New England Vintage Events

[Bill Copes]

Can we have one, once in a while?  Soon?  Please?

That is all.

[Doomsday]

Seconded.  And PA & NY don't count.

[honestabe]

Can we have one, once in a while?  Soon?  Please?

That is all.

[Iron_Chef]

Seconded.  And PA & NY are the only events that count anymore.

Fixed for accuracy.

[Bill Copes]

Seconded.  And PA & NY are the only events that count anymore.

Fixed for accuracy.

Yep.  Quite true.

So, now that we've pointed that out, can we get some fucking tournaments happening in OUR area?  Something happening not on a Monday night.  Something that we don't have to drive 5 hours to get to.

Seriously.  If you're in New England and have any interest in vintage at all, fucking raise your hand, make some noise.  If we get some attention going in this thread, then maybe one of the TO's will read this and actually do something.

[Doomsday]

Where are you located Abdullah?  I'm in Vermont and will travel, but don't want to drive 6 hours to NYC.

[Englishman_in_NH]

Bill,
   Dan is okay with us running an event at Myriad if we organise it.*  It would entail everyone buying Myriad Money from the store and then we dtermine the payout for the tournament. If we ran it with more proxies there are a few local players that may show up, especially if it is only a $10 or $15 entry fee.

Oli

* At least he was last I spoke to him about it. Dan has the right to change his mind as it is his store.

[Diakonov]

Tournaments would be nice.  Boston, Worcester, Amherst, Providence, Hartford... places I would definitely drive to on a random weekend.

[Bill Copes]

Where are you located Abdullah?  I'm in Vermont and will travel, but don't want to drive 6 hours to NYC.

South Boston.

Bill,
   Dan is okay with us running an event at Myriad if we organise it.*  It would entail everyone buying Myriad Money from the store and then we dtermine the payout for the tournament. If we ran it with more proxies there are a few local players that may show up, especially if it is only a $10 or $15 entry fee.

Oli

* At least he was last I spoke to him about it. Dan has the right to change his mind as it is his store.

Awesome.  I would definitely be willing to participate in this.  Even if we got 8 people together for it, it would be worth it.  Perhaps we could start a separate thread for this and get some input as to what days people are available.  I'd like to get something going in early May (1st, 8th, 15th, preferably).

[Chaos Lord 21]

  I wish Pandemonium Books would organize some more tournaments. They held 3 or 4 a while back spaced every few months, but I don't think they've done anything since like last August. They always drew a respectable-sized crowd and were conveniently located in metro Boston. I'd be up for scheduling something at Myriad again, but am not always able to find transportation there.

[Doomsday]

Myriad would be nice, that's a completely doable 2.75 hours for me.

[Meddling Mike]

Traviscon 3.0 is a mere 2 months away...

[DubDub]

Having a string of events during the summer would be great.  I would make every effort to attend 25$ entry/ mox prize events North of (or in) Boston.  Myriad is a very convenient location for me at least (especially since Dan is holding on to the playmat I left there).  I've definitely been disappointed with how empty this is.

[Bill Copes]

Traviscon 3.0 is a mere 2 months away...

. . . and I can't wait!  I'll be doing shots equivalent to my storm count for the turn.

Having a string of events during the summer would be great.  I would make every effort to attend 25$ entry/ mox prize events North of (or in) Boston.  Myriad is a very convenient location for me at least (especially since Dan is holding on to the playmat I left there).  I've definitely been disappointed with how empty this is.

Agreeing with and emulating everything stated here.

So to bring things back to what Oli said, who's up for an early May tournament at Myriad?  $10-$15 entry fee.

[Doomsday]

Just confirming that I would attend as long as there's enough notice.

[ELD]

Alright, May 8th at Scholar's for a Mox is in the works A GO! 

A little bit on the cause of the recent lack of events.  This site should be a tool to hype events.  It should not be used to tear them down.  The staff has been vocal in how they think events should be run, and it's just not realistic.  TO's that I am in contact with have confirmed my sentiment that time wasted defending attacks on TMD was a major factor in running non-Vintage events instead.  I have always planned to run events again, but I did take longer off that I would have, as a direct result of the resulting lack of drama.  Again, this was not the whole site, and not the people who actually attend.  It was mostly a few outspoken individuals, possibly with ulterior motives, and a prominent member of the staff.  Those of you who have been supporting TO's, carry on.  

Vintage is never a cash cow, compared to other formats.  If I spent the day running a sealed event, I'd make a killing compared to the same day spent on Vintage.  It's not even close.  Anyone who runs Vintage events does it because they love the format, and want to support the community.  A hostile response from TMD eliminates a lot of the incentive to run events.  

