Vintage Tournament Prizes

[mdenny]

Hello Everyone, I have been wondering about a few cards as tournament prizes and I am trying to gauge whether or not they would be prizes people would be happy to get in a tournament. First off, while when I was playing back in the mid 1990's counterspell was pretty sweet, I know it has fallen off in popularity but I was wondering about offering a couple of Beta counterspells as prizes. Do people still go after these, or would I be wasting two perfectly good cards? I was also thinking about offering Illusionary Mask, Tabernacle at Pendrel Vale, Time Vault, Beta Berserk, Forcefield, Strategic Planning or some mix of judge foils as prizes. I know these aren't the standard Power or Mana Drains but I enjoy giving out more interesting prizes. I am looking for feedback on whether or not these would entice people to come play.

[God_Campbell]

Vintage players will be happy to play for anything cool, needed, or that can be easily sold off to recoup money.

You mention a mix of casual and tourney caliber cards, Time vault is an awesome prize, judge foils are always appricated as well.

I would suggest browsing top 8's for popular non power cardboard to hand away as prizes, and look to legacy as well as many a vintage player dabs in that format as well, so like a playset of tarmogoyf or something.

[LotusHead]

Vintage players will be happy to play for anything cool, needed, or that can be easily sold off to recoup money.

You mention a mix of casual and tourney caliber cards, Time vault is an awesome prize, judge foils are always appricated as well.

I would suggest browsing top 8's for popular non power cardboard to hand away as prizes, and look to legacy as well as many a vintage player dabs in that format as well, so like a playset of tarmogoyf or something.

I would pay to play for a playset of awesomeness, like 4 Goyfs, 4 Dual Lands (even non-blue ones) or 4 Force of Wills.  If the prize support included all of top 8 (4th place double Taiga? double Tez? cool!). 

There are lots of Vintage Players who don't have everything.  Just tone down the entry fee if power is not invovled.

[mdenny]

My thought has been to charge $10 entry fee to make tournaments more accessable to everybody. I have been thinking abot double Tez or quad Ad Nauseum for lower places. What about standard staples like mutavault or something for lower places. I have access to alot of chase standard rares. Would vintage people be happy with these given that they arent for the top couple of places?

[andrewpate]

Definitely.  I might even prefer it, depending on circumstances, because one problem with a lot of Vintage tourneys is topheavy payout.  The TO will guarantee, like, a Mox and a Grim Tutor to get turnout, then end up giving the Mox to first, the Grim to second, and nothing to everyone else, or like a few boosters maybe.  I'd much rather play in an event where at least the whole t8 gets something as decent as a Mutavault or a Figure of Destiny.

[Troy_Costisick]

Definitely.  I might even prefer it, depending on circumstances, because one problem with a lot of Vintage tourneys is topheavy payout.  The TO will guarantee, like, a Mox and a Grim Tutor to get turnout, then end up giving the Mox to first, the Grim to second, and nothing to everyone else, or like a few boosters maybe.  I'd much rather play in an event where at least the whole t8 gets something as decent as a Mutavault or a Figure of Destiny.

Same here.  I'd much prefere a top 8 where everyong gets a Fetchland, Chrome Mox, Tezeret, Progenitus, Goblin Welder, or something like that.  ESPECIALLY, if it only costs 10 bucks to enter.  For 10 bucks, you can't really expect high dollar cards IMO.  If you're starting Vintage tournaments in an area that hasn't had Vintage tournaments before, you might even be able to get away with cards like Sol Ring, Demonic Tutor, Mystical Tutor, Mana Vault, Necropotence, and so on.  Giving away prizes like that would help build up people's collections and give them reasons to keep coming.  However, as time went on, you'd probably have to move up into things like Fetchlands and folis.

Peace,

-Troy

[Nefarias]

There's only one thing you have to worry about when you have that sort of structure, and that is that people won't travel very far to get to it. I'd go to something like this if it were less than an hour away, but not much farther.

When you have to spend 1.5-2 hours driving and $25+ in gas, it's a lot less enticing to come out for a low prize support, even if it is proportional to the entry fee. When you're driving that far and spending that much, your potential return on investment is better in a Mox tournament.

As long as you have a good group of local players you're set, but don't expect people to travel too far for an Illusionary Mask. Ten dollar tournaments are really awesome, provided you don't need to spend double that to get to them.

[TracerBullet]

Also worth noting is that in more balanced prizing structures, you're less likely to have a top8/4 split, as the disparity between 1st and 4th/8th isn't $300.  The result is a longer tournament that has two major effects-

1 - It's longer; plan for this.

and

2- It's more fun.  Everybody wants to see a tournament winner, not a tournament cabal.


This is exactly how I would (and as a matter of fact, did) build a tournament scene in an area where one doesn't really exist, and where T1 isn't a real presence.

[Suicideking]

These types of prize structures rock if you have a lot of local players.  But if you are attempting to draw players you are going to have a harder time.  I would probably never drive more then 30-60 mins for a $10 tournament.  That said I would love to play in weekly tourneys with time vaults and such as prizes.

