Little Egypt Wars 2009 Discussion...

Ok, here is the deal. Little Egypt Wars is going to be a sort of Games Day that will be held on September 5th at the Carbondale Civic Center. It is being coordinated by the new "committee" that has taken over for the EC committee, of which both Brian and myself are members. I am, as usual, in charge of the Magic events that will be held at this function, and that is what this thread is about. Now, please be aware that there will be a $10 entry fee for walking in the door. I know it's annoying, but there is nothing I can do about that at all.

Here's what I have tentatively planned for now:

There will be one primary tournament: a Standard event that will start at 9:00am. What I want for this is easy: power for first place, and other neat prizes for the rest of the T4, and probably product for T8. This is not something I am taking lightly, as I want it to be successful, so I am working with Scott to make this a reality, and I hope Adam will get involved as well. I want to draw players from all over the region, so I plan on aggressively pimping the event, especially if I can be certain of getting power put up for it. Depending on the prize structure, I am looking at an entry fee of ~$20.

The only other thing we'll be doing for sure is our typical drafts on the fly. However, as a nod to Ogre, I'd like to offer a free draft for the first 8 people who drop from the main tournament. I think it's a good way to repay people for coming out and it builds goodwill among the player base, which is always a positive. Drafts will be the usual $12.50, and we'll just have the small sign-up sheets; whenever one is filled, we will fire it off and get another sheet ready. I don't expect a ton of drafts, but you never know, especially if we get people from further away to come down.

I am going to talk to Ogre this Sunday and see if he would be interested in coming down and having a table. Scott said that he doesn't plan on bringing singles or anything, so Ogre would likely have the monopoly, and I figure he'll like that. Hopefully he'll be interested and we can get him down here. I guess we'll see, though.

That is all I have for now. Feel free to comment or provide suggestions/idea/questions/whatever. I want (and need) feedback so we can get everything hammered down to specifics ASAP, so fire off, folks.

As I will probably not be around for this I'm sure my opinion doesn't hold as much weight, but here it goes anyway...

$30 to play in a power tournament is way too much, as I am sure it will be a cheap, beat up piece of power. Which leads into what piece of power are you wanting to get.

What does the $10 entry fee go towards? (I already have concerns that this is more about making money for people than trying to revive a dying/dead con.) I have no problem paying entry fee for a con, but other than magic, what else will be going on for the magic players, that makes $10 worth it on top of the $20 entry fee?

Is there any way you can work other tournaments into the mix?

I realize that I am in the minority, but I have no interest in standard. It would require something else to make me want to attend.

These are just a set of initial questions.

Good Luck with the event!

It really just depends. I am not overly interested in making money on the event; I just want to build the community. I can handle a loss (as long as it's not huge) if it's going to help the community; won't be the first time. Also note that I said "~$20" and that it depended upon the prize structure; it could easily go lower if the prizes are different than I am working towards or if it's lower tier power (Timetwister, etc.).

The $10 goes towards the cost of renting the Civic Center, which isn't that cheap. As far as other things, there will be other games played; I don't know for certain at this time. That's a better question for Scott, honestly, as I am only involved in the Magic part, pretty much.

It really depends. Originally I planned on doing 2 events, but there are some logistical issues that made me alter that. If enough people want an additional tournament, I need to know so I can get it hashed out as well. The problem will be start times, as the committee doesn't want events starting at different times than other events (it's more or less a slot system, which was determined before I came on board), so the second tournament would have to start at an awkward time in relation to the first. Again, if there is enough interest, fine, but I will need to know what format, what kind of prizes people want, etc. ASAP. I'll attach a poll to the original post and we'll see what happens.

Standard is the most popular format for tournaments by a mile, so that's why I chose it. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but there's no way to please everyone, frankly. I chose the format that the majority would be interested in under the assumption that doing so would draw more players.

Hopefully that makes things a little clearer for everyone.

I propose a secondary block tournament as block season will be in midswing at that point.

Other than that, I will try to make it back from wherever I am to attend, and no matter what I will try to donate to prize support. This is the type of the thing the community could use right now and I am glad to see the work in progress.

There is actually not a Block Constructed PTQ season this year. PT Honolulu is the only Block Constructed event on the schedule. If there will be a PTQ season going at that time (as it is sort of in between seasons)., it will be Standard (for PT: Austin).

So, yeah.

Ahh, well then nix that. My vote would then be for either extended or a super fun format of some sort (if there is to be a second). I think a large standard with pick up ques for drafts and other events works fine.

Would anyone be interested in some custom art playmats for the event as prizes? I might be able to come up with some more like I made before, with differant art of course. Possibly better art and possibly color art.

That sounds fine to me. A nice idea would be to give one to the person who completes the Swiss but finishes last in the standings. Gives them something even for not doing well.

