Kings Games - Brooklyn, NY - July 17, 2010 - Mox Emerald

[Yare]

Vintage Constructed format

Saturday, July 17, 2010
Registration opens at 11am
Play begins at 12pm
Entry fee $25

You may proxy up to 10 cards for this Vintage event. Top prizes (awarded at 20+ players) are as follows:

Winner: UL EX Mox Emerald
Finalist: ITLG FR Mana Drain
Top 4: RV EX- Badlands

Kings Games
1685 East 15th Street
(Corner of Kings Highway)
Brooklyn, NY 11229
ashv@kingsgames.com
http://www.kingsgames.com/
(718) 336-1955
(888) 33-KINGS

Note: I have nothing to do with the organization of this tournament; I am merely posting the announcement. If you have questions, please contact Kings Games directly.

[forcethewill]

Thats some solid notice there. Lets me just clear up my busy schedule

[Yare]

Thats some solid notice there. Lets me just clear up my busy schedule

I didn't know about the tournament myself until about a day ago. I mean, the TO doesn't even post his own announcements.

[Prospero]

Thats some solid notice there. Lets me just clear up my busy schedule

I didn't know about the tournament myself until about a day ago. I mean, the TO doesn't even post his own announcements.

So he's running against the M11 release and he didn't announce the tournament on TMD.  The prize isn't guaranteed until you hit 20 players.  I'm actually interested in going, but thinking that I won't because I don't think he's going to hit 20 guys.  That store has never had 20 guys for a Vintage event.

[chrispikula]

It isn't true that he has not had 20 players. Yare and I split a tourney there a couple months back where there were 20 or 21 players and Alex gave full prize support.  
Also, does it matter if he is running it against the m11 release? 

(edited to correct a mistake I made, apologies)

[H]

It isn't true that he has not had 20 players. Yare and I split a tourney there a couple months back where there were 20 or 21 players and Alex gave full prize support. 
Also, the m11 prerelease was this last weekend, July 10-11, not next weekend. Basically, almost everything you said in your post was wrong. 

He definitely said release, which certainly is next weekend.

[Prospero]

It isn't true that he has not had 20 players. Yare and I split a tourney there a couple months back where there were 20 or 21 players and Alex gave full prize support.  
Also, does it matter if he is running it against the m11 release? 

(edited to correct a mistake I made, apologies)

Chris, I was pretty sure that he had 19 players for that, and then gave out full prize support anyways, though it was guaranteed at 20.  I went back to check the reports, but there isn't one.

Back in December Mike Smith ran his last Blue Bell tournament against the Worldwake release and got crushed attendance wise.  I don't remember who ran it, but I remember there being a Recall tournament run against the Rise of the Eldrazi release that had poor attendance as well.  I know that a few of us work part time for stores (Sporkcore and myself for example) which is occasionally a problem.  I haven't seen Vintage tournaments fare well when put up against new set releases.

There's other, little, stuff.  Who's the T/O?  These tournaments have now been announced by David Earley, Jostin Rodriguez and Noah Smith.  It isn't their event, so why won't the T/O announce the tournaments on TMD?  Why has there never been a tournament report put up on TMD?  When people pay me, or Nick Coss entry fees, they do so with the understanding that part of the money that we make is payment for a tournament report.  There has never been a tournament report from this T/O.  I support local area events, and I've pushed my guys to do so in turn.  We always drive down to Blue Bell.  In turn, many of the PA players drove up to my NY events and supported me.  These tournaments have generally been announced with little or no warning (we had one announcement that was about three days before the event) and the T/O has never supported the other local area T/O's.  The Jersey and Pennsylvania guys don't show.  And that is part of the reason why his attendance is so bad.  Knowing that, it keeps me away, because I don't know that he's going to hit the 20 or so guys that he needs in order to guarantee prize support.

Additionally, there was an issue with this store in particular about a year back, a while after the Zendikar release.  I went to a PTQ for the first time in years, and I was there with friends.  While there a few of us wanted to get food.  I looked around and saw guys eating Subway, McDonalds, Chinese food, and fruit.  We figured that there were a few good options.  I took one of the kids (13 at the time) out to get food.  I came back to the store with a bag of bananas, he came back with food as well.  The owner was standing outside and wouldn't let the 13 year old in, because he was bringing in food from outside.  He had no problem with me or my bananas.  So the child ate his lunch standing on the steps outside the store, in the rain, in 40 degree weather.   