I'll say it right now.  If anyone has a problem with my prize structures, you are not required to attend.  If you think you can do better, please do.  Honestly.  I'd be happy to go to your events if they have a crazy EV.  It's not like I don't win more than my fair share of small events.  Whining about prize structures just brings events down, and results in TO's no longer running Vintage events.  

If you'd like the prizes divided up differently, you're welcome to talk to me via PM or in person.  I have had a couple people talk to me about making them less top heavy, and I will consider that if I receive enough feedback on it.  For now, Moxes draw people in, so I'll continue to guarantee that someone can go home with a Mox.  I will not be engaging in anymore time-wasting BS with people who think they know how events should be run, yet mysteriously do not actually run them.  

Backseat moderation removed.  -DA

[Bill Copes]

Great post, Eric.  I'm glad you chimed in and explained the situation.  I'm hoping we can rebuild the local community to the point where we're having at least 1 event a month.  I don't even care what the prizes are, if splits or buy-backs are allowed, or if the structure is top-heavy.  Vintage events should be about having a good time and playing the best decks, against the best opponents.

May 8th is now blocked off in my calendar.

[Commandant]

Great post, Eric.  I'm glad you chimed in and explained the situation.  I'm hoping we can rebuild the local community to the point where we're having at least 1 event a month.  I don't even care what the prizes are, if splits or buy-backs are allowed, or if the structure is top-heavy.  Vintage events should be about having a good time and playing the best decks, against the best opponents.

May 8th is now blocked off in my calendar.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OO day of my girlfriends graduation! Epic fucking fail.

[Bill Copes]

Great post, Eric.  I'm glad you chimed in and explained the situation.  I'm hoping we can rebuild the local community to the point where we're having at least 1 event a month.  I don't even care what the prizes are, if splits or buy-backs are allowed, or if the structure is top-heavy.  Vintage events should be about having a good time and playing the best decks, against the best opponents.

May 8th is now blocked off in my calendar.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OO day of my girlfriends graduation! Epic fucking fail.

Don't worry.  You can come with me to Myriad Games on May 1st.  Some emailed rumblings look like they're turning into an impromptu Vintage tournament.

[Myriad Games]

So I hear we're having a Vintage event here at Myriad Games on May 1st!

We actually hosted Vintage event in January and March (special requests from MVPs). We had 15 players at our March event and everyone had a great time.

Eric is spot on with his evaluation of the change in climate. Events need to generate enough positive interest to be worth running, after factoring in all the time and monetary costs associated. We found that, after running consistent monthly events for over 5 years, with 100% prize payout, attendance had decreased significantly and the level of whining from that vocal minority had increased drastically. Now the internet was custom-made for whining, so that's understandable, but those vocal members of the community did seem to be negatively impacting attendance and participation.

Many erstwhile and would-be TOs make the assertion that "I'm going to run the best Vintage events EVAR", but none of them were sustainable and most petered out after a few events. They either have an entry fees too low to provide reasonable prize support, prizes that were too high to provide sustainable events, or some other mitigating factor. These one-off events negatively impacted the reasonable expectations of the community for consistent events. We're not interested in ridiculous events with an OMG EV, every so often. We're interested in a consistent schedule of events that will provide that fun for everyone involved.

Or, put another way, Myriad Games is for winners, not whiners.

So we cordially invite everyone who enjoys fine quality Vintage events to join us here at Myriad Games next Saturday, May 1st, 2010. All the details are available here.

Be sure to preregister today to be entered in the Bonus Preregistration Drawing, and check out the details on our new Bonus New Customer Referral Program.

[Bill Copes]

Dan, you are a gentlemen and a scholar 

[Myriad Games]

Happy to be of service. We'll look forward to seeing everyone who can make it on the 1st!

[mike_bergeron]

Don't worry.  You can come with my to Myriad Games on May 1st.

OMG SPOILER ALERT

Bill, your enthusiasm is making me want to play again. 

[Bill Copes]

Don't worry.  You can come with my to Myriad Games on May 1st.

OMG SPOILER ALERT

Bill, your enthusiasm is making me want to play again. 

YES.  YOU MUST PLAY!  DO IT!  DO IT NOW!

[Juggernaut GO]

So I hear we're having a Vintage event here at Myriad Games on May 1st!

We actually hosted Vintage event in January and March (special requests from MVPs). We had 15 players at our March event and everyone had a great time.

Eric is spot on with his evaluation of the change in climate. Events need to generate enough positive interest to be worth running, after factoring in all the time and monetary costs associated. We found that, after running consistent monthly events for over 5 years, with 100% prize payout, attendance had decreased significantly and the level of whining from that vocal minority had increased drastically. Now the internet was custom-made for whining, so that's understandable, but those vocal members of the community did seem to be negatively impacting attendance and participation.

