Honestly, if you don't like how your TO does business, tell him/her. At our game store, we pool one pack per player into the prizes then award to top HALF of the field, then on top of that there's typically for a 20 person event 14 door prizes available, ranging from the bonus FNM foils to random boosters, sometimes Dave's been known to throw Beta playables in (two weeks ago I won a Beta Unsummon, yeah!)
My point is, try working with your TO and get them to change to a more inviting prize structure. If WotC does indeed increase prize support for local stores, which I believe they will, it may cause your TO to do something different.
[/U]Textless cards always had those awkward rulings, asking "what does this do again?" as I see hundreds of Jund players slap a Blightning or a Terminate. Hopefully, if the new promotional cards are released, they look more like Gameday events.
I'd like to point out that there are no indications that they are going to stop making textless cards. They may just be available through other means.
Man, try to stick up for the uber-casual crowd and look at what I get for it. "Waste of space." "Negative message."
So the uber casual crowd SHOULD beat the net-decking spikes? Wow, I gotta hear this one.
Because I honestly feel this is a troll. That's exactly it, you make it seem like the "good-guy" lost when in fact that's not the case whatsoever. A player brewed up a casual deck, then went to a sanctioned tournament.
I have no idea how FNM got this reputation of "Homebrew vs Homebrew" because it's a load of junk. That also doesn't mean it's directed towards Pro Tour players either. It's the lowest K rating event, to introduce tournament style to people. Nothing more, nothing less. Show me where it says "casual players only for FNM"
Since this player did not find any success in his current status or K rating in constructed, and felt no reward in his MPR's as a consequence, means these people are just sore losers, and are unable to admit to themselves if they wanna win, they have to iron out their faults.
So the uber casual crowd SHOULD beat the net-decking spikes? Wow, I gotta hear this one.
I never said they should. I said that FNM shouldn't reward solely the net-decking Spikes. In fact, on at least one occasion I suggested (of TOs, not Wizards) a prize structure that still gives the highest reward to first place, but of a flatter curve than a serious tournament. Hell, make it "pack per match win" or something, even.
End of the day I have no idea how people are managing to misinterpret my posts so wildly.
Sad to see the program go, but I'm not surprised. This seems to be in line with Wizards new store-centric tournament policy. I wouldn't be surprised if this gets replaced with a more robust system of handing out promo cards at events, such as 1x per player promos like the set releases and Games Day. I would prefer more full-art in the Games Day style than the MPR anyways, so I'm hoping for that.
Time for me to put in my 2 cents.
Here's my problem with this.
My city is pretty large, we boast 3 world-renowned colleges, and a dozen relatively well known ones.
In my city we have 2 Premiere shops.
1. Is on a college campus and charges > MSRP for boosters.
2. Is way off college campus, primarily filled with PT quality players, who generally refuse to play FNM and pull people from it to join in their private games. When they do play, it's a slaughter.
So now, my alma-matar's(Graduated in August) TO is screwed. Gamenight is over. I'm not about to pay >$4.50/pack, and I was already pretty much disillusioned with waiting 3 hours at the other shop for FNM to go off just to lose.
Now, I've gotta quantify this, I'm not a bad player. When I was active on MTGO I held an average rating between 1750-1800. I'm out of my league against these PT players. I went near-infinite on MTGO, throwing in maybe the price of a booster per draft. I went 3-15 at the shop(During ROE's release when the skill spread was better I went 3-2).
I'm not going to lie to any of you and claim that the MPR was the only thing keeping me playing there, it wasn't at all. But it was a really nice kickback for what really amounts to an exercise in frustration.
So if WOTC's plan is to push the stores, I'm not impressed and I think it was a mistake. If people weren't in the stores, it wasn't because the stores were great. I know it gives me less incentive to go and play, because I always knew I'd at least come out with something, and I'm *really* not a fan of the "Everybody's a winner!" mentality, I lost, don't patronize me. I'm not a winner.
I'm not a fan. Ultimately though, this decision I think will only be a game-breaker for a relatively small number of people.
Wow... I like how my entire reason for getting back into standard play over the past few months just got thrown out the window. The meta where I play is nothing but Tier 1 decks practicing for the next GP/PTQ/whatever, and the only enjoyment I EVER got out of FNM was getting my reward cards.
