As someone who played in all three W:I tournaments at Gencon, I thought I would give everyone a place to talk about prize support and try to stop that conversation from taking place in every other active thread on these boards.

In the future, it'd be better if we limit arguing about prize support to this thread.

So, here was the prize breakdown at Gencon for W:I by event.

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Friday: 3 v 3 Teams event. Event cost: $18 per team. Total teams: 4. Event Length: 4 hours

Prize Support: Each team received a 'faction pin" (a molded button). The members of the top team received a plaque. Faction pins were assigned to teams starting with the worst record (because they wanted to leave before the event was over) so that the winning team got the factions that were left.

Saturday: Worlds. Event Cost $6. Total Players: 40 Event Length: 12 hours (less if you didn't make top 4 as top four was asked to wait for the finals to finish).

Prize Support: Top 8 received Wooden Damage/Power Counters and a play mat (core set art or 1st big box art). Top 4 received a plaque and an uncut sheet. 1st place received a nicer plaque and an engraved "World Champion" wooden capital board holder.

Unofficial Prize Support: a foil card from the dead game Warcry. FFG did not had these out, these came from a player.

Sunday: Draft. Event Cost: $4. Total Players: 10. Event Length: 4 hours (less if you didn't make top 4).

Prize Support: As part of drafting from the core set players received 1/2 of the core set, either the Destruction or the Order half. The top 4 players received Wooden Damage/Power tokens. The top 2 players received plaques and play mats.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

My opinion of the prize support as someone who played in all 3 events is that it was lacking in most cases. The reason I feel like I can say this is that these events took place at Gencon and not at someone's local store.

At Gencon the average person is spending $20+ a day on their badge, $20+ a day on food (convention prices are crazy), $40-$120+ a day on hotel just to be there. When they play in an event they are also giving up the opportunity to do something else (which can be anything at Gencon). When someone spends all day playing in a tournament they are basically spending all of the money for that day on the game. So for instance, if I had not played in Worlds (which I did from 10am to about 10pm) I could have skipped Gencon for that day and saved about $100. In other words, I spent about $100 to play in Worlds.

FFG should have given out more prizes in order to show respect to their player's time and money.

I think that handing out some product like some core sets or something in addition to the prizes given would have been a great step. They don't require printing anything fancy like foils. They don't require commissioning art like alt. art cards. FFG should have a bunch of product sitting around (I know I saw about 50 core sets worth of decks at the draft), why not hand it out. Assume that everyone playing in Worlds has 3x everything and you aren't losing sales by giving them stuff. Instead, you're cutting proxies from their decks. You raise value of the prizes by $30 a player and everyone feels like they got their money/time's worth.

On the other hand though, with this being an LCG, product may not really do anything to help. Myself, for instance, since I have a playset of everything extra product would be completely worthless. I would not even crack the boxes open since I prefer not having extra copies of the cards clogging up my boxes, and probably would not be able to resell it.

The design a card reward for World is really the best prize support I can think of. Only FFG really ends up doing this consistently with their games. With other CCGs, the ability to design a card is rare if best, even for the biggest tournaments. Plaques, capital board holders, alt resource tokens, and such all seem like perfectly fine to me for prize support. Maybe if attendance gets higher they could offer a cash voucher to their booth at Gencon, and I would love to see some laser etched marble capitol boards similar to the old laser etched marble L5R Strongholds, but otherwise at least from my point of view what they ended up giving out as Prize support seems fine to me.

I don't quite agree with Z on this. I would have loved more product of the game since the Core Set leaves you hurting for some particular cards.

I played in the Worlds and the Draft and I was stunned by the prize support available at these events. Not just the prizes, but the low key nature of the events in comparison to the amazing work FFG was doing on the convention floor, which was the biggest and best display of gaming I have ever seen at any convention!

First, there seemed to be no understanding of what prizes were available for each tournament, something that should have been sorted out beforehand and announced to the players. That would stop any awkward questions later on. I asked at the desk if there were any prizes for those outside the top 8 and I was told, and I quote, 'we haven't found any yet...'. This is sub-optimal.

Second, the prizes should have been proportional or better to those given out for regionals. In our regional in Sheffield (UK) the top 16 of 22 got wooden power tokens. There was an art print, a banner, a trophy, playmats. Palpable stuff to be had. This should have been the baseline for a tournament with the prestige of the Worlds.

Thirdly, if that Warcry promo was an unofficial participation prize by a player then it was awfully nice of them but someone from FFG should have politely stepped in and said something. I left the tournament under the impression that my participation prize for the Worlds was a dead promo for a dead unrelated game. It became, in effect, a running joke for the rest of the con. A P.R. nightmare for FFG.

