Kelvan, Antigrapist, Theorist and Blair discuss the tournament rule changes, plus their thoughts on the recently spoiled Tie/SF and ARC cards.
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Great episode as always.

A quick update to the listeners on the Worlds reserved seat. We did end up getting an email from Jimmy Le who is an organized play coordinator for Asmodee North America. He informed us that the worlds seat is NOT transferable. This is very unfortunate, I'm not sure what the reason for the decision was. I hope Blair can get his ticket somehow. It just won't be the same event without one of the best players in the world.

Just wanted to throw out my thanks to Blair for the shout out for WetCoast GT regionals. If we didn't play during that one store championship in Bellingham, I probably wouldn't of figured out Kanan/Biggs with tacJammers.

I'm sorry hear, as BMF said above that the worlds entry is not working out. I wish you luck getting that worlds ticket for more representation of great players. I managed to get my nationals entry the following week. I will be representing the west coast at the Canadian regionals in September.

If Blair, who was one win away from making the cut last worlds, and who lost his final game to the eventual runner up, can't get a ticket, then why are we calling this worlds? We might as well call it the "Random group of people of various skill levels and some regional winners who can afford to make the trip" tournament. Seriously though. There needs to be some type of point system to assure top level players get a spot.

If Blair, who was one win away from making the cut last worlds, and who lost his final game to the eventual runner up, can't get a ticket, then why are we calling this worlds? We might as well call it the "Random group of people of various skill levels and some regional winners who can afford to make the trip" tournament. Seriously though. There needs to be some type of point system to assure top level players get a spot.

There are Top 16 players from World's last year that couldn't get a seat this year despite their best attempts.

Summer 2015, Steve Horvath at FFG made a comment in a Team Covenant interview to the effect of "Anyone that really wants to go to Worlds can go to World's this year."

It was very insightful..... that either:

1) They were absolutely clueless at the time

OR

2) He was spouting pure BS that he was hoping would appease the community or mitigate complaints.

To that, I have 5 points.

1) I'm not an idiot. (Applies in either scenario)

2) Neither alternative from 2015 is acceptable.

3) They apparently learned nothing this year.

4) Hopefully 2017 is better.

5) My patience as a customer is limited. Corporate mentality projected from the top down matters to your customers even to those that don't go to Worlds.

#FightingWords

If Blair, who was one win away from making the cut last worlds, and who lost his final game to the eventual runner up, can't get a ticket, then why are we calling this worlds? We might as well call it the "Random group of people of various skill levels and some regional winners who can afford to make the trip" tournament. Seriously though. There needs to be some type of point system to assure top level players get a spot.

I was #20 last year in my first (and so far only) Worlds participation, and I completely skipped on even trying to register this year. It was obvious that it was going to be a disaster and my schedule didn't line up with the registration times.

There are Top 16 players from World's last year that couldn't get a seat this year despite their best attempts.

Summer 2015, Steve Horvath at FFG made a comment in a Team Covenant interview to the effect of "Anyone that really wants to go to Worlds can go to World's this year."

It was very insightful..... that either:

1) They were absolutely clueless at the time

OR

2) He was spouting pure BS that he was hoping would appease the community or mitigate complaints.

To that, I have 5 points.

1) I'm not an idiot. (Applies in either scenario)

2) Neither alternative from 2015 is acceptable.

3) They apparently learned nothing this year.

4) Hopefully 2017 is better.

5) My patience as a customer is limited. Corporate mentality projected from the top down matters to your customers even to those that don't go to Worlds.

#FightingWords

The worst part for me is I'm just sitting on this Vacation time waiting to find out if I should save it or use it.

If Blair, who was one win away from making the cut last worlds, and who lost his final game to the eventual runner up, can't get a ticket, then why are we calling this worlds? We might as well call it the "Random group of people of various skill levels and some regional winners who can afford to make the trip" tournament. Seriously though. There needs to be some type of point system to assure top level players get a spot.

The SW only WC may help a bit but it will not solve the problem if the game keeps growing.

If Blair, who was one win away from making the cut last worlds, and who lost his final game to the eventual runner up, can't get a ticket, then why are we calling this worlds? We might as well call it the "Random group of people of various skill levels and some regional winners who can afford to make the trip" tournament. Seriously though. There needs to be some type of point system to assure top level players get a spot.

