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Author Topic: Discuss: Does every type 1 tourney need ridiculous prizes?  (Read 2462 times)
Kolrael
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« on: November 03, 2004, 11:38:20 pm »

I've been playing Magic for quite some time now. I started buying packs at the tail end of Unlimited, and have been collecting and playing ever since.  There have been times where I've played less, and bought less, but I always seem to come back to Magic as my primary hobby.

I never played in a single Sanctioned event for any format until two years ago.  I played casually amongst several friends and my fiance, and we really enjoyed doing so.  I started playing Type 2 sanctioned tournaments when we started playing with new friends, and we really enjoyed meeting new people, and seeing new decks other than what we made at home, whether it was home-brew, or something that we put together from the 'net.

Within the last year, year and a half, we've really started to sour on the Type 2 format.  The prevalance of Affinty based decks really takes away from the diversity of the format, and the fact that we keep sinking hundreds and hundreds of dollars has made me analyze playing Type 2.  

Several of my good friends have been playing competitive Type 1 for awhile now, and they've given me the Type 1 bug.  The two main culprits are Diaonic, and Nosre.  
I'm finishing off my set of power, and getting all the important chase cards needed to play Type 1 competitively, and to tell you the truth, I've spent less money than when we were sinking cash into box after box after box of cards.

Getting to my main point, I've attended many Type 1 events the last year or so.  I've hit the last two Waterburys, made a pilgrimage to Hadley, played in five or six other random mox tourneys, Library tourneys, Workshop tourneys, etc etc etc. I've had good times at pretty much every one to tell the truth.

My main complaint is twofold, and they're not real, full complaints, but more observations.

1)  Most of the Type 1 events are $15+  That's a lot of jing for someone that's getting into the format.  $10 is better, as I can take that $5 I saved, and that pays for gas to the event.  And, if I want to hit one tourney each weekend(in a perfect world) Every 3 tourneys means I save $15, which potentially means I go to another tourney.

2) The prizes are awesome, but usually, it's winner take all.  For those folks that win, hey, that's the best way to go, but I'd LOVE to see more tournaments with smaller prizes that go deeper into the Top 8.  This would (IMHO) entice players into paying the $10, $15 or more to play, as they've got a much higher shot at making thier entry fee back.

I would be much more likely to go to an event that was only $10, but offered, say, an Abyss, and packs through top 4, then pay $15 for a 1 in 40 shot at a mox.  Many times, there's a higher chance, but it's still pretty slim.   Imagine telling my fiance that she's sinking $20 into a 1 in 35 chance at winning anything.  It's daunting to someone who doesn't have a lot of disposable income.  However, it'd be nice to go to a more major tournament with a greater prize every so often.

In theory(going out on a limb here) if we hosted more events that were cheaper to play in, we would be promoting the format to newer players, building a larger player base, which would allow us to host more tourneys, that are cheaper, with decent prizes.

So, I'd really like to hear the community's thoughts on this.  Tournament organizers as well are welcomed to share their thoughts.  I fully recognize that many people will disagree with me, and I think that's fine and dandy, but I think it'd be nice for us to talk about, to see if maybe we can make this format stronger.

I thank everyone who shares thier thoughts, and maybe I'll bump into a few of you at the Brockton tourney this Saturday for a Sapphire, or at Hammer's tourney the first weekend of December.

Thanks.
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« Reply #1 on: November 04, 2004, 12:03:32 am »

from my observations, many TO's are so concerned about losing money due to poor turnout, they never take an active risk to guarantee a decent prize structure.  There are a couple tourney's recently and coming up  that have always guaranteed prized to the entire top 8, brockton and lenox for example.
    I'm running my first tournament on my own in west springfield this sunday and have tried my best to guarantee a prize structure that will draw enough people as well as give anyone who makes top 8 at the very least their entry fee back in packs.
    I think you have to understand that if you were to host an event for $10 and the prize was a mox or another piece of power you would be looking for at least 40 people to attend to break even on the mox and maybe have some prize money left over to give to 2nd.  
   However, recently in the NE 40 people going to a regular tournament on a weekend seems to be extremely rare.  I think the last somers tournament for 500 cash there were 44 people.  eventually it leads to an increase in event price, and after that, even lower attendence due to the price hike.
    It's so hard to keep magic players happy Smile
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« Reply #2 on: November 04, 2004, 12:41:30 am »

I believe there is also the competition factor for the TO's to condsider as well. Lower prizes may make it easier to break even but most players would opt for a mox tourney if it is being held in a reasonable distance. I remember reading about how there is practically some major tourney going on every weekend in the NE area. The best prizes will attract the most players so the stakes must be raised in order for TO's to beat the competition.
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« Reply #3 on: November 04, 2004, 12:47:21 am »

Keep in mind that while I wouldn't have the slightest problem devoting a chunk of time to playing for a $50 prize, I'm only gonna travel about 30 minutes to do so. If it's gonna be a three-hour hike, then I want it to be for power... not just because its worth more, but that also means there will likely be a bigger event. Who wants to travel 3-4 hours to play for 4 duals and beat 12 players?
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« Reply #4 on: November 04, 2004, 12:51:53 am »

