So over the last few years I've been able to play in Regionals in Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin, as well as GenCon Nationals, and recently Hoth. I enjoy tournaments and that style of play and it's totally cool if you enjoy another style.

I find the tournament scene is getting larger as more players join the game, which is great as I love seeing new lists and strategies from a broad spectrum of players. But the stakes are also getting higher which has changed the tone; and I can see how it turns some off and may discourage new players from joining in or feeling like they don't have a fair shot at the finals. So here's a few constructive thoughts for FFG organized play. I'm trying to keep this positive so please join me with some positive ideas and feedback if you have alternatives.

1. Deepen the prize pool. Usually the top 8 at a tourney of 60+ people get the best loot and the top 16 get a smaller share. For example, the top 8 Regional dice are going for about $200 on ebay. These are relatively high stakes that don't encourage flying casual. I'd like to see the top 16 get the equivalent of the current top 8's prizes, and the current top 16 prizes expanded to the top 32. Furthermore, all players should get the alternative art card. Having random prizes for all players is also cool. I saw a kid win a Raider via a random drawing at his first regional tournament and he was blown away. His record wasn't great, but he was so glad he came, and that is awesome for the community.

2. Determine the cut based on the duration of the tournament (rather than the size) to maximize play potential. X-Wing tournaments take a long time and the big ones often involve travel. If the tournament is one day, then keep it to a top 8 cut as finishing at 3AM is just ludicrous otherwise. If the tournament is two days (i.e. finals on the second day), then make it a top 16 to maximize playing potential. As an even better alternative, allowing everyone with 18 points from the first day to play on the second day and others to play in side events (like Hoth) is also a great idea. We are coming to tournaments to play after all.

3. Ensure that runner-ups to the cut get to play if a finalist drops. This is rare, but it does happen and there should be no byes in the finals. Furthermore, don't hand out any top cut prizes until they actually finish playing (otherwise you can take your prize and drop). This incentivizes having a chance even if you lose two matches and are unlikely to make the cut with the 5-1 and 6-0 players. Don't tell me the odds! :-)

4. Get rid of first round bye prizes along with intentional draws (yep, I know that latter change is likely coming). A game is made for playing, and if you can skip 2 out of 6 games then you aren't playing much and others who are trying don't feel like they have a fair shot. Really good players rise to the top regardless.

As I said, trying to keep it constructive and encourage a diverse gaming community. Please join in if you have other positive suggestions.

Some interesting thoughts here - figured I'd weigh in with my thoughts as well.

1) Deepen the prize pool. I absolutely agree with this. I believe the regional kits cost the stores $160, but I know most stores are charging ~$20/player just to recover their costs. Which is basically saying that running one of these events costs $1500, of which the kit is only 10%. As the events have grown, the rest of the costs have grown as well, but the prize support has not (in some cases it's actually been reduced. 2 years ago at Gencon top 64 got TLs, last year only Top 16 got acrylic stuff). Doubling the prize support would be a welcomed change, even if the cost was passed on to the end user.

2) This I don't agree with. Actually, I don't agree with 2 day regionals in general. But I also would like to see the swiss rounds capped at 6 for regionals (5 for SCs). Unless FFG believes that 2 day events are the way of the future, I believe a tourney structure change is required. For example, a 16 player pod system could be established, with the top 3 advancing onwards after 4 rounds. This would mean for an 80 player tourney, you would have 5 pods of 16 playing 4 rounds, with the top 3 from each pod making the cut, with a 16th player (best 4th place finisher over the 5 pods) as the top overall making the "wild card" seed so to speak. From there you do the top 16 elimination. So you would have 4 pod rounds, plus 4 elimination rounds, for 8 total. For comparison, you normally would have 6 rounds plus 4 elimination for an 80 player tourney.

