Tournament Advice
General forum
Posted on May 3, 2017, 4:56 p.m. by TMBRLZ
Hey everybody!
If you recognize my name, you've been here a while and may have at one point seen my mentioning I work for an LGS.
Looking for some general input and advice here as we are looking to trade out a tournament with one of our relatively dead nights.
I would like to set up something that caters to newcomers. Our community is pretty seasoned and sobered when it comes to MTG. We don't see a lot of new players anymore, and those we do often feel intimidated by the local meta power level. And as a consequence - Standard is all but dead (WotC's managing of the format though does contribute to that issue as well).
I want to set up a regular tournament or league where we can have an inviting environment for new players. But that's a lot easier said than done cause it can require a fair amount of policing to make sure it remains inviting. Getting them in the door won't be terribly hard. It's keeping them in that proves to be the issue.
Looking for some feedback. Ideas some of you may have or things you have seen that may work.
Appreciate the feedback in advance!
Thanks T/O!
Sounds like a good idea - and I like the 15 dollars in singles thing - would be a good tactic for scrubbing out all our trash cards. However our EDH is already decently supported with two different tournaments on different nights throughout the week.
The secondary goal is to kind of help revitalize Standard locally - since it's typically the easiest entry point for new players to get into constructed play. A limited scope of abilities and evergreen will help prepare them for more diverse and powerful formats like EDH as well.
Appreciate the input. Every little bit helps.
My biggest mental block is how do you put a power cap on a tournament to prevent the MTGTop8 list from showing up and crushing a casual common deck dreams? And do it effectively from a business standpoint.
May 3, 2017 5:47 p.m.
Hello! I don't know how to deal with a shop and all the business behind, but I want to suggest something:
What about doing sealed tournaments on Fridays? You can use new boxes or do it with older expansions. 3 packs for each person, with a slightly less price if they purchase it individually (you just do the math and you're done). My shop do this sometimes, and we all have options of winning.
Also you can expand the idea of doing drafts, I usually do it with my friends ands it's a epic experience.
Hope you find something to do, I just saw 2 shops close in my area, and it's a sad thing.
PD: I'm not English native so sorry for any mistake!
May 3, 2017 6:17 p.m.
TMBRLZ,
Some thoughts, in no particular order ...
- Is there a Magic club at any of your local High Schools or college? Maybe invite them? There's a club that comes to my favorite LGS sometimes, and they're just hilarious. Even the spikiest players get into helping them build decks between rounds.
- Speaking of which, maybe host deck-building sessions? It's insane how much better a total newb's deck can become with 15 minutes and an experienced brewer, plus some commons.
- I liked how Wizards was really pushing the Jank factor of Standard Showdowns last season ... encouraging people to bring whacky brews more than competitive brews. Maybe simple encouragement is enough. Or maybe offer prize packs for not just winning but also for subjective awards. You could also run it like normal, but ban everything on ChannelFireball's Power Rankings for the week?
- Two-Headed Giant is IMO the best way in the world to get new players into Magic. Playing on a team with an experienced partner is just awesome.
- Multiplayer games maybe? They can really nerf the competitive folks, since newbs can gang up on them.
Good luck!!!!
May 3, 2017 7:58 p.m.
Ooh, Clay's banlist idea of the power cards is a good idea. That, or have your own banlist of good cards.
ie: Heart of Kiran, etc
May 3, 2017 8:28 p.m.
Standard Peasant/Pauper/weird-restriction-format-thing-that-doesn't-really-have-a-name
Basically, you have a format where the only cards players can use are commons that are Standard legal. You may also decide to allow uncommons, or have Peasant where you can only have 5 uncommons in your deck. Rares and mythic rares are not allowed. Sideboards are done as usual.
This allows people to build decks from their bulk accumulated from playing Limited or they can build a deck easily for under $20 and still be competitive. If you give out booster packs like a normal tournament or FNM, it helps new players build up their collections on the cheap.
You may need a banlist, but unlikely with a pool consisting of only Standard commons/uncommons. Mostly, just be observant of what decks make top 8 and if they're too similar.
Fatal Push is one reason I'd lean towards going full Pauper with no uncommons allowed. Otherwise, anyone playing black is going to have to dump a lot more money than they'd want to for a full playset of a card already high in demand.
Vehicles are something I'd keep an eye on, because there's still some really powerful ones at lower rarities that could warp the format. Some of the Eldrazi can fit into that category, too, where people just jam the colorless ones into their deck.
May 3, 2017 8:35 p.m.
Hmm... you could hold extreme budget modern tournaments (entire deck costs less than say $50) in order to level the field. I would advise EDH, but A. You already addressed that format and B. The gap when watching competitive EDH vs very new ones is overwhelming
May 3, 2017 8:38 p.m.
I think it would be cool to have a collection of duel decks like "Mind Vs. Might" "Golgari Vs. Izzet" ect ect. and put "might" and "golgari" in one bag and "Mind" and "izzet" in another and have people choose a deck out of a bag at random Then give people "X" amount of time to look through there deck/read the literature from the given duel deck box and just have everyone have at it..... Table 3 featuring Tibalt Vs. Monsters should be fun?
maybe even do it two headed giant style... "Team Kiora & heros versus Sorin & Might"...idk just a thought for a fun gimmick
May 3, 2017 10:14 p.m.
Servo_Token says... #10
Pauper worked for me when I was in your situation. We canned several of the oppressive cards in the format that might be too daunting to the newcomers (daze, chittering rats, and cloud of faeries [This was obviously before that ban when delver and mono black were up with familiar as the top tier decks]), and it all worked out pretty well. Got standard FNMs running with the new player influx (we only had like 4 players for standard at the time, we were mostly a draft / modern shop), and also got a great turnover from the pauper league itself. We sold a bunch of bulk stuff, brought in a bunch of people, and basically brought pauper to the region.
We've since cancelled pauper because the drake problem turned everyone away and no one has seemed to want to jump back on since, but we've replaced it with EDH in the meantime. But yeah, pauper definitely worked for me. You might need to tweak the format a bit to suit your needs, but it's a solid format for both old and new since the decks are like $30.
May 4, 2017 1:02 a.m.
chaosumbreon87 says... #11
how about flavor deck tournaments. completely proxy friendly, lets say legacy legal, and may help newer players (who focus on simple strategies or who do not want to drop $$$) get more of an even playing field against veterans. Cheap draft also might influence players and can clear back logged inventory. Cheap draft with schools might also help increase players through free advertising, and cheaper pricing (8$ draft pods sound a lot better to kids than 15$ and are more affordable to them)
May 4, 2017 1:09 a.m.
You could try a sort of "theme night" every month.
Players need to show up with a Standard deck to match the theme, in order to participate. Decks to be shown to one of the organisers at registration.
Theme ideas:
- Tribal
- Monocoloured
- Pauper
- Creatureless
- Creatures only
- No basic lands
- Only one set eg. Amonkhet
- Control
- Aggro
- All Artifacts
- 50% land
Anyone caught not playing the correct deck is disqualified, and will not receive any prizes.
MagicalHacker says... #2
I think a commander league would be nice, as long as you don't make the mistake of doing points. (If you would like, I could post an article about why points are bad for commander leagues.)
As for how it can support the store, I would offer the option of either a fee of let's say 5 dollars or a purchase of 15 dollars in singles. This would be good for people who don't want to spend too much and for people who don't want to spend money without getting anything in return. With the added revenue, you could offer prize support!
Thoughts?
May 3, 2017 5:37 p.m.