Interesting
While power tournaments are fun.  It would be interesting so see more tournaments with lesser cards.  If they are giving away, say a mana drain, they only need about 15 people at 10 bucks to cover the costs, and then anything else could go for top8 prizes.  Also if organizers started giving away lesser prizes, they would be able to hold more high end tournaments.  Because we all know getting a moat or mana drain, is a lot easier then coming up with power.
This could also make it so that your regular weekly tournament could hold one a week.  Think about playing for a moat of something similar on a weekly basis.  At first 10 bucks a week might be slightly expensive, but this would bring in new and more people and the price could be lowered over time.
Still going to power tournaments is a lot of fun and I don't think they should be abandoned at all.
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« Reply #5 on: November 04, 2004, 03:24:11 am »

What it really comes down to is running an EVENT, not just a tournament, which is something Zherbus alluded to. People don't want to drive all morning and play all afternoon for 5th Dawn packs. But if you have quality prize at solid prices, then you'll attract more people. What this does is forces TO's to work a little more to get the deals that will allow them to have their tournaments affordable and appealing. Case in point is a 1.5 tournament that I am putting together where the entry is 10 bucks, and as of this moment the prize structure looks like this:

1st-4xFoW or 4xTrop. Island (winner choice)
2nd-Whatever wasn't picked by winner
3rd-4xNull Rod

I wanted to have prizes that were applicable in the environment, unlike offering 5th Dawn packs to someone playing in a Vintage tournament, and especially since 1.5 is a new format and a fair amount of people who will be playing in it do not have these cards I wanted to make it appealing as a way to get quality and competitive cardstock, and since those cards are playable in Vintage I wanted to give the people winning a footstep or two into the mighty realm of T1. Maybe someone who has them already will win, but that's the nature of the game and I'd like to have as much of MY intention as possible sunk into the aim of providing not only a quality tournament but act as a cultivator towards bigger and better tournaments. I as the TO can help this out by putting in the time to find these cards at prices that let the tournament price out reasonable and appealing. This also helps to establish reputation, which I think is something definitely overlooked to some degree. Everyone wants to run a tournament, but really only a select amount of people are made for it. Those that are and who continually pay attention to the game and all the details involved in it will be the ones that attract the players and keep the field strong.
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« Reply #6 on: November 04, 2004, 08:47:57 am »

I thought this dicussion already took place.  Whatever here's how I see it.

In New England, there's SOOOOO many events, that they just have to end up conflicting with each other sooner or later.  This makes the TO want to attract more people to their event, so they raise the prize structure, and therefore the entry fee.  In reality, this actually has the oppossite effect the TO wants, pointing people away from their events.  Look at Brockton, a Sapphire, with UNL proxies for $15.  That's 'better' than what used to happen.  Like a Pearl with 5 proxies for $15.  TO's need to start getting basic in their prize structure's again.
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Kolrael
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« Reply #7 on: November 04, 2004, 09:42:51 am »

I'm glad people are chiming in, thanks.

Adding more fuel to the discussion fire:  What are the bulk of Type 1 players playing for?  

Fun?

Or Prizes?

Myself, I love to play competitive Magic for fun, and if I win something, that's great. The deeper the prizes go, the more likely I am to pay $15, because I have a better shot at winning something.  And, players with less cards, or who are newer to the format won't complain or hesitate about paying $5 to play, which means more players, which is good for the format, right?

I'd love to play in a weekly Type 1 tourney with 20 people that only charged $5, even though the prizes might be much lower, simply because I want to play.  If I feel like forking $15 over, I can drive the two hours and try for Power.

Any more thoughts?
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« Reply #8 on: November 04, 2004, 10:10:51 am »

Quote from: Kolrael
I'm glad people are chiming in, thanks.

Adding more fuel to the discussion fire:  What are the bulk of Type 1 players playing for?  


For glory and honor! In tournaments I always play to win, if I play for fun it's with my friends over a beer or two friday night before heading to the pub.   Razz
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« Reply #9 on: November 04, 2004, 10:50:10 am »

For me, it's the thrill of winning. It's using my mind and tackling complex situations and anticipating other people's moves, so of course I look down on the "winning at all costs" and cheating stuff. It's so much fun to mentally best someone, or, failing that, draw Yawgmoth's Will.

I play for the prizes because it's what allows me to finance playing. I'm barely in the black still from all my tournament entry fees vs. winnings, and if I end up sucking a lot I don't play in many tournaments, but I always seem to pull down enough to entice me back into the scene.
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« Reply #10 on: November 04, 2004, 11:04:06 am »

As I already said, I'd play for nothing but being able to write a good report... I just need something to offset the 4 hour drive.
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« Reply #11 on: November 04, 2004, 11:06:31 am »

I host Hadley power tournaments with ten dollar entry fees.  You need to have a decent player base to organize a tournament with that kind of fee without losing a lot of money.  It's already been said, but just to reiterate:  Reducing the cost increases attendance a LOT, which is better for both the format and the venue (assuming it's held in a store or sponsored by one) but more money is made with the higher fees and lower attendance, so nobody really tries it or wants to.
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« Reply #12 on: November 04, 2004, 11:26:19 am »

If you run  a card store with a physical location (as opposed to online), then you can have the luxury of running lots of smaller tourneys with smaller price and smaller payout.  But, if you have to rent some place to play (i.e. a hotel or VFW/KoC hall, etc.) then you need to have a big tourney with big prizes to pay them off.  In addition to this, holding and advertising a tourney takes time and effort, so it may not be worth the time of a busy TO to hold a small tourney.  On top of this, even a small tourney takes an entire afternoon.  A mid-size tourney takes all day.  A large tourney takes all day and into the night.  However, based on the number of other things you can do during the day of the tourney, there isn't much difference between a medium and large tourney--thus the time investment to potential payoff ratio is more favorable for a larger tourney.