Finally, the draft was a bit of a double-edged sword. Sure, $4 for half-a-box of product was an absolute bargain, but it was a draft and well, of course you keep your cards in a draft. Thats a given. It isn't a prize. Its part of the draft! I believe there may have been some pins available as well, but I never got offered one... so I got a league token. By this time, I was past caring.

The problem isn't one of value, its one of perceived interest. I noticed in one of the games on the FFG videos everyone who played a certain faction in a game across the convention got a limited edition mini if they won out. Thats the sort of thing that could be done here. The CCG world may not be the burgeoning cash cow that it was before but the games with a bit of longevity behind them seem to have decent prize support available. A game without decent prize support sends out the wrong signals and doesn't create product champions amongst the players. We should be returning from the worlds talking about the great people we played against (there were many - a tournament with zero asshats is a wonder to behold) or the great new cards we had the pleasure to play with (March of the Damned is a fine, fine product) but instead, its prize support.

I'm sympathetic to the fact that for a LCG, the tried and tested promo cards are not available as an option. However, there are many other things that could be done:

- Someone suggested faction specific playmats. Very cool.
- Special art capital boards
- Wooden or engraved capital boards
- Alternate art/ Full Card art of popular or iconic cards
- T-shirts (hey, the simple things are sometimes the best)
- A wee-little banner you could stand next to your deck to show your undying alliegence to Order/Chaos
- Store credit at the convention store!

... I'm sure you wonderful, creative people can think of many others.

Now I've said my piece, I think there is something else that needs to be said. What has passed, has passed. I am sure that the powers-that-be at FFG will have read all of these comments and will have a good hard think about what to do next time. That is, in fact, all we can expect them to do. Remember that its not greed that drives us to make these comments - if we wanted to make big money playing cards I can think of a number of other avenues that might be a tad more lucrative - its the love of the game and thats a good thing.

I've been involved in running large tournaments - UK Nationals, European Championships and World Championships - for a number of CCGs and each and every one of them has had teething problems with its organised play, especially with respect to the premier tournaments. What happens next, in response to our feedback. thats the important thing.

Stay slinky

Neil

FFG has a great thing in stock: other games. They could give away much games. That woudl cost them less and players could sell/trade better.

I am wondering why there is an entry fee at all. It is promotion for the game after all, you wont make the dell with 4 teams paying 20€. Get 20 teams playing for free promoting the game.

Gencon requires certain entry amounts based on how long the game is expected to run. The League event was slated to be run at 10. They managed, for worse or better, to intentionally lower that to 6. After many, many, many people came with 10 dollars for the League, and the three other teams for warhammer showed with 6 per member, and there were some grumbles concerning the refund policy for generics that were being given back (not sure how they managed to have enough generics for that move), perhaps it left teams at 6 per player, which perhaps what Gencon policy was about.

I had no info on much. My job was to push buttons on the computer, watch their stuff while the staff took breaks, and help police time (and also to go demo for a few hours during worlds to my dismay). Sorry that that is all I can report on...

wait we were supposed to talk about prizes on thsi thread... I agree, that a bit more prize support needs created in quantity and variety. Cards are right out (alt art so sayeth an unofficial reporter), but more tokens, more variety of them, and actually I suppose other games for top places might be of interest... though that's getting close to 'play for money'.

Sorry for my lackluster information. If i were an employee I'd probably know more... actually if I were an employee I probably wouldn't be posting anything so soon. Sure they need to set a committee to analyze this situation or whatever it is they do!

Eh we need ONE major thing to happen though, before we can talk about this imo. We need more support from more people around the USA. 40 people at a worlds is kinda bad imo. Thats just it, Its just starting out. were on cycle 2 right? and only 2 (soon to be 3) packs into it.

FFG has some options to look at:

extended art cards / new art cards ( i know they are set agenst this, but its a good idea, and its cheap.. they could plan out every card for a 4 championships, run the printing, and save a bit, if thought ahead of time)

Holos

new faction board art

Custom cards (like they do in call, something MADE by the world champ, i would do worlds just for a shot at that >.>)

Custom art sleeves / deck box

Championship Mats, ect ect.

I just had my first week of our 2nd league and im already +26 points, our next closets person is like 10, so if everything goes as planned. I'll have my season 2 mat. Something that only the champ would get would be great imo. Anyways they have tons of stuff they COULD do, but they need a reason to do it.. aka they need to know that holding these events will pull in extra players.

"Custom cards (like they do in call, something MADE by the world champ, i would do worlds just for a shot at that >.>)"

As far as I understand it, the world champion does get to make a card. The Plaque has a spot for it anyways...

ok thats baller, im sold