Guess it's back to strictly EDH (unless the FNMs make it worth it... January will be nice, anyways).
But yet somehow I don't really. Funny how that works. It's quite simple logic: FNM is aimed at casuals, so its structure should support that.
If that's crazy moon logic then I'm Meloku I guess.
I agree with this in part. I would often bring somewhat experimental decks to FNM to test hoping others were doing the same, when in reality they are just copying the lists card for card online, or copying the list and changing 1 or two cards and calling their custom build so they can win maximal prize. It is definitely discouraging, and I don't share the mentality of people who do that, and I also really don't care losing to them because in actuality I am losing to some 1 elses deck. The benefit is that when I do well my homebrew I feel really good about myself I played 4 color control the last standard event I played before rotation and the main spike at the kept walking past me throwing out snak comments to me like those 2 cards dont belong in the same deck! or Ill bet you always have mana issues. He was wrong on both accounts. Initially I did have problems but I played the deck and lost with it and made it better and ended up placing with the deck.
All you can really do is use this as an opportunity to become a better deck builder to beat the top archetypes, or give in and net deck and win some prize, or simply don't go to those events because they don;'t fit your style. There are more casual events,but the more casual the less the prize. We play peasant weekly, for a buck per person, with a payout of like 5 bucks for first, 3 for second, and 2 for third. And after that 5 or 6 of us usually sit around and do a game of edh. But do you really play magic for prize? I don't. It's a nice bonus, but the real fun for me is building and trying new decks.
Hrmm. Guess it just depends on the shop. Our shop tries to do our best to cater to all of our players for all of our tournaments.
We charge $5 per person to play in our FNM tournaments (standard type 2 constructed), and we provide a little over 1.5 packs of support per person for prizes, plus the FNM cards of course. We open up 1 pack for each person who has entered the tournament (always the newest magic set), spread out the rares, put the uncommons in a pile, the foils(including foil rares) and tokens into another pile, and then the commons into 1 or 2 piles depending upon turnout. We then take 1/2 the amount of people who entered, plus a few extra packs and spread those out into a number of piles (8-10 piles typically due to our large turnouts for fmns (around 35-40 people on average these days)).
First place gets to pick the first rare and gets the first pick from the piles (pack piles, uncommons, foils/tokens) plus an FNM card. Second place gets the second rare pick, the second pick from the piles, and an FNM card. Third through X each get a rare and a pile for as long as the piles last (not counting the commons). Up until the last one or two places everyone at least gets a rare no matter what, and the random chance at one of the two remaining FNM cards. The last one or two places each get at least a rare pick and eithor all or 1/2 the commons.
We decided early on that it was important that we provide the best support for our playerbase for our tournaments. Sadly this isnt the case for most shops, but all in all it seems to have worked out for the best for everyone.
Prize support for our non-fnm tournaments is structures the same (minus the FNM cards) however we hand out a promo from the batch we get from wizards for each set, (not sure if they are gateway promos or what they are called, but anyhow) to each person playing, plus add in a better promo of some kind (right now the extra gameday memnites that we had left over from the scars gameday) to hand out like the FNM cards (1st and 2nd plus 2 random to others). All in all it works out fairly well, since they get a little something extra for showing up for the non-FNM tournaments, and we get a solid and growing playerbase that is willing to come in and buy singles, packs, sleeves, etc for the tournaments, casually, or otherwise :).
But yet somehow I don't really. Funny how that works. It's quite simple logic: FNM is aimed at casuals, so its structure should support that.
If that's crazy moon logic then I'm Meloku I guess.
Since when has FNM been aimed at casuals? It may be aimed to be a stepping stone to competitive play, but aren't competitive decks/players the first start to that route?
Just because certain people feel the desire/need to bring their ☺☺☺☺ty homebrew and then get upset when they get stomped with it doesn't mean that FNM is all of a sudden a casual place.
In fact I see a pattern in all the recent changes to MTG (Recent refering to the last two years).
- No reprint policy enforced.
- Reduction of Extended.
