So you can now buy your way into a worlds championship tournament

By Ken on Cape, in FFG World Championships

I don't know what you mean by "you can now buy your way in..." The world tournaments have always been a pay to play type of thing. All of the tournaments are. The participation rate would be much lower if they only allowed you to enter if you placed in a regional. People have schedules and conflicts all the time. Opening it to all doesn't make this exclusive, sure, but just about makes it the biggest tournament every year.

To make it to the top 32 or 16 however, you have to do pretty well in the swiss rounds if you want to think of that as winning lower tournaments.

My guess if that FFG is trying to include people who weren't able to buy their ticket the exact minute it went online. I don't like it since I always make sure to be available then, but this is fair to all. Now if what you're saying is that participating, placing, or winning a store championship or regional should grant you extra points in this random drawing, I totally agree. Somebody actively playing in lower tournaments should have priority over some scrub taking up a precious seat.