Cutting two rounds out of today's standard tourney size is great. As the game scales, and next year (or in two years) 160 is the standard, we're looking at 6 rounds of swiss plus top 32. The pod structure yields 10 pods of 16, resulting in 4 rounds + top 32 - still 2 rounds shorter. Scaling above that, you're looking at 240 players, which is now 7 rounds plus 32 (12 total), or 15 pods of 4 rounds, plus top 64 (10 rounds total). So as you can see, no matter how large the tourney, this system pulls 2 rounds out of it (except for fringe border cases). I would argue that it makes it easier to run as well, since you're essentially running multiple 16 player tourneys instead of one 240 player tourney. Heck, you could stagger the start times for the pods a bit and even reduce the time between rounds organizing the next pairings.

But I digress, back to your point of scaling the cut based off of number of days - I think it should be scaled off of the number of people, but I would argue that it should be a larger cut, even if that meant one less round of swiss.

3 - I 100% agree. And I believe FFG does as well. I remember them telling 17th and 18th to show up the second day at Gencon last year just in case there were any no shows.

4 - That's an interesting thought. I agree about getting rid of the ID, I haven't given byes that much thought. I think if the byes are to stay, they need to go back to super byes with a 200MOV. I think I like the bye. I like that you can only win one of them, but the system is not in place to support that right now. Since there's no registration of the bye, there's nothing (besides the rest of the player base knowing who has locally won byes already) enforcing it. It provides something to play towards, especially in the store championships, where the competition to get top 4 is not as fierce.

Good points Khyros on the pod idea and tournament structure. I'm not a fan of 2-day regionals either, but OH, PA, IL and WI surrounding us are using it, probably because of staff fatigue from shoving 6 rds and a top cut in a single day - which is a factor that must be considered.

Pods are worth a shot and it is similar to the Hangar Bay format (which didn't lead to a playoff) at Hoth, with different groups starting and finishing in a staggered sequence.

Where do you see OH saying it's a two day event? That's news to me, it's not listed on their website anywhere.

My unsolicited takes...

1. Agreed. While my local stores add in store credit and product for enhanced prize support, it would be nice for FFG to really support the players with more tangible support. Scrap the "Top 64" participation awards - give one to every player. That's the least they can do. Prizing really needs to scale with players, too. Sure, a Top 16 prize pool works ok for a tournament of 70-80 players, but once you break 100 (San Diego Regionals had about 120 players yesterday), top 16 is a very, very elite group. For elite tournament formats, you need to really support the players who do well.

2. I appreciate the two-day format for major tournaments, given that it really lets players focus on the game, and not solely on managing fatigue. Unless something like the pod system is established, as the game continues to grow (fingers crossed!), tournament sizes will become incredibly unwieldy, turning 6 rounds/top 16 into 6 rounds/top 32, or even 7 rounds/top 32. Spreading out over a couple of days allows both players and staff to catch their breath.

3. ABSOLUTLEY agree. I wouldn't even give out the participation prizes until the final swiss round, myself. If you wanna drop early, that's ok, but you forfeit any participation or door prizes.

4. I think the first-round byes are fair, since they have to be won at the Store Championship level. Since these tournaments are open to anyone that signs up, those who've already proven themselves in the game should be given some preferential treatment. That said, I wouldn't turn them back into a super-bye... that's giving them not just a win, but a perfect win. I think Intentional Draws are something that, as long as draws are worth points, a valid part of the game. That said, perhaps some changes are in order.

As for other suggestions for tournaments in general...

5. Stop penalizing players who battle to a gritty, hard-fought, close win, with a less-valuable modified win... and perhaps start incentivizing players to keep at their games with the introduction of a "Narrow Loss". First off, abolish the modified win - it's now just a win, worth 5 full points. Make a draw worth, say, 2 points instead of one (except for my earlier recommendation that a final-round draw is equal to zero points). But if you lose a match by less than 12 points, almost-but-not-quite making that final kill, you should earn 1 tournament point. This gives winners full credit for winning, and rewards those who BARELY fall short in close matches.

6. Change the rules for the final round of swiss. Perhaps the matches should be un-timed, and must be played to completion, eliminating the intentional draw there altogether. Alternately, perhaps draws in the final round of swiss should be treated as mutual losses. This removes the incentive to just sit out the last round of a tournament - it's just as bad as a loss.

Just delete draws and modified wins completely. Two outcomes: win or lose.

