Yes, we are making it to this...It is only 40 minutes away after all...

Who won the team title at the last event Ray hosted?  I've got $1000 that says they weren't from the Midwest, or New York, or Pennsylvania, or wherever you live...In fact I'm pretty sure they may have been from the Northeast, more specifically Connecticut...

When I say you I mean you the reader obviously...Unless you are from Connecticut, then they were in fact from where you live...But they weren't you...

Travis and Hatch, It looks awesome, and although I don't play much anymore, I will be at this tournament should I be able to secure cards for a deck...

Ray, the tournament was spectacular, which I'm sure I have told you enough at this point...As for the top 16 I can name some of the people, I don't know everyone's name though (sorry).
Rich Meyst (Mono-Red Shops)
Ashok (Ad Nauseum)
Craig Dupree (Tezz?)
Kron (Cobra Tezz)
Brian DeMars (Cobra Tezz)
Paul Mastriano (Cobra Tezz?)
Dan Cunningham (Bomberman)
Me (Tezz)
Nick Detwiler (Esspresso Stax)

Those are the only names I can think of/can remember, I believe the finals were Ashok vs. a player I didn't know playing stax.  As for the team competition Team Perfect Scrubs took it home by 1 point over Team RIW (Smmemen, Mastriano, DeMars).  

Props as always to Ray for an excellent tournament, and to my team winning the team competition for ourselves and New England...

Slops obviously being me losing in top 8 to DeMars...

Primaries:

Ray
Brassman
Steve

Understudies:

ELD
DA
Longo

Although I have no idea what to play, and no bye this time I will in fact be in attendance and plan at being at the top tables all day long...

On a side note Ray and Nick, you are both awesome and my new heroes...and not like the shitty show, like the real kind that actually do stuff...

How do you plan on comboing me out...I'm the one who comboes people out...I don't forsee this changing at all for traviscon...

I'm trying to get out of work and to get other people from my team to go.  Bases soley on the fact that Travis knows how to run a tournament...And it has been quite some time since a member of TPS took something home in vintage, so I'm also going to do that...

This tournament sounds amazing, and I wish I had looked at the forums and known about it more than a few days in advance so as to acquire the cards to play in it.  Good luck to all who play today, and I will def. watch the forums for more vintage tournaments...

I am trying my hardest to get back into vintage, and I am pretty sure this will be the event that makes me come back...

That said...I'm seriously going to try to make this one...I will aquire cards any way I can.

Regardless of what prize structure a T.O. has he is going to have people attending, he might lose money, he might break even, who knows.  But by not attending his tournament, and not posting about it you are making two things happen.  One you are telling the T.O. that you will not attend unless the structure for prizes is a bit better for you and for others attending.  Two you are not taking business away from him.  Criticizing a T.O.'s prize support is just as, if not more likely to cause him to stop hosting tournaments as you not showing up is.  I haven't attended tournaments for a while based on restrictions of money and sometimes prize support, but the events are still consistenly run, as a smart T.O. realizes that he can make money for his troubles, and provide prizes that will suffice the players.  I am not saying any of this in hopes that all type one tournaments come to and end, that is far from my point, if you want to criticize someone do it on a more personal basis, instead of in the form of this forum.  If you don't like tournament x's prize support and feel it is not good for any player, rather than lobbying everyone to boycott the tournament tell them in a personal message, give them constructive criticism.  We are a community, we must work together as a whole to correct any problems we have, as wizards has no guidlines for us past B&R. 

All i'm really getting at is that if I was running tournaments, which I hope to someday be able to do to help sustain the great vintage community, and people were constantly barraging me with questions about my prize support I would be more likely to not run another tournament then if I had a low turnout.  A low turnout means the method which I tried to use did not work out the way I had wanted it, so I would try to change things to make is a positive for the players and myself.  Now don't mistake this as me saying im for T.O.'s taking upwards of 30-40% of the prize pool, I do not like that, but in the end, it is a business for these people.  Nothing will ever be perfect, but if you keep dragging different T.O.'s names through the mud, eventually there will be none left...

Vintage itself is dying down in most areas, including the northeast.  Prize supports have been lowered in the past, and we have had a few conversations very similar to this one.  There is no set number or standard at which everyone will ever agree is the proper amount for a tournament organizer to take in from the tournament itself.  I understand completely that even though it is a hobby for me, it is still a business from the tournament organizer.  Posting threads like this is hardly the best way to go about making this situation better, and/or go away.  Like I said previously, if you have a problem with the support, the answer is as simple as don't show up.  It is a hobby, you aren't always going to make money, playing vintage is not a job as it is not a wizards backed format for the most part.  Vintage is one of the easiest formats of magic to make money in due to the fact that in order to win money in other formats you must either place in the top 64 of a grand prix, or qualify for the pro-tour, and do well at such.  Both of those scenarios require the same or more investment from the player, but the fields that you must play in itself will be doubled at least.  Again, I did vote that this prize support wasn't fair, but that is hardly the point, you decide what you want to do and where you want to go.  If the prize support doesn't tickle your fancy, don't show up, but posting about it is only detrimenting the already slowing vintage scene.

