There were quite a few requests for a special tournament to get ready for Regionals at Madness, and after careful consideration, the announcement can be made:

Due to popular demand, Madness will host a special Regionals Warm-up Tournament on Sunday, July 19th!

Get practice rounds in!

Practice your Regional decks a week early!

Win some money!

Yes, you heard right...place near the top, and you take home cold, hard cash!

Tournament Notes:

During the discussion about the details for the Warm-up, we knew that we needed to make it a single action-packed day, yet not burn everyone out for Regionals the following weekend, so we came up with an solution: shorter rounds! All rounds for the Warm-up tournament will be 45 minutes .

Now, we know that the rounds are going to be fast and furious, and we'll fly through the day really quickly, so there will be a good chance for all players to perform well, because there will be a ton of modified victories. I see a few of the newer players scratching their heads. Allow me to explain.

Now, for those of you new to the Netrunner tournament scene, you will play as both Corp and Runner each match. For each side you play, there is a possibility of up to two Prestige Points for a victory. So if you sweep your opponent, you'll get 4 Prestige Points for the match. But, if you go to time, 'modified victories' come into play. After time is called and one last turn from both players, if you're ahead in Agenda Points, you get one Prestige Point, and thus are awarded a 'modified victory.' If both players are tied after time and the extra turn, they both get one Prestige Point!

So, the reason I bring that up is that, with 45 minute rounds, you probably will find yourself in a situation where there are quite a few modified victories. So be ready!

Tips:

There are some players that will use the truncated rounds to their advantage. Like a player that plays a strong "Glacier" deck, a slow-moving, big, bad, sometimes tough to crack deck. A player that wants to tip the time in their favor will likely want to play Corp first if they win the coin toss. They will eat up a lot of the allotted time, and then when switching sides, if their opponent happens to be playing the same kind of deck, that opponent is less likely to be able to set up their point scoring engine before time runs out.

I'm not saying that slow play will be allowed, because it won't be. I'm simply saying to be prepared for an opponent that will use a slower-playing deck to his or her advantage due to time constraints. This is one of the reasons we decided to shorten the rounds, because the number of predictable modified victories would create a bit of entropy in the match results.

In other words, the shortened time limit will likely become the great equalizer for some of the players new to the tournament scene, and that makes for a more exciting, tighter-played tournament. And we are all about that.

Another detail is that the Warm-up tournament will not be breaking to elimination rounds like the Regionals will. But we will play the suggested number of Swiss rounds, plus one additional Swiss round. This should be more than sufficient to determine a winner and top places.

One last thing that has happened in the past few weeks, is that we've received news that three data packs, A Study in Static, Opening Moves, and Second Thoughts, are sold out to distribution and won't be reprinted until September at the very earliest.

What this means for you, dear player, is that if there is a card from any of the data packs in question, we will allow proxies for the Warm-up tournament! As of now, Regionals will not allow proxies, and that will be the case unless we are specifically told by FFG that proxies would be allowed. But for the Warm-up tournament, go crazy (within the rules, of course)!

Hope you are all as excited to play as we are to host. See you on the 19th, and again on the 24th!

Warmest regards,

Brad Venable

Jinteki Corporation