I was discussing this with Crystal, and we were wondering about prizes. I suggested power, mainly because that is the best way to get people to travel for a random event. However, if we went with something else, it would be less expensive both on my end and for the entry fee. Crystal suggested something like a playset of whatever the most expensive Standard card is, or something like that.

I do have a couple of issues with that, though:

1. The most expensive cards in Standard are, with the exception of Elspeth, rotating out of the format in 6 months. So, at the time of the tournament, the cards will be legal for more or less a month before they rotate out. That's kinda lame.

2. The newer high dollar rares are the Alara Block Planeswalkers (specifically Elspeth and Nicol Bolas), and it's rare to see more than 2 of those in a deck, so offering a playset of a card that no one actually uses a playset of seems odd to me.

We could offer something like a playset of Tarmogoyfs for first place. I know it isn't Standard legal, but it's kept the majority of its value since rotating out of Standard, and is heavily played in both Extended and Legacy. Then we could have second place be a playset of something else, like, say, Bitterblossom or Mutavault, etc. The primary benefit of this type of prize structure is that it isn't completely top heavy, so the prizes would be more evenly dispersed, instead of first place getting a huge prize and everyone else getting less than you would typically, %/$ wise.

Any thoughts? I want to have everything hashed out by the end of this month, if possible, so I need feedback pretty much ASAP.

I'm no expert here, but I think a more evenly distributed prize structure is better when developing a community. You want people to come back and play again, and to do that they need to feel like they can reasonably attain something. I noticed in the past that some players wouldn't go to top heavy prize structured tournaments because they new the level of competition they faced and deemed it a waste of time. My vote goes to less top heavy prize structure.


As far as other tournaments go, some sort of limited is probably the best way to go, be it sealed or draft.


On another note, I will promote this event around Cape when you get the details.

As I said in the first post, there will be drafting available whenever 8 people sign up at any given time.

Don't forget that instead of play-sets, you could do foil versions of hot cards too. I can't see someone complaining about that.

T-Goyf's are always a good idea. I still don't have a play-set of these and I'm sure I'm not the only one in that boat.

I am aware of this, I was just throwing out that maybe some sort of scheduled draft/sealed tournament might be appealing. Draft is our biggest turnout in cape. YMMV

I am aware of this, I was just throwing out that maybe some sort of scheduled draft/sealed tournament might be appealing. Draft is our biggest turnout in cape. YMMV

I think offering a larger number of smaller events is just a better way to go about it, honestly. Everyone gets to draft either way, so it's kind of a moot point.

I think both of these are great ideas (power and the playsets). I would acctually prefer the sweet playsets/foils thing. But overall what will get in St.L peeps and others is the best.

I am aware of this, I was just throwing out that maybe some sort of scheduled draft/sealed tournament might be appealing. Draft is our biggest turnout in cape. YMMV

I think offering a larger number of smaller events is just a better way to go about it, honestly. Everyone gets to draft either way, so it's kind of a moot point.

Fair enough. I cast my vote for Legacy!

Ok, so after some discussion and research, I had to scrap the power idea; even the lower tier power has gone up significantly since I last looked at it, so making an evenly distributed prize pool was going to be impossible with that sort of prize. We got to talking about it, and we figured that the majority of the T2 players in this area would be more satisfied with product as prizes, so I worked it out and came up with this:

Ok, here's what we came up with. LMK if you have any questions or anything:


Magic: the Gathering Standard Tournament
Entry fee--$15

Standard deckbuilding rules apply. First prize is two (2) sealed boxes of new product (either Alara Reborn or Magic 2010, depending upon availability); prizes continue to 8th place.

For disclosure, the prize breakdown would be as follows:
1st--2 boxes
2nd--1 box
3rd/4th--3/4 box
5th-8th--1/2 box

There will also be some additional prizes thrown in, like promo foils (FNM and the like), playmats, etc.

There will also be a Legacy tournament that will start @ 2:00 p.m. I didn't get any real input on what prizes to offer, so it will just be a normal Legacy tourney, with $5/2 pack entry, etc.

Now, as far as the prizes for the T2, I would greatly appreciate any help anyone could give us, considering we're going to have to pay for the product up front, and it's 6+ boxes just for the prizes of that tourney. So, something we discussed a couple of years ago was adding a $1 "tax" to tourney entry fees to put into a fund for prizes (this was for EC and the Invitational thing); this would be an immense help in securing the funds for these prizes. Please note that I am not trying to get people to pay for all of the prizes; I just want to be able to break even on this whole thing, and $15/person probably won't do it unless the turnout is much larger than I expect.

So, if you'd be agreeable to such a plan, I would much appreciate it. In the case that I am not at a tournament, you can give the funds to Stephen (Hagan) or Adam, who will then give them to me. The money will be put in my lockbox and not used in any way until we purchase the product. Hopefully I can work out something with Adam, and if not, I can get them from Ogre or something.

Anyway, if you have questions/comments, please share.