You know how to put together an event, I am doing everything in my power to make it out to this one, as this summer is looking good for vintage so far.

I will 100% be in attendence for this event, and I will be representing New England of course.  I cannot wait, this event looks sick and even has me missing the GP up in boston that same weekend.

It seems like every month a new argument about someone's lackluster prize support keeps comming up.  I mean basically this is how I feel these situations should be handled.  You don't show up to the tournament.  It really is that simple, you don't have to post anything anywhere calling anyone out.  I split a vintage tournament in the new england region, I will not be specific because it is irrelevent to my point, and my cash take home for such was $66.  I have never attended another tournament, hosted by this person because of such.  Is this saying I never will again?  Who knows, the point is when you see a prize support that is strictly not worth it, just don't go, if others want to go to play and have fun, don't ruin it for them.  You can't expect every tournament planned to have waterbury like prize scales.  Either show up or don't, there is no reason to make polls about the prize structure.  If someone really wants to attend that tournament and play in it, then more power to them.  If you don't, stay home.  The T.O. will see that this event failed in comparison of his last event and then has two choices, run another event like this one, or run it the way the successful ones were run.  Yes, I agree completely that his prize support sucks, and I would not attend based on such prizes, but he is still trying to help the vintage community by holding a tournament.  The community itself has fallen off from what it was just a few years ago, and I would love to see it come back to what it was, but with everyone complaining about which t.o. they don't like, or this prize structure that sucks it may never get back there.

Ray, you are amazing...I don't know what life would be like without you...

But power costs more in Europe because there is a much higher demand for it.  That is why the prices of your events are as high as they are, but it isn't like you aren't getting anything out of the prize pools, the prize pools I've seen for any of these tournaments makes me wish I lived there and had the power 9 at my disposal.


P.S. I know this is mostly off topic, but have you seen the BAZAAR of yawgMOX will that Ron Spencer did that they are giving away.  That card alone by itself is worth my and anyone else I knows attendance.

To clarify my previous post in this particular thread, I was not trying to say that tournament prizes where still low in our area of the country.  We as a community had a discussion about it and brought up the points, and the thoughts that we all had on the subject.  For the most part it created a pretty drastic change in the prize structures at our local tournaments.  I have no problem attending them because vintage is a very fun format, and the people make it all worth it.  I have not been to any tournaments other than waterbury and GP chicago recently due to the fact that I was out of work for the past few months.  I have since found work, and will be planning on attending many more vintage tournaments in the northeast and possibly the Midwest, as the way I see it, vintage can grow this year and become what it used to be.  I hope the format can return to the prominence that it used to have, I also hope that the to's can see that they can make money and still host tournaments that draw in a crowd.

As more clarification you will notice that I never mention what tournaments I have been to with less than stellar prize support.  The reason being that it is not for me to decide what they give out as prize, and I will not fault them for giving out less than I think they should.  The only option I myself have as being a member of this community is to not patron these tournaments until there is a change in prize structure that will benefit the community.  My intention was clearly not to call out any particular TO's, or anything like that, it was just to bring up the point that as a community when this issue happens we deal with it how we can, which is usually not attending tournaments.  If TO's want to host tournaments where they make money, they have to have a scaling prize structure in my opinion.  If you guarantee a mox at 24 people in attendance, what do you do when 44 people show up?  Nobody expects two moxes, but usually vintage players expect something a little better than a guru swamp for 5-8.  Granted they are worth $30-$40, we as a community have little to no use for them.

If I recall correctly, and I know that I am not wrong, not so long ago we New England Vintage players were having a discussion just like this in regards to prize support from our local tournaments.  The only reason this discussion happened is because we as a community don't want to see our format killed by greedy people just looking for money.  Yes Alan, you mentioned that you need to make sure you have money to feed your family, and pay your staff, but remember a large portion of us playing in your event are taking time off work and paying you money for such.  I used to play in every vintage tournament hosted in my area, my area being pretty much anywhere in New England.  However, I stopped going to all vintage tournaments that popped up when I received $66 for SPLITTING THE FINALS of a 40+ man tournament.  I will not mention who ran the tournament or where it happened, because that is the T.O.'s decision.  The tournament itself cost $25, add in gas and food for this particular event, food being a sit down restaurant to celebrate the split, and on the day I ended up losing $15.  Why am I going to attend tournaments where even when I do well and come in first or second, my overall prize is still negative money.  That seems counter-intuitive.

