Hi there guys. I've got a problem. I wanted to participate in the French regional this year, but was told that I would not be admitted since I am not a French citizen. (The other dates of the regionals in Europe do not work for me at all.)

One question: Are the regionals thought to be international or purely national? At least the categorization of the French event as "regional" (which supposed to be not national I suppose) seems a bit odd.

What do you think about that issue, guys?

Best,

B.

Bearer of the Yellow Sign said:

A good point. If the host has to say who participates and who not, then he or she might exclude an potential rival. Too much freedom on the side of the host can be a real problem.

I'm hosting a Regional Championship here in the US. I have no restrictions on attendance or winning - people from other parts of the US (outside my Region), and from other countries are more than welcome to participate.

But, that is not an official statement from FFG, just my personal approach.

I would suggest contacting the Organized Play department of FFG to get clarification, and perhaps sharing with us the results of that conversation.

Also in last years regional of the Netherlands in Amsterdam, 20% was foreigner. This sounds more impressive then it really was because we had ony 5 participants and 1 of them was german (Ullrich, the organiser of the German nationals this year)

Thank you all for concern. I think one should just not care about nationality and just enjoy the game.

About the French regional: I contacted about 3 weeks ago FFG and told them I feel discriminated, since I was not allowed to take part in the French regional (by the organizer) since I would not be French. They said they are sorry and would mediate between the organizer and me. Since then I did not hear anything from them (even after sending two further messages about this to FFG). The only message I got was from the organizer of the French regional, in which we - after FFG contacted him - reconfirmed what he said earlier, namely that only persons of French nationality are permitted to the French regional (with the further condition that they speak French). He even was so cynical to add that strangers are welcome to the event, provided they are French and speak French.

So far I do not see that this is yet any resolution or solution to this problem. I hope that FFG will still intervene, but I fear that they do not want to deal with it and rather give in the French organizer.

Best,

B.

This is quite wierd.

I am a former French Champion, I am Italian and I cannot speak a complete sentence in French… I am contacting dadajef to get his side of the story, as I was well intentioned to go there this year.

Very strange indeed. I can understand them saying something to the effect of "The tournament will be run using the French language. Failure to understand French is not an excuse for violating any of the tournament rules." That woud be quite reasonable. But to exclude non-French participants, I don't get it…

That's just stupid and protectionist.

Meeting new players and confronting new decks from other meta is always a pleasure and interesting. There isn't any motivation to travel so much for a smaller tournament, making that kind of big tournament practically the only way to do so.

The more player, the better. I don't have to explain that one.

Also, the strictly French community is quite small. Last update I got, there were barely 10 french registered for the event. Even in France, who will travel twice from, let's say, Marseille or Lille to Tours to meet only nine other guys ? Number of participant players can only go down.

In the end, there isn't any reason to refuse foreign people. Unless, of course, you worry about the nationality of the winner and to which countries go the prizes, which aren't good reasons to do so to say the least.

Edge organizer in France took position on the matter : Foreigners are allowed to participate but only a French-speaking Frenchman can be declared winner.

That's bull. So what happens when an Italian gets the first place, a German the second and a French the third ? The Frenchman is celebrated as winner ? Or are all the foreigners unauthorized in the finals but welcome to pay the entry fee ?

I'm really hoping the tournament won't be organized next year by the same people. It's disappointment after disappointment with this one and unworthy of the game.

I wonder what's FFG official position on this.

Sounds like a boycott is the best option. And someone who is fluent in French should go to Cenacle and make the case for a boycott over there.

Edge is the foreign partner who prints the game there. FFG most likely has very limited ability to interfere with how they run their nationals/regionals… I believe the reason for their stance to be two fold, 1. this year winners will be getting a ticket and pass to worlds at FFG headquarters, so it is understanable they don't want to pay to fly someone to represent their country who is not a citizen (or at least resident) of their country. 2. Since not all French people speak English well (or read other languages as well as their own) they want to make sure none of them are disadvantaged or put in a position where they must play in a language environment other than the one they are most comfortable in… of course they are boned when they go to worlds because it is in the US and everyone in the US knows we barely speak English well, a second language is well beyond the vast majority of us (this may be slightly sarcastic, but mostly not).

Hello all, i'm from french forum "Cenacle".

Some guys from edge told us in our forum, their point of view about this restricted issue, and that make sense for me.

I don't have all the clues about this, but according to informations they gave to us, this is the current objective i understood :

"Make a french championship to select the best french player and send him into the next world tournament to be our challenger."

So the winner won't payed anything to access to this world tournament (all the travel and charges will be payed by Edge).

In fact if another country will make a tournament and if i'll win it … i just can't be a good representative for this country in a world tournament.
i probably don't care of this country because it's not mine !
What about an American player win a Japan Championship and if he 's sent as "Japan representative" in a world tournament : that don't make sense for me.

According to the fact we need to select Champions players as representatives of us in a world tournament, I'm thinking the good way should be to make european events for north, south, est and west european countries: this way all europeans players could be the "Champion" of his aera.

Now, the fact is all players want to challenge foreigner, because we'll learn a lot this way, but this isn't the objective of the current french championship as I said.
We need another kind of tournament like a league to challenge each other without restriction.