1. Who is coming? Tate? Flora crew? Ron?

2. Are we going to have side drafts fire? Is there actual interest in these? What if we have to pay more for m10? Do we want side drafts as sine elim or swiss? We need to know for ordering and such

3. Is legacy still a go? Is there interest?

I hope some of the old guard makes it. I'd love to see cook amd crew. I miss making fun of mikey. Also if you need standard decks let me know.

I wont be attending I was scheduled to work unfortunately.

In case people actually read this, we will be requiring deck registration for the 9:00am Standard event at LEW. So, if possible, try to get there before 9 in order to fill out the deck reg sheet.

Crap! I didn't realize that it was already time for that deal! There's no way that I'll be there, between no vacation days left to me, loosing track of time, and extremely low dough. I will also not be able to get any play mats together. I was doing some pricing between some local printers and so far it's way too exspensive to go that route. Mainly because even though I come up with a lower individual price on materials than my former supplier, I have to order something like 100 mats minimum all with the same art to get those lower prices. I can't afford that many to start with and I can't afford for them to all be the same art and not be able to sell them, if nobody likes that art. Back to square one and trying to price a couple other people I know that I haven't priced with yet. Well, hopefully I'll see you guys at Campaigns and probably before that somewhere.

We're 50-50 on coming. No one has really talked about it at all, and honestly I completely forgot about it. I was planning on coming originally, but now I don't know. I don't even have a T2 deck together at the moment. If I do come, it will almost certainly be myself and rachel.

As I said in the PM, we can get together just about any Standard deck you'd want to play as long as we have time to build it. I just need to know by tomorrow afternoon so I can build it; I'll be building my deck as well, so doing it all at once would be much easier.

Barring car trouble, Rachel and I will be there. I do want to do draft (or legacy if we are still doing that?) on the side as well. Rachel would only be playing legacy though.

How did this go?

Attendance was not that good, primarily because people who said they would be there weren't. However, I think everyone enjoyed themselves quite a bit.

I will say that for future events, I will decide what tournaments there are; I'm not going to go through the hassle of setting up a vote and then have the people who voted for the winning format not show up.

I think it went pretty good actually. We only had about 16 or 17 magic players total, but we were able to run standard, draft, and an impromptu legacy. I'd say that everything went pretty well.

There were actually more people than I expected for the event. There were people in other rooms playing board games, pokeman, star wars, and yugioh. It wasn't as much as past ECs, but it was still more than I expected.

BTW, Just so everyone knows, Rachel, Mikey, and myself did NOT vote for any of the categories. We probably would have all voted either extended, legacy, or maybe EDH/peassant, but none of the three of us voted. I don't know about anyone else from Flora.

Let's keep doing future votes. But, let's just do the votes PUBICALLY, like in the forum or whatnot.


Funny stories from the weekend.....



I got to swerve Andy's Time Warp. (and still lost). LOL. Andy was playing Time Sieve in T2, I was playing Terry's turn deck. We had 2 pretty fun matches. I didn't really see much more than that, as I had several long matches in T2.

Veech playing Doran, played 4 practice games against Terry and I. The only one we won was the game where Veech drew all 4 Malestrom Pulses in the first 20 or so cards. He destroyed three howling mines and some planeswalkers. Booo on destroying howling mines. Especially when it's two at once. (Actually it was a very good play by him, but who destroys howling mines?)

Stephen played a turn 1 Hypnotic Specter against me. I officially resisted the urge to cry. LOL. Then later, he MEMORY PLUNDERED my Force of Will and used it against me.

Terry (43 Land) against James (Goblins). Terry has no cards in hand and just got loam in graveyard, in an obvious dredge position. Terry forgets to dredge (although he realized it milliseconds after drawing). Well, Terry topdecks a welltimed Pyroclasm. He then remembers to dredge next turn, and flips over THREE NON-LAND. This was after SBing, so he probably had about 38 or 39 land still in the deck. I was that's Karma for topdecking the clasm.

Adam goes 3-1 (starts 3-0) with Enduring Ideal in legacy, in a deck he picked up like 5 minutes before the tourney. I asked him if he liked it afterwards and he goes. "Eh, it's okay. I generally don't play things like this. I generally play things to beat things like this." LOL. It and high tide were the only extra decks I had available after some other people had borrowed this. I suggested high tide before the tournament to which he responded "I don't want my brain to explode.".

Rachel didn't think her Form of the Dragon was so cute when it was on Adam's side of the table either. LOL. (Solitary Confinemant was much more relevant, but details).

Hey,
I would like to thank everyone who turned out for a great time. Thanks Terry for putting on the show with Scott, thanks to him as well. Thanks to James for being an amazing judge. Thanks to Veech and Adam for beating me down.

Memory Plunder on Force of Will.

I couldn't resist this at all. That is a pretty silly way to vote. And think of the mess.

Why? I think it would be extremely easy and better. Then you know no one is rigging the vote.