In summation, you are going to run events the way you want to run events.  We as a community cannot change that, however, we are trying to give you advice on running tournaments so that your turnouts not only give you money for your staff, and family, but also gives back enough money to the tournament attendees that it is worth it.  Obviously I have never run a tournament, so I don't know what goes into them, or how much they actually cost to run.  I can also not give you the magic cut percentage that would make people not only attend your tournaments regularly, and make you money.  I start thinking about it in terms of is it worth it to me to show up, if I top 8 or top 4 what amount of money do I stand to make.  If I'm looking at a top 8 or top 4 split that in the end still costs me money on the day when all is said and done, thanks for having a tournament, I won't be attending.

Quoted for Truth!

Congrats Travis for top 16, which I just expect from you at every TMD.  Congrats to Sean as well, our match was very good, my deck would not allow me to win however, and I really liked your Platinum Angel plan in game two, I was not ready for that at all.  Of course also congrats to the teammate Mcnally, he deserved this win, and it's about time he got it.  I did not perform very well, but I also played Ichorid, which in hindsight, clearly a mistake for me, and I was pretty sick all day.  Ray great tournament as per normal, and I can't wait to play vintage all this year.

The large problem with this is that you can only play one flash, and you have no way to search out a rector to get it into your hand.  Flash worked well with hulk because you could pact for the hulk should that be needed.  You have no way to search out the rector in this deck to put your enchantments into play.  If you want a deck that puts enchantments into play you would almost be better suited to just play a replenish deck.  You can use bazaars and thirsts or the likes to ditch them into your yard, then replenish them when the time was right.  However that is a completely graveyard reliant strategy, which can be very weak in many matches, as most people run some answer to graveyard strategies.

Ray as usual this tournament sounds absolutely amazing.  You know I will be there and I will drag along every member of TPS that I can, not that we have to travel that far, but still it's the principal that counts.  About the team competition, I actually think that you should make it so that you may only sign up once per person.  I know that not many people sign up more than once, but a few do to give themselves a better chance.  I think it means more to bragging rights and things of that nature if people just sign up once.  I mean I could go around asking some of the New England players I know to be on my team's and just be on five teams.  It only cost me $15 and I now have five times the odds of winning than the person who only wants to be on one team.  Even if you don't accept this idea I am still going to enter the team tournament, but only once like I always have.  I can't wait for this tournament, it's always a blast.

It was another great tournament hosted at a great venue.  It was a bit hot in there yesterday, but I've dealt with worse so that doesn't really bother me.  Congrats to everyone in the top 8 and the top 4 for splitting.  I cannot wait to go back to this venue.  Again great tournament and not a bad turnout.

The tournament was awesome, and i got to meet some of the guys from out in the midwest...I did suck it up rather hard going 1-2 day one, but i had a blast after i was 1-2 due to alcohol and some other fun times...I didn't get to attend day two due to work...but i was there in spirit, although i couldnt play a game of magic to save my life this weekend...

Makes sense...i say lets all party it up...everyone!

Thanks for inviting me stefan...i feel so unloved...

Well i am a local person as i do live in connecticut, and it is only a 30 minute drive for me.  But me and my friends are actually looking into just getting a hotel room down in enfield for the night so we can hang out with everyone and just party...the last hurrah...but i mean if we have a table to play speed quarters on...im down...i might be a little rusty...but thats never stopped me from playing before...

You said it twaun, hey i dont know you, chances are you dont know me.  But if i have to face you in the swiss, and i do lose, then it's all gravy...this is more than a tournament now.  It is a party!

Well I would like to continue trash talking, but at this point it all seems like it just won't matter.  This is the last big event of the golden age of vintage.  So i will not lose, after this tournament i will have to test for hours and hours to figure out what to play, but I've got my deck ready for this, and IT is now on even more than it was when people were just talking trash.

So after an entire night of sleep having thought about what has happened to vintage.  I still have to tell you, i don't much like it.  I understand that this opens up the format to evolve and for new decks to come to light.  But i liked the decks that were being played, some of the cards i understand were too good, like gush, and scroll.  I don't know that flash was too powerful as about nobody played it around me in a long while...Brainstorm made most blue control decks viable.  It helped give the deck consistency.  Ponder may have been a little stronger than people give it credit for as with ponder and brainstorm you can cut the number of lands you run in a deck because you had so many one mana mana fixers.  Sounds redundant, but its the way i feel.  So in essence i am excited about being able to try and build new things to play with but at the same time i am deeply saddened and this seems like a great mistake to me.