No mention was made of any of the 200+ guys that were in there, probably 50+ of whom were eating/had eaten food from outside.  The father and son haven't supported the store since.  Neither have I.  Stuff like this really bothers me.  He could have just said something to him, driven the point home that he didn't like this being done, and let it be.  The kid was going to eat his lunch anyways.  Now, instead, he has lost three potential customers, and he didn't even get to sell the pizza that he was pushing.  It's just bad business, all around.  It didn't accomplish any of what he wanted, and he drove people away from returning to his store.

[chrispikula]

I agree he has been terrible about announcing his events. Absolutely terrible.  But, part of that was caused by the fact that he was simply unable to post in the proper places on these forums because of the ridiculous policies about posting. 

I have no idea what the outside food policy is at the store. I can try to find out. 

I'll contact Alex and ask him to chime in on this thread. I can only hope that the TMD rules allow him to respond to the post, because I have no idea (and honestly don't care that much) what you have to do in order to be able to post. 

You have to understand Alex is not part of this scene, and would have no idea whatsoever that people care whether or not the TO posts a tourney report.  That certainly isn't normal in much of the Magic world. 

Anyway, I'll try and talk to Alex tonight.

[chrispikula]

Also are you talking about Prerelease tourneys or release tourneys?  Is someone in the tri-state area even running a release tourney? I have never heard of, or played in, a release tourney. 

[Yare]

Post for acquiring TO status on TMD. Simply posting in this thread with the intent to announce a tournament is sufficient to acquire the power to post events in the tournament announcement/report forums.

[Sporkcore]

Also are you talking about Prerelease tourneys or release tourneys?  Is someone in the tri-state area even running a release tourney? I have never heard of, or played in, a release tourney. 

Many of the Long Island stores run Release events a week after prereleases happen. The Comic Book Depot in Wantagh, Ny will be running release tournaments this Saturday and Sunday for M11.

[Prospero]

Also are you talking about Prerelease tourneys or release tourneys?  Is someone in the tri-state area even running a release tourney? I have never heard of, or played in, a release tourney.  

Austin mentioned Depot.  Mark's Comics in Valley Stream and Brothers Grim in Selden, along with many other LI stores, will be running release events for M11.  They're generally very popular, and do take away a fair amount of his potential players.  The dates in July generally stunk, but there isn't much to be done about that.  Nick Coss had to take a holiday weekend.  I had to take the weekend of the Grand Prix.

I understand having a food policy in the store.  But if you're going to have it, enforce it across the board.  Don't enforce it selectively.  If you have more than 50 guys in the store eating food from outside, I don't understand how you can reasonably turn others away.  Especially given the rain and cold and the age of the person involved.  I doubt he remembers it, but it's funny.  Stuff like this sticks in peoples minds.  I haven't forgotten it, and neither have the others. 

I would go back, and I would support the store again, but I think it's important to at least have him acknowledge that a mistake was made.  I would help drive traffic to his tournaments. 

[TD]

Myself and a friend were seriously considering making the trip for this event from NJ (about a 2 hour drive) but now we are uncertain. Unfortunately my job doesn't allow me to attend as many events as I would like to and i just so happen to have this Saturday off. After reading this thread im not sure if its going to be worth the trip to this event. Will there be 20 players attending? Will it be an enjoyable experience? Will it be worth the trip? I'm not so sure. Some closure from the TO would be nice.

[kingsgames]

Hello everyone,

My name is Alex Shvartsman and I am the TO/store owner for the event being discussed in this thread.

First of all, I would like to thank Chris Pikula for bringing these posts to my attention. While I have been playing Magic since 1996 and involved in almost every aspect of the game at one point or another, I do not currently play any constructed formats and so I am not checking forums on the regular basis. Please allow me to address some of the concerns raised here:

1) Our events are always announced at least 1 month in advance on our own web site, and a reminder is sent the week of the event to our mailing list. While I respect and understand the importance of this forum to the Vintage community, my primary focus is to market it to our customers directly. Everyone else is welcome, and I would be advertising it on here as well had it not been for an outlandish posting policy in the Tournament Announcement forums. I actually applied for the TO status earlier today so I could post here directly. Hopefully that will alleviate any frustration with announcement timing going forward. Also, I would like to thank Yare and everyone else who helped post our events on here in the past.

2) We have given out full prize support every time we've come within a few players of our announced goal of 20+, as many of the regulars here can confirm. We did so even if it meant taking a small loss on an event a couple of times.  However, we can and will cut prize support if attendance numbers fall far short of our goal. This has not happened often and we never set unrealistic goals for our prize structure.

