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Dec 25, 2011 -- 12:48AM, Dxfiler wrote:

Dec 24, 2011 -- 4:18PM, Bauer4Prez wrote:

I must share that while it appeared people were grinding and abusing the planeswalker points system, there were many people who were legitamtely excited about the thought that playing and doing well at their local store could be a launching pad for them in the Magic world.  After reading (and re-reading!) the new system, it appears that the "gravy train" is mostly back but that players attending local stores get no real reward.

Hi.  :-)   I thought your post was very good and brought up some really valid points.  The organized play changes they announced were very big ones and affect alot of things.  I don't work for WOTC, but I own a store and wanted to give my take on the changes as a storeowner/tournament organizer because I actually think the changes benefit players going to local stores more than ever before.

There's no real way to only play at my local stores, even the big ones, and have a chance to attend a Pro Tour or Premier Event and win some real money.  In the U.S. I'll need 300 competative points in a season (which I understand is quarterly so about 13 weeks), to qualify for a Premier Qualifier.  I could literally go undefeated for 12 weeks at FNM, attend the 1 PTQ in my area for the quarter and do reasonably well, win at my local store's Magic Game Day for the quarter, win the pre-relase, and still be short of the 300 points.  This is assuming that FNM even awards competative points, which doesn't even seem to be the case as the announcement states the only reason to accumulate FNM points is for the FNM national tournament.

FNM isn't meant to be a direct feeder for Pro Tours.  That was not its intent when it was created.  To suddenly have it be a direct source that could qualify you for PT's without needing many other tourneys was most certainly a distinct problem.  I can tell you from my store alone, we have 2-3 players about to qualify on the top 100 competitive.  Although they are great players who have been to Pro Tours before and I'm happy for them, the fact that they are getting paid plane tickets to Pro Tours off of mainly attending FNM's actually bothers me. 
This is coming from the guy running the fnm's

FNM's have experienced a tremendous boost since they announced these changes, but the multiplier was just too high.  It's great that I can run 2 FNM's and they are filled to the brim with players, but it's not great that this is suddenly a driving force to get them to the PT.  The guys from my store who are about to qualify for the PT have other good finishes in bigger events as well, but the fact that they were suddenly willing to drive down weekly from Boston (an hour away) to compete in both my store's fnm's for the past 2 months tells me the system was flawed. 

Which brings me to the next question.......why doesn't the FNM tournament feed into the Pro Tour at any point?   If wizards really wants to give an incentive for players to play at their local store to one day end up at the Pro Tour wouldn't this be logical?

The new changes mean FNM's don't suddenly dictate whether you're going to a PT or not, but they still definitely mean something.  FNM championships are very meaningful and if you're dominating your local store's FNM's this is a great event you can qualify for.  It also means FNM's are back to being a stepping stone for compeittive play, which was their original intent.  Their is still plenty of incentive to play fnm's if you're an up-and-coming player because it builds confidence and you can still qualify for a very meaningful event in FNM champs.

My sense is that the gravy train competative players don't want to have to play at FNM.   They were complaining that they were losing sleep to go to FNM before the night of a big Grand Prix.  If a player is doing so well at Grand Prix and PTQ tournaments that they are in the top 100 in PWP or about there, they shouldn't have to worry about attending some out-of-town store's FNM.  This is easily accomplished by just putting a threshold on the number of points someone needs to qualify, which is part of what Wizards has just fixed.  However, Wizards really went too far in giving local store tournaments almost no value to someone's competative total.  Players who don't (I mean can't) jet-set or even drive to the next major city should still have incentive to attend their local stores.  But as it stands now, players with a goal of playing at the high-stakes tournaments have absolutely no reason to attend their own local store tournaments, other than the 5 or 6 Friday Night Magic points they'll win (whoopiee!)

Grinding FNM's should not be a driving factor in qualifying for PT's, and you're correct in that these competitive players don't actually want to do this constant grinding to make a PT. The casual play factor of FNM's is going to be more relevant.  I think competitive players will still be in them, but personally I don't expect 4-5 guys to drive down an hour from Boston every week now to my store.  I'm OK with that even though they're friends of mine, because really FNM is not meant for them. 

So WoTC, you have to decide.  Are local store tournaments such as FNM just for fun, or are they a legitamate stepping stone to one day becoming a Pro? 

I don't speak for WOTC, but I personally think the changes make it so FNM is both fun AND a legit stepping stone to larger events.  Everyone has to start somewhere.  FNM is that starting off point.  I can't tell you the number of players I've personally seen start by just taking their licks in fnm, then eventually holding their own, then finally just constantly winning to the point where they decided to move on to bigger, more competitive events and have success there.  For those players to suddenly be playing back in FNM's because it gave them a distinct advantage in qualifying for the Pro Tour was wrong.  WOTC recognized this almost immediately and these new OP changes address that.