- Stop Rewards
I'm 90% sure that the Rewards program will be converted to some kind of program where you can only get the promos if you play Standard or (a very contitional "or") Extended.
What Wizards is trying to do is force the players to play only the most recent formats, forcing them to buy sealed product from them and from the stores.
The Store-centric model forces players to go to the stores, where they sell sealed product... you need to see the product to actually be able to buy it.
What?
The reprint policy (non)change was not some 'greater plan' at work. It was a decision they had to reverse pending threats of lawsuits.
Also, this thread is mostly a pile.
Here is a good reason why MPR was cut:
There is no measurable gain for such a program.
Mass mailing operations are extremely costly, and the promise of quarterly mailings is not a metric that can be measured when it comes to player growth, event attendance, etc.
In store promos are much cheaper, simpler, and more easily show results.
There are plenty of things they could replace MPR with, and they will probably do one or two things. If the company was actually in trouble, they wouldn't replace anything with it, but they aren't, so expect things.
And considering how much money MPR cost them, I could expect some decent new initiatives that DON'T involve opening your mailbox.
Well I don't see the point in going somewhere to play anymore. Now I can just stay home and play with my friends. I guess I don't need to buy as many packs to stay competitive with the other players. So thanks for lightening the load on my wallet wizards.
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What?
The reprint policy (non)change was not some 'greater plan' at work. It was a decision they had to reverse pending threats of lawsuits.
This actually is 100% pure speculation. They've never come out and said that it was to reverse pending threats of lawsuits.
Its equally feasible that their sudden reversal was the result of an unexpectedly large number of stores complaining about a perceived sudden devaluing of their inventory. Either one of those would be enough to scare the book balancers into reversing. Furthermore, either one would have reasons for WotC to not go into details. Its understandably frustrating to everyone out there who were told "great news guys, we can reprint those old calssics you've been clamoring for, and heres why [outline of reasons why they can]." only to have that revoked later in the week with no eplanation whatsoever.
Well I don't see the point in going somewhere to play anymore. Now I can just stay home and play with my friends. I guess I don't need to buy as many packs to stay competitive with the other players. So thanks for lightening the load on my wallet wizards.
This might be counter-productive. Now, as before, the method of getting promos hinges on going out to a registered venue; the only difference is the promos are earned exclusively at the store as opposed to being mailed to you.
There's the issue that the promos are fewer in number, but given the store-centric policy Wizards seems to be crafting, I have a feeling that the intention is to make all of the incentives based around going out to play Magic.
I completely agree with you. In fact I'm not against the shut down, it's easy to see how much is cost inefficient the program.
But your "could replace", "probably", and so on, show what's my concern. At the moment, we have one less reason to play, and until Wizards give us something back, for people like me for which that was the only reason (or main one) this situation sucks.
Since they've not announced anything in this direction, except "we'll do some something" (oh really?), they could "probably" do nothing. At least, it's as probable as your suppositions.
In fact, most petitioning emails are (I hope, mine do) pointing this -give us something ELSE-, and not a whining "give us THAT back".
Don't you think if they had something new ready they SHOULD have announced it in the same news (or at the same time) to please their community?
[Of course this way they may test our reactions on this matter, but hey, I hope we're not guinea pigs for them! :-/]
Obviously, they didn't announce it as they should have, but understand that the mailings were going out in mere days, and any forthcoming changes would be instituted in 2011, as MPR has already used up all of their budget for this year. (Yes I realize fiscal years and all that, but for the 2010 calendar year, MPR did all it was expected to do already.)
So I would guess they thought (probably a bad plan) to hold off on revealing the exact changes for now.
The reason I expect something else, is because the announcement states as such, as pointed out by many in the thread.
It is important to us to provide you, the player, with the best possible Magic: The Gathering experiences. In this case we are redirecting these resources to increase our player support for local organized play programs.
...
We appreciate the dedication of our fans and look forward to providing new and exciting Magic play experiences.
So resources are being Redirected. They aren't flat out absorbing the large budget portion devoted to MPR. They are spending it in a new way.
While this announcement was lacking on specifics, they DID say that the MPR change would result in something else, because the resources from MPR would be put to use elsewhere. We just don't know what just yet.