3) We made a conscious decision to run this tournament on the weekend of M11 release. Our own Release Celebration event is scheduled on the same day at 6pm, so that players are able to participate in both, should they so choose.  There are tons of Magic events in the tri-state area and it is almost impossible to find a completely free weekend, In fact, this very tournament was originally supposed to take place in June but we moved it because NYSE scheduled an event on the same date in Brothers Grim.

4) Our policy is that no outside food is allowed in the store. We tend to be generally flexible with coffee/tea, fruit or even donuts, but draw a line at smelly fast food. This policy is clearly posted at the entrance to the game room and is announced at the beginning of each large event. I am sure it's possible that a bunch of people sneaked food in during a PTQ and we were too busy to deal with it, but I would guess 50+ is a gross exaggeration.

5) I do not intend to write a tournament report. As someone who was a columnist for InQuest, The Sideboard and magicthegathering.com for years, I have no problem writing about Magic. I do however take issue with the assertion that it is part of the TOs job.  At any rate, you would be much better served reading something from chrispikula or yare as they know/understand the Vintage metagame and are far more likely to have something interesting to say on the subject. I am sorry if anyone disagrees with my outlook on this, but I'd rather be forthcoming about it than fail to meet expectations.

In conclusion I would like to add that Kings Games has been running Magic tournaments for over 8 years now. We are also likely the only game store in NYC that carries a decent inventory of Vintage MTG singles. We genuinely want to help build and promote ALL Magic play formats and welcome both your help and your constructive criticism. For those of you who do choose to attend our tournament this Saturday, I will be happy to discuss any of these issues at length.

Sincerely,

Alex Shvartsman
Kings Games

[Yare]

Thanks for your comments Alex.

I saw that you posted in the TO organizer thread and an admin should give you TO status within the next week at the latest, so you should be able to post announcements for any events going forward.

Regarding posting TO reports, I think you may misunderstand what is meant by a "TO report." At least in the Vintage community, typically this just means a report of objective facts from the tournament from the TO, including number of people in attendance, the top 8 (or top 4, for small events) winners, and their decklists. Of course other analysis (such as archetype percentage breakdowns) is welcome, but I think a bare-bones report with just attendance, top finishers and decklists is generally considered sufficient for most tournament goers. It's a way of showing the community that the event went well and recognizes those participants who did well, which I think does matter. Analysis of what would be a good deck in the future or what decks/cards didn't really do so well is not typically expected or usual in a Vintage TO report. I hope that you will reconsider your position regarding this issue in the future.

[kingsgames]

Thanks for the clarification. This is definitely not the "tournament report" I remember and love from The Dojo days I will see i can get that info posted. Hope to see you Saturday!

Alex

[2nd_lawl]

Thanks for the clarification. This is definitely not the "tournament report" I remember and love from The Dojo days I will see i can get that info posted. Hope to see you Saturday!

Alex

I think people just mainly want the top 8 decklists and know how many people showed up.

[voltron00x]

A Tournament Report is written by a player who battled in a tournament.

A TO Report is written by the TO who ran the event, and is generally just a summary.  A basic one is as simple as this Mad Lib:  

"On (date), we had (# of players) compete for (prize) at (location).  The top 8 was (Matt Elias playing Oath and seven other players).  Here's how the top 8 bracket played out: (list bracket).  Congrats to Matt Elias for winning the (prize)!"

A more detailed TO report will go as far as breaking out the metagame, if the TO is familiar enough with the basics of Vintage to get that far.  

PS Chris Pikula, Oath IS the best deck in Vintage.  I will get you to the dark side yet.  Hopefully on the back of a far superior MUD match-up than this "Tezzeret" deck you claim is good.  Pfft, "Tezzeret", that crap will never catch on...

[GU3ST]

4) Our policy is that no outside food is allowed in the store. We tend to be generally flexible with coffee/tea, fruit or even donuts, but draw a line at smelly fast food. This policy is clearly posted at the entrance to the game room and is announced at the beginning of each large event. I am sure it's possible that a bunch of people sneaked food in during a PTQ and we were too busy to deal with it, but I would guess 50+ is a gross exaggeration.

I am the kid you would not allow into the store with the fast food. You wouldn't even let me throw the food out in your store while it was pouring rain outside and you made me walk to the corner of the street in the rain and at least 2 minutes after you said no to me 6 people came in with a bag of 15 apple pies and other fast food items and 50 people+ is not an exaggeration because everyone eating it was upstairs

[gerf]

I attended the tournaments this past weekend and would like to add a few comments....