FNM's are now back to being more of a stepping stone for larger events instead of a direct feeder to them.  Personally I'm very happy about that.  It will probably shrink my attendance a little and we won't be swelling to 30-40 people weekly, but there are plenty of other events for those super competitive guys to play in.  FNM isn't meant to be that.

Good local stores should be very excited for these changes as they are going to get more chances to run great events for their players than ever before.  WOTC's new PTQ initiative that's being implemented in local hobby shops is the best news I've personally heard.  It's worth noting I'm biased on this subject because I'm in the first wave of local stores that's part of this intiative

Still, it's a great exciting change that's going to benefit ALOT of local stores just like the advent of store-based preleases did.

Even if your local store isn't selected to run a PTQ, they're going to have tons of chances to run bigger events.  Double the GP's means double the amount of GPT's available to players.  With the announcement that GP Top 4's will now have plane tickets in addition to the cash prizes, GP's are more meaningful than ever before.

Plus there's nothing stopping local stores from doing their own big events that aren't directly tied to WOTC.  As my store's competitive player base grew, so did my palette of events.  I've run 1k's, buncha dual tourneys, and feeder events for other giant events like the 10k TCG player.com champs.  There's nothing from stopping other stores from doing the same.

Also, Pre-releases still remain the easiest and best way for stores to build a base and bring in tons of players they wouldn't normally get.  WOTC's decision to allow stores to run pre-releases made that possible.  Magic is more popular than ever before, at least in my area, and I think the newly announced organized play changes will only add to that.

So personally speaking, I think you'll find local stores being able to take great advantage of these changes and build even bigger bases to help grow both themselves and the game.  I know I'm going to try my best.

Again, great post and happy holidays. 

- Dave Feinstein,
Owner Die Hard Games

Thanks for the polite response, Dave.  I checked out your store's website and it looks real nice.  

It does appear that you are running 2x FNM events per week.  This really puts players not at your store at a great disadvantage.  How can I possibly play at my local store and expect to qualify for the FNM National tournament if I am only offered 52 events per year compared to your customers' 104 events per year?   No wonder players at your store were getting such high PWP in such a quick amount of time.

My suggestion is that in-store play be rewarded more, but keep it even for players across different parts of the country.  If you want to run 2 events on a Friday, great!  But let's make sure only one of them counts toward the FNM points.   

Also, just as a point of clarity, I did not mean to communicate that I want players winning local FNM's to get in to the Pro Tour.  I was thinking that perhaps the winner of the national FNM tournament at the end of the year might get a berth into a Premier event.  Imagine how excited players would be to think that by playing at their local store and being successful, that they could go to the national FNM for the ultimate prize of being invited to playing with the biggest names in the game!  It would be almost a minor league event that players could aspire to be playing in The Bigs.

This is the kind of excitement that is lost with the current changes to OP.  That's all I wanted to share.  Playing at my local store is now just....well, playing at my local store with friends.  If that's all Wizards wants it to be then I hope they are just honest about it.  However, this is the quote from Helene Bergot:

"Hobby stores are the fundamental first step toward building and growing Magic communities. Because of this, it has become more important to connect Premier Play with in-store play. This is the insight that has been behind the recent OP changes."

My concern is that by limiting the reward that events offer at my local store, I'll never qualify for a Premier Play event, save from perhaps 1 bye (maybe 2 if I play a lot and do really well) that I can use at the GP that comes by that year.  

I'm not seeing the link from in-store play to Premier play, which is frustrating.  If someone could present their data as to how one could win at their local store events combined with a great finish at a PTQ (since these are all the opportunities at my disposal) and be invited to a Premier event, that would really help ease my concerns.   My calculations aren't exactly putting me at 300 competative points in a quarterly season.  

Thanks for your help! 

Dec 27, 2011 -- 3:25PM, GerhardBerger wrote:

Dec 25, 2011 -- 11:49PM, Qilong wrote:

Then you are the one who is not understanding, as I said. Some stores do run it on another day. There are stores that run it on Saturday, say, due to work schedules. This was actually brought up in the discussion of the planeswalker-points when they were brought up. They then withhold the day off. Wizards apparently allows them to place their sanction for the day off by one, or that would not be possible. This is how places can clock multiple FNsM a week, and it is the only way other than finding stores that run Friday Night Magic at different times. Not only is it possible, it happens, and not in just one place.

Hmm this is getting pretty interesting.  You seem pretty sure that there are stores not running FNM on Friday.  Would you mind naming one or more stores that are doing this so I can fact check?  PM me or email me if you don't want to publicly disclose.

All that writing I did, and you didn't bother giving me the benefit of the doubt and actually check up on what I said, did you? I actually told you to bother checking up in the past thread on this topic, regarding the very institution of the problem of planeswalker points (not just the announcement of them), in which occured testimonials of people (some by hearsay) on the matter. Instead, I got you and your argument from incredulity. So ... come back when you've read through the hundreds of responses on the issue -- I'll still be here.