Many erstwhile and would-be TOs make the assertion that "I'm going to run the best Vintage events EVAR", but none of them were sustainable and most petered out after a few events. They either have an entry fees too low to provide reasonable prize support, prizes that were too high to provide sustainable events, or some other mitigating factor. These one-off events negatively impacted the reasonable expectations of the community for consistent events. We're not interested in ridiculous events with an OMG EV, every so often. We're interested in a consistent schedule of events that will provide that fun for everyone involved.

Or, put another way, Myriad Games is for winners, not whiners.

So we cordially invite everyone who enjoys fine quality Vintage events to join us here at Myriad Games next Saturday, May 1st, 2010. All the details are available here.

Be sure to preregister today to be entered in the Bonus Preregistration Drawing, and check out the details on our new Bonus New Customer Referral Program.

I am far from a gentleman, and I will be your whiner, but I will call bullshit on you.  If you hadn't sucked all of the life from the New England tournament scene with your horseshit store credit tournaments in the first place, we wouldn't be where we are today.

And by the way, every tournament I ever ran was about 50 billion times more entertaining then your boring ass store with the classical music in the background where adults cannot even have a normal conversation.  Just because I didn't make money on my events and I offered them simply as an option for people who wanted to enjoy the game doesn't make me a member of the vocal minority either.

The truth is the majority of people who played vintage in this area BOYCOTTED YOUR FUCKING STORE because of your price gouging structures.  There is a reason that everyone from CT stopped coming to your tournaments, it had nothing to do with the distance, it's because your business model is to rip people the fuck off.

I agree you have your own little fan base of regulars who will defend myriad games to their death in the face of all opposing logic and reason, and that is the reason you can have 15 people show up and call your tournaments a success.  

So good luck to you, you remind me of a hedge fund that has shorted a stock for the past 5 years so you can finally buy out the company at a dirt cheap price and make it your own, only to be left with a product that is nothing but dog shit.

Full warning for flaming. This is very obviously over the line.  -Eastman

[mike_bergeron]

Don't worry.  You can come with my to Myriad Games on May 1st.

OMG SPOILER ALERT

Bill, your enthusiasm is making me want to play again. 

YES.  YOU MUST PLAY!  DO IT!  DO IT NOW!

I just pre-reg'd.  So is re-animator still good in vintage? If not, I'll be there with Keeper.

[2nd_lawl]

King of Threads.

[Stormanimagus]

Just to add my 2 cents. I realize that Travis' comments were out of line, but it does illustrate a very important point. Vintage communities are like little tribes and the New England community at large has no sense of itself. The same is happening in NYC. I've been trying to hold larger Vintage events at Kings Games, but for a variety of reasons (none of which are GOOD reasons I might add) we are getting sub 20 turn-out practically every time. It doesn't inspire me to play this format I love when we can't even agree to support each other in a 50 mile radius. If things keep going this way I think Vintage will go the way of Do-Do in New England and be a joke of a format only run on Sundays as a solution for boredom. Heck, I'm even considering getting back into Standard because at least the competition is consistently better because those folks care about their format. I'm a bit pissed off about where Vintage is headed and I'm sad to see the community so inflammatory towards one another. When is Vintage gonna catch a break and when are we all going to grow up?

-Storm

[Prospero]

Just to add my 2 cents. I realize that Travis' comments were out of line, but it does illustrate a very important point. Vintage communities are like little tribes and the New England community at large has no sense of itself. The same is happening in NYC. I've been trying to hold larger Vintage events at Kings Games, but for a variety of reasons (none of which are GOOD reasons I might add) we are getting sub 20 turn-out practically every time. It doesn't inspire me to play this format I love when we can't even agree to support each other in a 50 mile radius. If things keep going this way I think Vintage will go the way of Do-Do in New England and be a joke of a format only run on Sundays as a solution for boredom. Heck, I'm even considering getting back into Standard because at least the competition is consistently better because those folks care about their format. I'm a bit pissed off about where Vintage is headed and I'm sad to see the community so inflammatory towards one another. When is Vintage gonna catch a break and when are we all going to grow up?

-Storm

I think there's a non-inflammatory way for us all to talk about this, and I think it's an important issue.

What do you need for a successful tournament?  I think you need three things - advertising, a good T/O, and a good venue.  Here's my breakdown;

Successful advertising involves, obviously, posting on TMD, and making the local community aware, but I think it involves more than that.  I think that it involves promoting the format, and actively getting new players in.  It means traveling to other events within a certain radius (say three hours or so) in order to promote your events with them.  I think that my events have been successful, and when I consider why, I'd offer the following points up when considering the advertising of the events:

1.  I've probably gotten somewhere in the neighborhood of 25-35 new players involved in Vintage personally.  I helped them build decks, offered advice, and tested with them.  If they needed cards, I worked to find them, or pick them up.  In the instance of quite a few of them, I gave from my personal collection, without much consideration for the value of what I was giving away.  I've been getting people into Vintage for around eight years now.