1) I think its good that they ran the two tournaments on the same day, but at different times.  This allowed me to play in both in one day.  This makes it an extra added value b/c i had to travel over 1 hour to get there.  Also its in NYC an added bonus.

2) Attendance fell short and the prize structure was altered to reflect this.  I liked that they changed it to cash prize (very rare these days).  They took a LOSS of $25 dollars on the tournament.  This was made up with singles sales... esp. to note that they sold 4 awesome beta underground seas for $600 a piece.  I would have taken them if I had the resources to.
 
Also a lower turnout means better chance at winning, which I drew in the final rounds of both events (A good day for me)

3) I was also asked to leave temp. to consume food that I bought from outside.  If there was a sign that said this I would have just eaten the food at the place i bought it.  The owner told me about a nice place within walking distance that was priced under $10 and had good food.  Of course there was lots of fast food options that people are use to, and closer then the place I went.  as a side note I ate between the two tournaments.  When I go to a new store I like to ask if they have any unique rules (some of them do) I just forgot this time b/c i was there once for a ptq.  They also sell food at the store which is another reason that things might get mixed up.

4) Parking here can be a problem without some foresight.  Street parking is available, I think by meter.  I opted for a parking ramp on the same street.  The parking ramp has a huge 4 or 5 section sign, and in small print says closes at 11pm or some time around there.  So when I came back from the tournaments and some healthy amount of trading, it was past midnight, and the ramp was closed and locked up...  I ended up calling the parking ramp supervisor on the phone number listed in the sign and ended up getting my car out after waiting 20 minutes and explaining to him that I didn't live in the city.   I did find out otherwise that there is another parking ramp, that is 24/7 around there.

5) There was some talk of making it 15 card proxie next time, so that more people new to the format can play, etc....

6) As to is it worth the trip?  Money wise unless you win in accordance with how far you have to travel, it won't be worth the money to go there (unless you are looking to get the hard to find beta underground seas/other singles), but magic should be about having fun.  was it enjoyable? Yes Everyone was friendly, with a mix of ages.  I also meet the part creator of the deck that I was playing (an added bonus to me, cause of some pointers on playing it/etc....) altho he wasn't playing it himself.

7) There was a good amount of EDH/Commander going on. was able to get a few games in.

8) I was unable to attend previous events b/c of the small amount of advanced notice.  This one was actauly easy to attend because it was rescheduled.  I have since been added to the mailing list and have the website so it should be better.

Over all it was a good (well great b/c I won+) experience, just to note a few small problems, that are fixable with advanced notice.

[forcethewill]

How does a tournment for a volcanic island get 5 more player than a event for a mox emerald. If the T.O. Arent to blame for the loss of players.

[Stormanimagus]

I just want to say that I was at this tournament and enjoyed one of my first victories in quite a while. Though it was small (11 people), a victory still feels good. I do want to address some long-term concerns I have though.

@Long-Island & Philly Vintage Players — I understand there is some love-loss with King's Games to due past events at the store, but I thought long and hard about it, and I think carrying a grudge is the wrong way to go. To me, it is the best venue that the NYC area has to offer due to the size of the space and the convenience of not being in Manhattan. I realize there are still logistical problems with the events at King's Games (parking costs, not being posted on the drain until very close to the event etc.,) but I think many of those issues will be worked out by the next event as Alex is now able to post on TMD freely as a T.O. He will also be posting T4 deck-lists on this site very soon, and a brief report.

Now, I plan to try to attend the July 31st tourney at NYSE for the Recall, but I highly urge some of you Long Islanders to make the trip down for our next event. I promise it will not disappoint. Even with only 11 people yesterday the tourney was fun and civilized and well run. The scene is starting to pick up a little interest here in NYC for Vintage, but I still need your support to boost attendance to the 30-40 zone on a consistent basis. I really don't know what else I can say except please support me and the NYC community as I've tried to support you and yours. I'm sick of this segmentation and bad blood that seems to be dividing certain players and communities from one another. Vintage is a small enough niche format as it is; it doesn't need any more bickering to drive people apart. If Alex did things as a T.O. that anyone takes issue with I advise you to talk to him about it directly, but in a civilized manner. Express yourself. Be honest. But also listen to the other side of the story. I know he's made mistakes. I know people's opinions of him personally. But he IS TRYING to support our community and that's good enough for me. He lost money on this tournament and he still wants to run another in September. I want Brooklyn Vintage to succeed, but I need everyone's help to make it happen.

A Tournament Announcement for the September tournament will appear on TMD well in advance this time and I think it's gonna be a good one this time.

Thank you all for listening,

-Noah