have the chance of being 1 and done.

The cut should aim to be the top 25% of players, and Gencon is looking at close to the top 8%. I am sure there are logistical considerations (the growth of all their games), but this doesn't look like much of a marquee event to me. Looks like they are phoning it in, and putting everything into Worlds instead. But then again if they think this is a sensible format, don't get your hopes up about Worlds either.

They almost have to be looking at 7 rounds for Thursday, I think, and hopefully the schedule is in error and the Friday rounds start with 32 players.

Anyway, I agree with you, though I understand the kind of constraints they're trying to accommodate.

There's the ideal format, which in my mind would be something like a prelim event run with 8-player round-robin groups followed by a double-elimination final for the top 2 players from each RR group. Then there's the reasonable format, which to me would be something like 6 rounds of Swiss play on Thursday with the top 32 entering a double-elimination tournament on Friday. And then there's what you get when you're trying to run things in a way that's efficient and straightforward, which is... something like what we have now.

top 32 makes it much less of a crap shoot than top 16. last year's format was kind of a bust IMO. the thursday qualifiers were brutally hard, and the friday ones were simply too easy.

They have to make room for their Armada and Imperial Assault tournaments.

Given round length, Armada is a straight 2-day tourney, while the Imp Assault tourney is Saturday only. I doubt they have the room to run 3 days of xwing tourneys.

Armada is Friday Saturday 100 person tournament.

3 rounds Friday, 1 more Saturday then cut

Well I would hardly consider a 4 round knockout on the Friday a tournament (it takes up 8 tables and will last about 5 hours).

If they only wanted to run a single flight to prevent the strength of qualifying issue they had last year, then run 200 places with top 64 making it to full tournament on the Friday or whatever.

Better yet, expand the pool and give regional winners auto entry into the Friday finals (obviously this doesn't work if it is just a cut).

As it stands the Friday event starts at 10 and should be finished by 3 (short of a massively long untimed final).

Seems Armada is screwing X-wing. There is a new king apparently. I am not seeing any Imperial Assault events scheduled, but maybe I am missing them (seems my search fu was bad, found it now).

Ouch, 200 down to 16 in one day sounds brutal. Unfortunately I'm almost positive I can't make it to Gencon this year, but knowing this, it helps confirm my decision.

Only so much room in that hall. GenCon is getting so huge now its hard for any company to get as much space in the gaming rooms as they want. I think they are heading toward making worlds their "big" event. I could see them having Worlds in a convention center up there in the next few years.

Given the success of the 2-day prelims I'm surprised FFG changed the format.

I would not call last years first flight 125 players, second flight 60 players a success. Both flights moved 32 players into the championship bracket, meaning players who had a loosing record got moved in from day 2 while players who had a winning record were cut on day 1.

Given the success of the 2-day prelims I'm surprised FFG changed the format.

I would not call last years first flight 125 players, second flight 60 players a success. Both flights moved 32 players into the championship bracket, meaning players who had a loosing record got moved in from day 2 while players who had a winning record were cut on day 1.

Of course, and this is a total guess, but my bet is that the split would have been more even if you could have actually registered for Friday in advance last year. Some people probably wanted two chances. Others probably just wanted the guarantee of a spot to play (like me).

200 down to 16 is really rough. We are getting to the point that we might as well just line up randomly and start playing elimination matches right from the start. Even with that, I would have been much happier if it was Fri/Sat like Armada (or more accurately - instead of Armada).

I was hoping for someone else to run a mini-tournament using standard rules, but it turns out no one is doing it.

Top 16 is rough, but at the very least if I do somehow make it all the way at least it won't interfere with the Heroscape Day 1 Championship!

Only so much room in that hall. GenCon is getting so huge now its hard for any company to get as much space in the gaming rooms as they want. I think they are heading toward making worlds their "big" event. I could see them having Worlds in a convention center up there in the next few years.

X-Wing is a flight of 200 on Thursday and Armada a flight of 100 on Friday. This means that even if they plan to use the same space for both, they have at least 100 3x3 (50 3x6) areas of space on both Thursday and Friday. Using these same quantities, they could have just split each flight in half, and had both X-Wing and Armada on Thursday and Friday and require no more space.

