Certainly reads to me as if the Joust and Melee winners still get to design a card.

Wow, if they did that, it's going to be 7 player created cards per year under this system. I don't know, but something tells me that's an awful lot.

Kennon said:

Wouldn't it be eight, even? GenCon Overall + Joust + Melee, Worlds Overall + Joust + Melee, Stahleck Joust + Melee = 8.

~Nah, then us old-timers can be all crochety and say 'back in the day when they only gave out ONE card...them were the days'. But I am old, and there are wolves after me.

Seriously though, I have at least came off the edge a little. Not much FFG could do here really, although doing nothing seemed okay as well (I was always of the thought that FFG could name Worlds wherever they wanted to...~now that has bit me hasn't it!). I actually like what they are doing, just having a hard time seeing the November 'Worlds' be any more relevant than August. I doubt it made our friends across the sea happy, and it doesn't really fit in with travel availability domestically either - although one more big tourney isn't a bad thing!

The idea behind it is cool though - Regionals/Nationals to Continentals to Worlds. Heck, I think I would have been on-board if they did it in NYC!

rings said:

If the winners of the bigger Nationals do indeed get flown to Worlds on the company's dollar, they will be happy.

If this means MORE opportunities for players to create cards and not less, I think I'm happy about it... it will be interesting to see how the titles are regarded, etc., but 8/year might be quite a bit more than currently, but still fairly exciting/prestigious in my view.

It's interesting that they've just announced Days of Ice and Fire for May this year. I had figured the World Championship was taking the place of that event.

I think Dobbler's pretty much nailed the reasoning for FFG. If they really do fly some champions in, with Minneapolis being a Northwest flight Hub, Minneapolis actually should be easier to get to than Indy.

More tournaments is always better - so that's a plus. Although this works better for me ( I can never make Gencon), I understand how Gencon/summer is much easier for the lackbeards (that'd be you college aged players).

rings said:

Listen to you, Mr Hoity-toity.

~you mean Hot pockets in a vending machine & microwaves don't garner 4 or 5 stars????

LordofBrewtown said:

Technically it's still the SAME number of tournaments. DoIaF replacing LCG Days, GenCon the same, and World's replacing DoIaF. Regionals remains unaffected. As said before, my only complaint is the horrendous timing of the announcement. But the argument that there are "more tournaments" is invalid.

I think we can end this thread by all agreeing to the following. I believe it captures all sentiments in the 6 pages or so from the thread.

1) The timing of the announcement was just bad. FFG should have either given more lead time or announced it effective next year.

2) A dedicated world championship event is good for the environment. It allows more resources to be devoted to running a quality tournament than what a large player at GenCon can afford at the con because so many resources have to go to the con proper with new games, marketing, and demos.

3) If FFG and foreign partners are going to fly international players to the tournament it shows they're starting to take tournament play serious, which is a good thing for the competitive scene.

4) August is easier time for many of us to travel than right before the holidays, and MN is cold in Nov. However, that's the nature of the beast going regions, nationals, then worlds and the game company being based in MN.

LordofBrewtown said:

In its defence, there is a very good liqour store a half of a block away (someone told me), and the sports bar is huge and always has room for 30+ gamers.

HoyaLawya said:

I'm interested to see if there is any compensation for US travelers. While it is obviously not even close to the same cost level as flying in from Europe traveling by car/plane several hours and putting yourself up for a weekend is still a moderate expenditure. Correct me if I'm wrong (and I totally might be), but aren't the European Nationals basically the same as US Regionals? If there is no compensation for people traveling from the other side of the country I'll be a little peeved.

No, the EU nationals are going to be above regionals. Just like GenCon is now becoming a US Nationals event. Also I think that the number of tournaments is staying the say, but the number of champion designed cards IS increasing. So there's that.

Intentionally Anonymous said:

Maybe they'll also fly the overall champ at Nationals at Gencon to Worlds in MN...

Staton said:

Josh, I don't think you understand the different between a country and a continent. The only one that's both is Australia.

I hope they are not forgetting Asia and South America.....both with a lot of players too.

We are in need of a south american tourney (and local stores distribution)!!!

Intentionally Anonymous said:

Well, if you look at the announcement, technically FFG's foreign language printing partners are the ones offering the travel subsidy. Was there some clarification as to whether the the Stahleck champion was getting the same treatment? And if so by who? I could see FFG taking care of the "continental champions" like Stahleck & Gencon. I'm also curious to see if the Chinese partner will do the same. I thought there was comment on a 100+ tournament in China (or several qualifiers that totaled that high?) last year.

It will be interesting to see how many people turn up at World's. At this point they've only mentioned French, German & Spanish champions being sent by their sponsors. I will be curious to see how many other people will be interested in making the trip. I think a break down in prizes (card design) and scoring will make the difference in whether additional people are willing to make the commitment to making an intercontinental trip. If they go with the last several years, we'll probably have 10-12 US regionals (unless they feel like cutting it down to avoid too many byes) and probably 8-10 of those winners will attend. The big question is how many people outside driving-range from MSP will make the trek up to the event. I've seen people from as far as SW Missouri and Detroit make it, but the major metas inside that range are limited to Chicago, Madison, Iowa CIty, Minnesota themselves, and SW MO. Cincinnati gets an honorable mention, as I know they're meta is developing, as well as Oklahoma. How many will we see fly in domestically? A 4-6 from LA, 4-6 from the Bay Area, 4-6 from TN, 4-6 from "The East Coast Bias?" I'll be curious.

Kennon said:

I didn't realize that it was the North American Championships. So I'm guessing the Nationals are going to be regionals, with Stahleck being the EU Championship

Kennon said:

It gets worse: what if I win BOTH the European and N.A. championships? How will that work? I can't help but feel I would get gipped somehow.