FFG Organized Play posted some prize pics for the upcoming "Grand Championships" (nationals) and one of the photos was labeled "Top 16 Faction." Speculation is that these are faction-specific prizes for the top player(s) in each faction. (Although I'm not sure they don't mean the top faction lists within the Top 16 . Anyone have any clarity here? EDIT: Someone else posted they think it means the Top 16 for each faction , which is a lot of cards if that's true, but also seems like a possibility.)

What does everyone think? I like the idea of faction-specific prizes. It would be nice if it led to more prizes!

Nah, ffg has always done prizes of fixed variety to encourage you to buy all the factions to get to use all the rewards.

Well, if you only get the card for the faction you're playing in the top 16, they'll have plenty of leftover cards for the prize wall at future System Opens.

This was clarified on Facebook: the top 16 players of each faction, regardless of overall placement, get their faction's card.

I'm in two minds, in principle I like rewarding people for playing what they want and doing well with it, but I'm also heavily against someone potentially being 17th in the overall standings, and getting nothing, but someone 200th in the overall standings gets something, just because they happened to play a different faction.

53 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

This was clarified on Facebook: the top 16 players of each faction, regardless of overall placement, get their faction's card.

I'm in two minds, in principle I like rewarding people for playing what they want and doing well with it, but I'm also heavily against someone potentially being 17th in the overall standings, and getting nothing, but someone 200th in the overall standings gets something, just because they happened to play a different faction.

The person who placed 17th will still get something. They just may not get this card, and even that scenario would require 2.0 to be so broken that the top 17 or so teams are all from the same faction.

This promotes people flying different things. That's something that should be encouraged at big tourneys.

I kind of like that this is creating a new tier for prizes (112 winners if all cards were given out then), but I can see how for lesser-played factions this might literally give everyone the card. Still, it does reward faction loyalty and might make it a little more likely people will play factions they like not just the best list overall.

I think I’d rather see (or maybe in addition) like a plastic version of each of these for the top player of each faction or maybe a faction-specific dice set. This would really raise the stakes on playing the faction you like the most.

Either way, I also like spreading out more prizes for more players for people who might not be able to crack into the top tier. On the flip side, this does create a difficulty for those giving out the prizes to figure out the Top 16 by faction. I’m still a little surprised if that’s the case it wasn’t limited to a smaller number.

15 minutes ago, PhantomFO said:

The person who placed 17th will still get something. They just may not get this card, and even that scenario would require 2.0 to be so broken that the top 17 or so teams are all from the same faction.

This promotes people flying different things. That's something that should be encouraged at big tourneys.

I'd be happy to see it alongside a typical top-x based structure, but I definitely don't want to see it instead.

There's also been no mention that I can see of participation cards which makes (in the uK at least) and already extremely expensive event a lot less attractive.

And there's nothing, yet, to say that if the top 17 are all the same faction, the 17th player will get anything at all. I hope you're right, but I've seen nothing to confirm it yet.

E: I liked the suggestion I saw somewhere, that a better way to do it would be for each player to get a card for their faction, and the top placed player(s) for that faction to get a spot gloss or plastic version.

Does anyone know whether the european championships in August will count as Grand or Continental? Ie, wheter these prizes are available there?

Edit: they will be a continental. I wonder whether any Grand will be close enough for me

I like the idea of it being top 16 regardless of faction, so regardless of how well you do overall you can at least earn something. Should promote some faction diversity. I know I’m now considering just flying FO just to get the card.

I am sure I am in the minority because such is my life but I have to admit, not a fan of those alt art pilot cards. They look too video gamey.

I love the design of the Rebel System Open red squadron ones though. Distinct and elite cool.

They finally come out with usable alt arts for pilots that we actually use, and we can only play for one of them. This makes me sad.

39 minutes ago, Cloaker said:

I am sure I am in the minority because such is my life but I have to admit, not a fan of those alt art pilot cards. They look too video gamey.

I love the design of the Rebel System Open red squadron ones though. Distinct and elite cool.

Apart from Mace, where the background complements the ship image really well, these just look like FFG replaced the ship backgrounds with a bunch of coloured lines, which is pretty uninspiring.

I much preferred the alt-arts in 1.0 which showed images of the actual pilot.

14 hours ago, thespaceinvader said:

I'm in two minds, in principle I like rewarding people for playing what they want and doing well with it, but I'm also heavily against someone potentially being 17th in the overall standings, and getting nothing, but someone 200th in the overall standings gets something, just because they happened to play a different faction.

This could be FFG's initial way to stop netlisting, I am not sure it's a great way, but at least it's a start. If you want to play Rebel Beef or Quad Phantoms, OK, but you will need to be on top of your game to get a card, but if you want to play your favourite Scum ships, you are more of a chance to win a prize.

Are there even 16 Scum players at the bigger tournaments?

More faction prizes announced. There are also regular prizes for Top 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 overall.