More likely it is personnel. Now the people serving as X-Wing TOs are not tied up on Saturday and can do other work, and Armada TOs are not tied up on Thursday and can do other work, perhaps being TOs/support for other events.

Only so much room in that hall. GenCon is getting so huge now its hard for any company to get as much space in the gaming rooms as they want. I think they are heading toward making worlds their "big" event. I could see them having Worlds in a convention center up there in the next few years.

I doubt that this is the issue.

X-Wing is a flight of 200 on Thursday and Armada a flight of 100 on Friday. This means that even if they plan to use the same space for both, they have at least 100 3x3 (50 3x6) areas of space on both Thursday and Friday. Using these same quantities, they could have just split each flight in half, and had both X-Wing and Armada on Thursday and Friday and require no more space.

More likely it is personnel. Now the people serving as X-Wing TOs are not tied up on Saturday and can do other work, and Armada TOs are not tied up on Thursday and can do other work, perhaps being TOs/support for other events.

I might be mistaken, but I believe the regulation play area for Armada is 4' x 3', so they could need the extra space that 200 spaces of X-wing will now provide.

Only so much room in that hall. GenCon is getting so huge now its hard for any company to get as much space in the gaming rooms as they want. I think they are heading toward making worlds their "big" event. I could see them having Worlds in a convention center up there in the next few years.

I doubt that this is the issue.

X-Wing is a flight of 200 on Thursday and Armada a flight of 100 on Friday. This means that even if they plan to use the same space for both, they have at least 100 3x3 (50 3x6) areas of space on both Thursday and Friday. Using these same quantities, they could have just split each flight in half, and had both X-Wing and Armada on Thursday and Friday and require no more space.

More likely it is personnel. Now the people serving as X-Wing TOs are not tied up on Saturday and can do other work, and Armada TOs are not tied up on Thursday and can do other work, perhaps being TOs/support for other events.

I might be mistaken, but I believe the regulation play area for Armada is 4' x 3', so they could need the extra space that 200 spaces of X-wing will now provide.

It is 6x3 by the tournament rules. But I'm certain you are somewhat missing my point. Armada takes twice as large a space, and so suitably, the Armada tournament allows half as many players to register. The 200 x-wing players on Thursday use the same amount of space as 100 Armada players on Friday. 100 3x3 areas for X-Wing is the same as 50 3x6 areas for Armada.

X-Wing takes 100 3x3s on Thursday, Armada 50 3x6 (which is 100 3x3s) on Friday. Instead of doing that, they could use 50 3x3 areas for X-Wing, and 50 3x3 (25 3x6) areas for Armada on both Thursday and Friday. On both days, you still use 100 3x3 areas, exactly as they are now but you now have 2 flights of 100 for X-Wing and 2 Flights of 50 for Armada.

Only so much room in that hall. GenCon is getting so huge now its hard for any company to get as much space in the gaming rooms as they want. I think they are heading toward making worlds their "big" event. I could see them having Worlds in a convention center up there in the next few years.

I doubt that this is the issue.

X-Wing is a flight of 200 on Thursday and Armada a flight of 100 on Friday. This means that even if they plan to use the same space for both, they have at least 100 3x3 (50 3x6) areas of space on both Thursday and Friday. Using these same quantities, they could have just split each flight in half, and had both X-Wing and Armada on Thursday and Friday and require no more space.

More likely it is personnel. Now the people serving as X-Wing TOs are not tied up on Saturday and can do other work, and Armada TOs are not tied up on Thursday and can do other work, perhaps being TOs/support for other events.

I might be mistaken, but I believe the regulation play area for Armada is 4' x 3', so they could need the extra space that 200 spaces of X-wing will now provide.

Armada is 3x6 for 300 points and up

I was hoping for someone else to run a mini-tournament using standard rules, but it turns out no one is doing it.

Me too.

I wonder if we could arrange something on the side?

So, given the info we have now, what's your minimum win/loss record so you can make Top 16? I think you can only lose 1 game, but I'm not sure.