FFG has never (at least to date) embraced any kind of point system or qualification system (outside of the small number of reserved spots) and has seemed maintain the philosophy to keep it as open as possible. Overall, I like that philosophy but there certainly have been problems with the execution because of their limited space. It pretty much leaves no one happy. They either need a lot more space or they do need to reserve more spots in th me form of Worlds TopX and Regionals TopX etc... (I don't see them implementing a robust point system any time soon).

The SW only WC may help a bit but it will not solve the problem if the game keeps growing.

If Blair, who was one win away from making the cut last worlds, and who lost his final game to the eventual runner up, can't get a ticket, then why are we calling this worlds? We might as well call it the "Random group of people of various skill levels and some regional winners who can afford to make the trip" tournament. Seriously though. There needs to be some type of point system to assure top level players get a spot.

FFG has never (at least to date) embraced any kind of point system or qualification system (outside of the small number of reserved spots) and has seemed maintain the philosophy to keep it as open as possible. Overall, I like that philosophy but there certainly have been problems with the execution because of their limited space. It pretty much leaves no one happy. They either need a lot more space or they do need to reserve more spots in th me form of Worlds TopX and Regionals TopX etc... (I don't see them implementing a robust point system any time soon).

The SW only WC may help a bit but it will not solve the problem if the game keeps growing.

This is more or less what I say. You either need to make it invite only or make it a larger tournament. What they're doing right now is the worst possible solution to their problem.

In terms of invite-only, I like the idea of everyone who makes top X (most likely 4) at regionals/nationals is guarenteed a seat at worlds, with the remainder of tickets dispersed normally. Completely random dispersion does kind of suck when it leaves out some of the best known players, but there's also players that are equally skilled that we don't know about yet.

Re: Tournament changes. I'm certainly happy to see the loss of mod wins and draws (intentional or otherwise), and though I prefer the idea of initiative over Final Salvo (because it adds an interesting dimension to initiative bids, taking or giving initiative), it will come up so infrequently that I'm fine with the Final Salvo solution.

On timing the final ... happy to see that too. I played in a 3-hour Store Championship final last year (Rebel swarm vs. Soontir Fel) ... I was winning at time on points but lost at the end of three hours (and the last half hour was really, really painful). Maybe had I won I'd be against a time limit.

Worlds Registration ... if they don't expand the venue, then I think the reservation system needs to be revised. I like the idea of it being open so scrubs like me can get a chance to attend and get the experience, even if we're going to be cannon fodder for the X-wing famous. So I'd like to see some expanded reservations for Nationals and Regionals winners/top tables, but still keep a large percentage (at least 50%) of the remaining open slots that would be assigned on a lottery system (assuming the desire to attend is still too great to allow strict reservation).

I got lucky and happened to be on vacation (moving "vacation") during registration this year AND my two year old decided to sleep in that morning so I could afford to sit on my laptop at 6am (west coast time) and furiously hit refresh and re-populate my entry data. So I don't have much to complain about... but that doesn't leave me any less worried. Isn't X-wing the MOST POPULAR miniatures game currently?

-2016 Worlds tickets are already messed up. This is after already missing the mark on venue capacity for 2015. So no lessons were learned (apparently).

-2017 Worlds will be broken up to SW only... but will that cut it? Why have an exclusive tournament that you need to qualify for when you could be smart, change the venue and have a larger tournament?

I suppose my point is: if people are willing to buy tickets and travel, shouldn't every effort be made to accommodate them? Wouldn't that be the healthiest for the growth of the game? I'll probably get ripped apart for this idea, but why NOT have a 5, 6, 700 person tournament? If the game is that popular... shouldn't we celebrate that? At least people that are willing to take time off work and travel could all do that. I feel terrible for those players that hold a way better shot at being the next world champion being denied even the ability to compete.

Maybe I'm just crazy, but I think a crazy big tournament like that would be fun.

Not a lot of Casinos near Skagit county? Woah you really don't get out much. There is only Angels of the Wind Northernlights lets not forget about Tulaliup. You forgot all the reservations that Washington State has.