2.  When I started getting back into Vintage in August of 2008, I started traveling.  I went to Blue Bell, to Philly Opens, to TravisConII, and even up into Massachusetts for an ELD Lotus tournament.  I supported the other T/O's in the area, and I brought a carload of guys with me every time.  It was about building relationships outside of the area, so that you hopefully garnered support for your own events.

The T/O has some important responsibilities beyond the advertising of the event, namely, acquiring good prize support and doing his due diligence for the community in writing a comprehensive report.  To elaborate:

1.  The breakdown of entry to prize support is always difficult.  I think that if a T/O is able to offer up 70-75% of the entry fee back in terms of prize support, he's going to be successful.  Players generally tend to take issue with support that runs at less than that.  I think that, at the very least, the first place prize has to be guaranteed.  If you've got guys considering making the trip, not knowing if they're going to be playing for the piece of power (or whatever) mentioned could dissuade them from going.  Lastly, I think that the prize support offered matters - I don't think that you're going to get great turnout with lesser pieces of power.  Whenever I have run an event, I've looked to run it for good blue power, the two best Moxen, or a Lotus.  Sure, you can get some guys to come out and fight it out for a Mox Pearl, but I generally would rather not go to an event for a piece of power like that.

2.  When I started running events, I looked for a good model for tournament reports.  I openly admit that I copied the style that Nick Coss used when writing up his Philly Open reports.  I found the reports gave me all the information that I wanted, from breakdowns, to decklists, to a little (but not too much) analysis.  Getting my tournament reports up within 48 hours of the event was a matter of pride for me.  I wanted to put it up, not just so that the players who did well could enjoy it, but also so that it was available for the community.  When my judge left with my decklists two events ago, I was upset that I wasn't able to put up my report quickly enough.  I was so bothered by it that I wrote the report for N.Y.S.E. VII immediately upon getting home from running the event.  I was exhausted, and it didn't matter.  If I was going to make a little money as a T/O, I owed my players and the community at large a full report. 

Lastly, and potentially most importantly, is the venue.  Some points to consider about the venue:

1.  Is the venue too far out for some guys?  Are you going to lose players because of other issues, like parking?  Finding a venue that is centrally located to major highways, but also has enough parking is important.

2.  How is the store itself?  Is it clean, and well run?  Are there enough bathrooms?  Is there enough space for the players?  If it's a summer tournament, is there AC?  If you told me that I was going to be stuck in a hot, dirty room for a full day, I'd consider not making the trip.

3.  How are the store employees?  How is your judge?  Does anybody in particular have an attitude problem?  I've seen employees get contentious with customers.  The most absurd thing I ever saw was at a PTQ in Brooklyn.  It was the winter time, it was in the 30's, and it was raining.  The store had quite a few options for food close by, and I agreed to take a friends son out to find some food.  Judging by what the players in the store were eating, there was a McDonalds, Subway, and fruit stand all close by.  I went out with my friends son (as my friend was still in the round) and found food.  We went back to the store, and ran into the store owner just outside.  In the rain, he told a 13 year old boy that he couldn't come inside, because he was bringing food in from outside the store.  No issue was taken with many of the other 220 players who had brought in food from outside the store.

My friend and his son vowed to never support the store again.  So did I, and so have many people I know. This was one instance in which a store owner cut himself off from hundreds of dollars of future business.  And why?  So that he could potentially make that extra $5 on food.  Talk about penny wise and pound foolish. 

Ensuring that the atmosphere for the players is positive, upbeat, and friendly, is very, very important.  You lose players when you don't get that right.

I have been wrong many times in my life, and I will be wrong again.  But I would talk to your guys and the other local area players, and I would see if any of the aforementioned points are issues.  Maybe they are, maybe they aren't.

As far as the Myriad thing goes, I don't know anything about it, and so have no opinion of it.

As far as the ELD thing goes, I think this is a great thing for New England Vintage.  ELD is an awesome T/O, and he ran a great event when I went.  If it wasn't a 5 hour drive, I'd go to many more ELD tournaments.  The venue was large enough, ELD was a great dealer on site, and the prize support was stellar.  If the player base potential is there, and I can't see how it isn't, these tournaments are going to be a great success.  At the very least, because it's ELD, I know that they're going to be exceptionally well run.

[waywreth]

Bill posts and suddenly there's two events in the next two weeks?  I wish we knew he had this power months ago!
Anyway, great to see a Myriad and ELD event on the schedule.  Will try to make them both.