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Jul 31, 2010 -- 3:26AM, IkomaAze wrote:

I don't see the need to give qualifier points, which give  extra incentive to people who already play many events, while offering very little to  the target audience.

Hypothetically, if the "for newer tournament players" vibe could be preserved though, wouldn't these providing QPs be a good thing?  At the moment the QPs may be one of the stronger motivations for more experienced players to check these out, but they're also there to get newer players into the tournament system.  It seems to me that if ThNM were as advertised but without the QPs, it would say to the participants, "this is a lesser tournament".  That's not really the message they want to send, though.  They want ThNM to be a gateway to still bigger tournament experiences, not a "fun-size" candybar version. 

It's always been my opinion that people who are not quite so good (and/or experienced) have three options when it comes to tournaments - they can 1) not play, 2) resign themselves to getting beaten or 3) improve their game.  If you could somehow create a tournament environment which was populated only by inexperienced or less-good players, I don't think that would be helpful to the players in question.  They might win more than they would otherwise, but they'd have less drive to improve their game and also have to deal with only being successful in the "casual tournament scene" rather than the "real tournament scene".

FNM (and now ThNM) does have the inexperienced as its target audience.  However, I think that the goal is (beyond fun in general) to present these inexperienced players with a taste of competition at higher levels, not to provide them with a self-contained environment.  I remember the first few Magic tournaments I attended back in 94 or so.  They were run by my FLGS and there weren't any great players.  The only players who had earned any real noteriety got it because their decks were expensive things, with lots of great old cards (keeping in mind this was back when there was only one constructed format).  Their decks may have been spendy, but they weren't great players.  Playing in those tournaments with my not-great deck (I certainly couldn't afford a great deck as a high school student) didn't really inspire me to check out the larger tournament scene.  The general vibe that this was just a bunch of casual games the way I was used to, but with prizes attached.  It wasn't until I went to a tournament at a different, larger FLGS that I found real competition.  I found people who actually spent time tuning their decks to win; people who scoured the BBSs of the day looking for tournament results from across the country to find out what kind of decks were doing well elsewhere.  In my first tournament I got destroyed by some guy's finely tuned deck ("The Deck of Threes" - an early type 1 aggro archetype).  It didn't turn me off from tournaments, it made me want to figure out how to beat it.  I spent a few more weeks trying different new decks every week (FNM may be a relatively new term, but it's been going strong here for 16 years), and eventually I found something that won (blue-white control, go figure). 

I don't think my experiences are uncommon.  Young kids aren't inspired to play baseball by the minor league, they're inspired by the major league.  The same is true in Magic.  In my opinion, what Wizards should do for ThNM is to make sure they keep it promoted in the right places.  They need to make sure that magicthegathering.com is posting decklists from ThNM, and that it's getting good press.  They need to promote it as a stepping stone to greater things.  It's not "a tournament for the inexperienced", it's "a tournament with which to become experienced".

Jul 31, 2010 -- 1:55PM, IkomaAze wrote:

I agree with you logic, Ith, and the points you make about being a gateway to the full tournament experience. That is the ideal, and if players do feel they're getting a lesser experience, then perhaps I'm wrong.

My only disagreement is in degree. In my opinion, the removal of QPs would not make these TNMO tournaments seem like "a tournament for the inexperienced" or in anyway make it a self-contained environment of inexperienced players. I honestly believe the level would be close to the 2-Man, 4-Man and 8-Man level, and could be marketted as such.

Removing QPs would (I believe) remove *some* of the random high level opponents you might expect in the Premiere Events room or online PTQs. I think this is a good thing.

Finally, by the time newer players know and care about QPs, I'd argue they are no longer in the TNMO "target audience" from WotC's point of view, and they should be directed at regular 8 man drafts (for example).

Target audience for TNMO is all players.  Top pros routinely play in FNM wherever they live.

Jul 30, 2010 -- 1:57PM, DorianH wrote:

Jul 30, 2010 -- 1:52PM, WotC_K wrote:

To answer nate:  yes.  We will be putting these up as single events at the times indicated. We will discuss the maximum size of the events early next week. We want all players who would like to play in these events to be able to play in the events.   If they fill very quickly, we will replace them with larger events. 

Chris, as you are being so nice to answer our questions, would it be possible to add new times in addition to increasing the size?

Also, you mention Standard.  Will this be the only constructed format or will this rotate too?  And for drafts will it always be the most recent Standard set or can we get some Classic sets added in too (TNMO - ME4, doesn't prepare you for FNM but I'd love it )?

Our intention is to accommodate all the players who want to participate, but we will not be adding additional start times. These will be weekly scheduled events and are designed to encourage participation at the scheduled times.

We have, however, made some changes to the Thursday Night Magic Online Announcement, increasing the maximum size of each event to 256 and shifting the start time of the final two events by one hour (3PM PDT and 8PM PDT, respectively).