Just delete draws and modified wins completely. Two outcomes: win or lose.

Edited typo.

Another idea might be a worldwide database e.g. each player recieves a unique number that they need to have when they register at a tournament, that have all their tournament results saved. That way the first swiss rounds will be agianst player with similar skill level and I assume it'll even out the playing field a bit.

Then the byes will have lesser effect aswell, when high performing players will get a bye against another high performer.

Should one win against those with better standing one recieves more points than playing against one that is the similar level.

I've given the idea of MOV as the #1 tiebreaker some thought. And I believe we should be able to start looking through tourney results and figure out how much of an impact it would make. At the Ohio regional this past weekend, the following were the placement, points, MOV, and modified placement if MOV was the only determination:

01 26 884 05

02 26 870 07

03 26 862 08

04 25 887 03

05 25 873 06

06 23 841 10

07 23 808 14

08 23 791 17

09 22 813 13

10 21 902 01

11 21 889 02

12 21 886 04

13 21 844 09

14 21 839 11

15 21 800 15

16 21 789 18

17 21 769 19

18 20 814 12

19 20 793 16

20 20 737 20

Note that while I've only shown the top 20 here, no one else has a MOV above 750 to be discussed as in contention for the cut. So what we see is that the order/seeding of the top cut changes quite a bit (which is actually to be expected - those with low MOV wouldn't take the ID, thus they had to win their last round, where as those with high MOV would have taken the ID ensuring they made the cut). The only players who wouldn't have made the cut under the MOV style would have been the 8th and 16th seed. It makes sense to me that the fringe player would be just on the other side if done under a different system, but that 8th seed requires further inspection.

So the 8th seed had 23 points, which would be 4 wins, 1 modified, 1 loss. Dropping him from 8th to 17th seems... well, interesting. But there were two players that had the same results and made the cut, so I guess this would be something to monitor. If most players with 1 modified makes the cut, then I suppose the occasional player who doesn't is okay. Just like the occasional 1 loss player doesn't make the cut.

1. Good thought. Hopefully the challenge coin shield tokens didn't ruin that for everyone...

2. I would rather play a 2 day regional (knowing it is a 2 day in advance) than play a Saturday in a pod and get 4 games in total if something happens. I get that some people want to see how many back to back to back games they can play (and I'm also in favor of reducing the entire structure by up to 2 rounds... that is a good advantage of the pods), but the best thing about the current structure is that I get to play a full set of games up to the cut. I get it, the World Cup method works really well and I like it for TV, but if I'm a player and miss out, I'm going to enjoy tournaments less. Personally, I'm going to usually stick around (because no regional is going to be within a 2 hour drive for me) and be spending the night anyway. Not to mention that if there is a second day, I actually have a chance to get to know some other people at the event, not just the people I meet across the table. For the staff, adding on a Hangar Bay style of event adds a lot of extra work. It does make it more fun if we do go to a pod style system, but what makes those special currently is that they are at the top tier events, not at the Regional level events.

3. I get that people want to leave early, but part of the fun of a tournament is prizes. The current system of handing them out early devalues the last few standing in my opinion. Hand all the prizes out at the end. If you know you cannot be there and want your prizes, pay for postage. Of course, this depends on how the tournament is run. If you are having to do this after a 2 am final, that sucks for everybody. If it is at 6 pm on a Sunday, then people have choices, but you have a chance at a larger crowd for the final matches instead of the ghost town of the final few. Not to mention that the winners would surely appreciate a few other people sticking around to give them a round of applause.

Universal ID: I'm ok with having a Universal / ELO ID system. I think rankings should feed into it, but I don't know that tournaments should incorporate it for the scatter / shotgun start. Even calculating byes into that would make it problematic. As the top players are already going to be facing each other more often at the end of the tournament, starting them off facing each other likely skew the results, unless you use it to seed pods with top players so there is an even dispersal. Tennis does this very well and would be a more fair system. You don't really want to have your best games before lunch the very first day of the tournament. Ideally you want them to rise to the top and face each other in the top tables.