Sorry for my bad english, I hope most of you will understand this isn't just a nationality problem
.
It should be great if Edge could explain clearly his objectives in this topic

I understand your position on this topic. But it depends on the purpose of the Regional Championship.

In my opinion, the Regional Championship is not represent that region, but rather to have a localized place to hold the tournament, bring competitors to that region, make new friends, and find a champion.

In my case, we are running a Regional Championship for North Eastern USA. If I get players from France and they win the competition, I will have no objection. I will be pleased that someone from France came all the way to Philadelphia to participate in the tournament!

Similarly in the US National Championship at GeCon. Why should non-Americans be prohibited from winning the tournament? Such a ruling would almost guarantee that non-Americans will not play in the Championship.

Currently, with the rules stating that only a Francophone Frenchman can win the tournament is almost like saying that people from Belgium, Italy, and other neighboring and nearby countries should not participate. I think this hurts the feeling of the game and the spirit of the tournament.

"I think this hurts the feeling of the game and the spirit of the tournament."

I'm agree with your opinion and Coc isn't a game with "too many" players like magic, so we need to drag all players as we can to maintain the community, however it was not this objective Edge targeted with the current French Tournament.

In other way it's not just like Edge don't want a foreigner as Champion, because in 2009 an Italian became Champion of France; but they don't want a foreigner as Champion to defend France colors in a world tournament: i can understand this feeling.

For exemple in versus fighting (street fighter 4 ! ) there was tournament in most european's country like Italy, UK, France and only the champion won a place for the world tournament : it was an American player, so no french player hadwin a place in this event to defend our colors :/

We just need more global tournament to avoid thoses kind of problem

Why is it not blowing anyone else's mind that this company is paying to fly their regional champion to the Worlds?

@ KrissS666: Colors? What's the attraction/value of France being represented at the World Championship? Please correct me if I am mistaken, but since the regional tournament (that happens to be occurring) in France is the only regional tournament that is also being treated as a national championship, France will be the only nation represented by a champion at the world championship.

Another issue: The regional tournaments are essentially qualifying tournaments for the world championship. These tournaments should have standard regulations, and the individuals holding these tournaments should not have the latitude to determine who may participate on the basis of factors such as gender, race, nationality, etc. If the person who is organizing the tournament in France wants to discriminate in such ways (so as to select a French champion), then he should hold a separate event that is not a qualifying tournament for the world championship. In other words, if the organizer will not let non-French persons participate in the tournament, then the winner of the tournament should not thereby qualify to participate in the world championship.

HappyDD said:

Why fly someone to Worlds if they don't trust him/her to beat some random guy from abroad beforehand?

This is getting more ludicrously by the minute.

If the french players (which I think most don't want) really want their nice closed environment, with only french guys speaking only french, while playing with their french cards: Allright! If it fits for you, maybe it is even great.

You can even call the winner "French Champion" for all that's worth it.

But this shouldn't be in any way related to the real Worlds Finals. No qualification for anyone.

Obviously 'Edge' is afraid that a non-france resident steals the victory, so they took this quite discriminating route. And some players are even jumping that band-wagon. Congrats…

Reading about this "defend our colors…" really makes me sick.

If you can't stand against any random guy from your european neighbours, who is crazy enough to visit you (your hospitality isn't famous either): What do you want to represent at the World's?

Here Here.

A novel thought, french grow a pair and throw down the challenge and let the better man win! Or, fine let the French host only French for Regional and Worlds can be for everyone NOT French.

Just ridiculous…it's a game people not a citizenship application.

Here Here.

A novel thought, french grow a pair and throw down the challenge and let the better man win! Or, fine let the French host only French for Regional and Worlds can be for everyone NOT French.

Just ridiculous…it's a game people not a citizenship application.

I'd like to remind everyone about the OP:

Bearer of the Yellow Sign said:

It has since been clarified, that everyone (no matter the nationality) is invited to take part in the French Regional and can become the tournament winner, getting all the prices - except the coverage of travel expenses to participate in the World Tournament.

However, the Title 'Champion of France' cannot be won by anyone from abroad, which does make sense (to me at least!).

This leaves the question who should be allowed to fly to the World Championship for free: The Winner of the tournament or the French Champion?

For me, a German player who will participate in the German Regional in Munich, the possiblity doesn't even exist! I don't know if there are any other Regionals where you can win such a ticket, but the German one isn't one of them.

Currently things aren't strictly regulated in the CoC LCG: Basically everyone is free to participate in the World Championship (or any other CoC tournament), title or no, if they're willing to cover the required travel expenses.

On a related note: Restricting participation in competitions/contests to players of a certain nationality isn't that unusual and sometimes actually required for legal reasons. I've seen this particularly often with US events which often exempt everyone but US citizens in order to protect themselves from lawsuits about claims based on foreign laws.

@Bearer of the Yellow Sign :

Could you tell us who is the TO you've contacted ? Apparently, the actual TO from Tours didn't hear from you at all.

He contacted me. I think there has been a misunderstanding between us. As I said on the French forums, foreigners are very welcome and may even win the event and the prizes but the title of "Champion de France" will be given to a French Citizen.

That's a pretty strong misunderstanding that should be sorted out, especially when another Edge employee spoke of defamation.