[mdenny]

My thought is to have tournaments for things like those I mentioned before and then intersperse those tournaments with bigger first prizes like moxen to try and draw a wider crowd. Again I am trying to organize these with players in mind and a prize pool worth more than or equal to the entrance fees to make it as fun as possible and my thoughts on not having a monster first prize are that more people get better quality stuff than if it is all tied up in the first place or two. I am wondering if there are any cards other than power that people will actually drive an hour or two to play for and if not, what it generally takes. I am located in western Mass and am looking to eventually get 20-40 person tournaments going so with that in mind am i just bond to having to offer Power in order to achieve this?

[Nefarias]

I am located in western Mass and am looking to eventually get 20-40 person tournaments going so with that in mind am i just bond to having to offer Power in order to achieve this?

Likely but not necessarily. If you want a relevant Type 1 scene then probably. However, while the small prize won't get people to travel far, the small entry fee will entice some locals that normally wouldn't play in a $25 tourney. These are usually something like the Extended or Legacy players that have a passing interest in Type 1 it isn't worth it to pay $25 but might go for the chance of glory if it's only $10. The reason I say "relevant Type 1 scene" is because often these players will just add a few proxies to their Extended/Legacy decks.

[MadManiac21]

My thought is to have tournaments for things like those I mentioned before and then intersperse those tournaments with bigger first prizes like moxen to try and draw a wider crowd. Again I am trying to organize these with players in mind and a prize pool worth more than or equal to the entrance fees to make it as fun as possible and my thoughts on not having a monster first prize are that more people get better quality stuff than if it is all tied up in the first place or two. I am wondering if there are any cards other than power that people will actually drive an hour or two to play for and if not, what it generally takes. I am located in western Mass and am looking to eventually get 20-40 person tournaments going so with that in mind am i just bond to having to offer Power in order to achieve this?

If you're look for 30+ for T1, you will probably need power. But if you add a once a month T1 scene in western mass I am sure you can easily sustain 20+ for cool types of judge foils/duals/etc. I was able to regularly get 25-30 when I was running once a month 20$ T1 tournies out of X-9 game and then Off the Wall games before I sold off my power/didn't have cards I was able to put up. Just do some thorough advertising, I'm sure you can grab some legacy guys as well if it's cheap and not too far a drive.

[mdenny]

Alright so I have tentatively settled on a prize structure for my next tournament. I will deffinitely be offering a set of Force of Will's for second and then depending on how much money i have to play around with, I wil either be going after a Time Vault for first or a set of Judge Foils (Intuitions or Oaths). I would much rather get a Time Vault but if I don't end up having the $200 to toss down on one, which of the two judge Foil sets sounds better, Oath of Druids or Intuition? Both are about $30 or so a peice.

[andrewpate]

I would lean toward Oaths, just because you hardly ever see anyone play a full set of Intuitions.

[Tha Gunslinga]

The Intuitions are worth about twice as much, just fyi.

[mdenny]

Wow i stand corrected, SCG was selling Intuitions for like 30 the last time i looked which was like a month ago, but the price seems to have gone up. Regardless i am looking more now at other prizes. Here's a new one, is playing for two Mana Drains worth it or is a Time Vault better, and similarly how does this compare with the value of getting a single Mishra's Workshop. I know that Drains and Workshops are really only used in full sets so is wining one or two worth as much to someone as  winning a Time Vault or Imperial Seal or soemthing similar that you only need one of.

[Oath of Happy]

 "I was also thinking about offering Illusionary Mask, Tabernacle at Pendrel Vale, Time Vault, Beta Berserk, Forcefield, Strategic Planning or some mix of judge foils as prizes"

These are all great prizes except for the Forcefield as it is unplayable in all formats and has poor resale value.  The Beta Counterspells are also useless as prizes as they only hold value to a collector.  Beta Berserk also might not be a card to come to a tournament for if it is the main prize.  I beleive the resale is about 70 bucks and its not being played, so its a weak 1st place prize unless its accompanied by something of near value to go along with it, or for 2nd place.  Mask and Tabernacle are good prizes and worth holding a tournament for, as they can be resold for ~100, and Time Vault is huge as its resale is high and its being played a lot.  Strategic Planning can only be resold for about 60, but its also very easy to sell, so 2 of them would be a good 1st place prize, or a single planning would be a great 2nd place prize.

PS. These numbers I gave are all estimates for a 10-15 dollar entrance fee

[Diakonov]

I don't think that anyone would complain about getting a single Workshop as a prize, although personally I would be more excited about getting something that I could potentially use in a deck immediately like Imperial Seal, as you mentioned.  Playable Beta cards are good prizes as well.  For example, Beta Sol Ring, or even a playset of Beta Dark Rituals is something that I will never go out and purchase myself, but I would be psyched to win it in a top 4. 

[mdenny]

Well I'd like to thank everyone for their help in figuring out Vintage prize structures but I think I've settled on trying to get a set of Mana Drains for first place at my next tournament. I am hoping this could generate the kind of draw that a Mox would and hopefully it will leave enough open to put up a set of Duals or Forces for second. I'd be interested to hear any further commentary on the Mox vs. set of Drains issue but that is my current goal.