I've given the idea of MOV as the #1 tiebreaker some thought. And I believe we should be able to start looking through tourney results and figure out how much of an impact it would make. At the Ohio regional this past weekend, the following were the placement, points, MOV, and modified placement if MOV was the only determination:

01 26 884 05

02 26 870 07

03 26 862 08

04 25 887 03

05 25 873 06

06 23 841 10

07 23 808 14

08 23 791 17

09 22 813 13

10 21 902 01

11 21 889 02

12 21 886 04

13 21 844 09

14 21 839 11

15 21 800 15

16 21 789 18

17 21 769 19

18 20 814 12

19 20 793 16

20 20 737 20

Note that while I've only shown the top 20 here, no one else has a MOV above 750 to be discussed as in contention for the cut. So what we see is that the order/seeding of the top cut changes quite a bit (which is actually to be expected - those with low MOV wouldn't take the ID, thus they had to win their last round, where as those with high MOV would have taken the ID ensuring they made the cut). The only players who wouldn't have made the cut under the MOV style would have been the 8th and 16th seed. It makes sense to me that the fringe player would be just on the other side if done under a different system, but that 8th seed requires further inspection.

So the 8th seed had 23 points, which would be 4 wins, 1 modified, 1 loss. Dropping him from 8th to 17th seems... well, interesting. But there were two players that had the same results and made the cut, so I guess this would be something to monitor. If most players with 1 modified makes the cut, then I suppose the occasional player who doesn't is okay. Just like the occasional 1 loss player doesn't make the cut.

Thanks Khyros, this is an interesting analysis. I've compared some of the regionals I played in last year using this method and some came in very close, and one came in quite mixed. But I think this could be a bit of an apples to oranges approach because the methodologies value different end results.

For example, the current method values beating your opponent by 12 ship points or more, and the margin above that doesn't matter so much (in most cases) so long as you go 5-1 (e.g. a 250 player, 6 round tournament, with no byes should result in 3 players at 6-0, and 24 players at 5-1, all of whom make the top 32). Furthermore, close matches such as modified wins and a non-intentional draw rarely end up breaking ties for the top cut. Intentional draws near the end of the tournament are also much easier to calculate as you can be quite certain even without discussing it with your opponent.

However, an MOV method would value sheer destruction of your enemy, preferably by as wide a margin as possible. It would also cushion the blow on losses that are very close by keeping up your MOV. Furthermore, choosing an intentional draw would be a much riskier gamble at the end of the tournament, and thus we probably wouldn't even have significant forum debates about intentional draws.

In sum, the results shouldn't exactly mirror the current method and I think that comes down to what the game is intended to value (victory versus destruction - and there can be a significant difference in these). It isn't easy to imagine how this would shake up the meta, but it would be an interesting experiment!

Edit typo.

I'm terms of prize support...

I think an alt art card is good enough for a store kit and maybe store championships. However they should be useful cards like when they did ptl and recon specialist. Having an alt art luke or Vader is cool but doesn't help you play wise.

For regionals I agree at a minimum everyone should get the alt art card. But at the high price of many regionals that's not really enough either.

Acrylic tokens are always a good bet. Cheaper than range rulers or templates which you only need 1 each of. A trio of focus evade and stress or something with the date on the back would be cool. Make everyone's trip worthwhile.

I don't think having a worldwide database of players would really be feasible, since many people might sign up for 1 tournament and then just not play any more, without removing their names. It would also be a massive hassle for whoever controls it, since someone has to keep a record of this, and with all the tournaments going on this would be a big job.

I like the pod system, good idea in general. Short of offering a Hangar Bay event at every tournament, would it be feasible to have a pod-->cut system where if you don't make the cut you're entered into a swiss system or some sort of random pairing? eg. 64 players --> top 16 + 48 other players. There's no ranking for the low matches, so people just play if they want to or watch the top cut.

I'd also add that handing out participation prizes should be done at the end of swiss, not at the end of the final (esp. for smaller tournaments) because not everyone can stay for as long as they want, some people have commitments. Maybe having a participation prize for all at the end of swiss, then a random prize draw after the final to get people to stay on.