There are also three types of TO's, in general:
1.  Those who want to make money by holding a tourney.
2.  Those who want to hold a tourney and break even.
3.  Those who want to hold a tourney and hopefully make money.
(the distinction between 2 and 3 is small and mostly attitudinal)
So, if you are a TO and want to make money, you hold a big power tourney.  If you just want to hold a tourney to hold a tourney, you can hold a smaller tourney if you have a place to do it.  But, if you are in group 3, you probably won't have the luxury of holding a small tourney.
Add to this the fact that people who are on teams and/or are developing new decks don't want to waste the surprise at small tourneys.  In this way, large tourneys that attract a wide audience and large number of players allows the metagame to progress more than a bunch of weekly small tourneys.  If you have a local cardstore that has a type 1 crowd, then having weekly tourneys is just fine.  But, don't expect anyone to travel any significant distance to go to them.  If I could go to small weekly tourneys locally, I might do it, but since I live in the type 1 black hole that is upstate NY, I don't have that option (damned 1.5 players).
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« Reply #13 on: November 04, 2004, 01:04:49 pm »

One of the factors that allows TOs to make a little extra money is running a Dealer Table or renting one out, as well as offering pizza or pop or snacks or something. Hell, just selling playmats and sleeves rakes in a little bit. I hope when I see TOs that just break even that they make a little money on the side as well.
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« Reply #14 on: November 04, 2004, 03:16:47 pm »

Quote from: Covetous
If I could go to small weekly tourneys locally, I might do it, but since I live in the type 1 black hole that is upstate NY, I don't have that option (damned 1.5 players).


'sup?

Back to the matter at hand:

I think Type 1 is experiencing a reduction in large tournament attendance on the whole. It began with TMDC3 and continued through SCG2 and only time will tell if I'm really right about this; SCG3 is this weekend, so that will be another good indicator.

I agree that a lot of people expect ridiculous prizes. For a while, the Type 1 tournament scene was offering incredible prize-to-entry fee ratios, but it only really seems like that because the prices of moxen and other power have shot up nearly $100 in the blink of an eye.

So now people are accustomed to prize structures that, while once costing about $1,700 (for a Lotus-Walk/Ancestral-Mox-Mox-LOA/Drain x4 setup), now cost about $2,500. The difference is even greater when you calculate the price of a set of Power 9, which is around a $1,000 discrepancy. Of course, the person who has to eat this price increase is the T.O. as increasing the entry fees scares away prospective attendees. This doesn't even include the price of the venue, which can easily add on hundreds of dollars.

The only real answer to keeping the entry fee-to-prize ratio intact is to increase the number of participants in any given tournament. This is growing increasingly difficult as other people try to "cash in" on the popularity of the format, thusly saturating the tournament scene with conflicting tournaments.

Couple this with the rising price of Type 1 staple cards raising the barrier to entry of the format even higher which causes less new blood to trickle in and you have a recipe for disaster.

So to summarize:

The prices of cards have increased, causing greater strain on an organizer's resources and raising the already high barrier to entry, causing stagnation in the overall player base.
The frequency of Type 1 tournaments has increased, dilluting the attendance base.
The overall player base has stayed the same, further contributing to a dilluted attendance base.

Based on this model, I predict that we will see a drop in tournament prizes. This will result in the players who come over to Type 1 from other formats (due to the prizes being greater than PTQs for the same entry fee, with overall competition being lower) leaving. After that, we can expect to see what we had way back in the day after Type 1 had lay dormant for a few years: small local tournaments with small entry fees that are only attended by locals who love the game and are devoted to the format.

To answer the question at hand:

Does every Type 1 tournament need ridiculous prizes?
Yes.
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Kolrael
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« Reply #15 on: November 04, 2004, 06:49:26 pm »

Awesome discussion guys, thanks so much for participating.

I'd love to hear more people's opinions.

Another comment:  I attended Kowal's last tourney in Hadley, and finished I think 11th at 4-2, and had a great time.  The two matches I lost were to Dragon, and to Mono U Belcher, and both losses were awesome. Very fun matches, and a strain on playskill.  I really enjoyed myself.  

I also thought the way Kowal did the prizes was excellent.  A low entry fee, and as they number of participants grew, so did the prizes.

Personally: I want to thank Kowal for running it. Depsite the fact I didn't win crap, it was still good times.


@Kl0wn:  Excellent reply, thanks.
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