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I don't know why this statement irritates me. It's like you're saying they know can treat their customers as badly as they can because they know we'll just stick around.
Lots of people will continue to play the game for fun, but not neccessarily go to sanctioned tournaments. EDH has become a growing trend, it's fun, cheap, nearly void of spike players, and makes the card shop little money (most guys I know are just making their own decks from their collections). The MPR was the ONLY reason I had to go play at the card shop.
Even the casual Magic play who just plays edh will buy half a box worth of boosters in the first month or 2 of a set release because they want that EDH bomb Rare in the set. If you play Magic with real magic cards you're a loyal Customer of the Magic Brand. Most Card Shops are now holding EDH leagues, I know I'm running one for my LGS
You really have no clue what the DCI size is like do you? THE ENTIRE DCI is sub 350k players worldwide. Thats not "players who receive promos". Thats worldwide anyone who has received a card or played in a DCI tournament int he past 2 years. So take your price estimates and slash them by a LOT.
And frankly DIRECT promotion to your customers that you can "disquise" as "rewards" 4 times a year to 1M people for less than 2M dolalrs is pretty insane given that these are people playing a ton of tournaments etc, and the group A. most likely to burn out, or take a break. and B. the group that spends the most per player.
Okay so take my numbers and chop it by 2/3rd you have a 600k program with 200k worth of waste, and frankly that waste estimate was probably being nice.
And this doesn't even begin to discuss the fact it's a Direct Promotion with no way to guage it's effectiveness. People played DCI sanctioned events before the MPR even existed, Even before the FNM program. And most data ties event attendance to the player satisfaction with the recent sets than what the MPR card was the previous quarter. Attendance ate it whilest Darksteel was a legal set. recovered slightly when it rotataed, and dipped again with lorwyn. and didn't really spike back up until zendikar. The MPR existed that whole time.
it's more common sense for wizards to let the Game Stores distribute these promos out to the players to encourage event attendance. because in the end the entities that benifited the most from the MPR program wasn't wizards or the players it was the Event\Wizards Play Network Coordinators. also it was my experience that there were alot of players who had problems with their mailings, either being late, or missing cards due to supply, with no real meanigful way to rectify that issue.
Wizards is cutting a 600k program, and it sounds like what they're doing is funneling those resources back into the WPN. They can proboally double the promo output from the old MPR program for half the cost that way.
Around here, we have 4 stores, 1 of which runs free FNMs on thursday and thus has no store credit for prize, and doesn't sell singles. They give out 2 randoms and 2 FNM cards to top 2 though.
The rest of the stores? FNM cards are for top 4 every time. "randomly" the 3rd and 4th place person will always somehow get them.
I imagine they gave the announcement the way they did due to the end-of-year deadlines or whathaveyou, and beyond that, didnt mention anything likely because they were still trying to hammer out what the replacement for the program (at the shop level from what their announcement said) will look like.
I imagine within a month we will hear about what the planned change on the shop side of things will entail. For now I am simply going to be patient and wait to here what we will be getting in replacement of it. Once we know what the replacement for it is going to be, then we can compare the old to the new and see whether it was a reasonable replacement or not. (You all can of course do what you want, but for now Im just going to be patient and wait.)
Around here, we have 4 stores, 1 of which runs free FNMs on thursday and thus has no store credit for prize, and doesn't sell singles. They give out 2 randoms and 2 FNM cards to top 2 though.
The rest of the stores? FNM cards are for top 4 every time. "randomly" the 3rd and 4th place person will always somehow get them.
And if those stores were reported enough, they'd lose their ability to run FNM's. What they are doing is violating WotC policy.
I'm in favor of reporting all stores that do stuff like that.
And if those stores were reported enough, they'd lose their ability to run FNM's. What they are doing is violating WotC policy.
I'm in favor of reporting all stores that do stuff like that.
You'd think that, but nobody at Wizards cares about little stuff like this. Trust me, people report all 4 of the local stores for different things all the time around here. Everybody has their "favorite" store and hates one or more of the "other" stores.
I disagree. Tournament players spend $$ on the secondary market, which WoTC sees none off. Also, most of the really serious players I know share a comon card pool. WoTC doesn't make money when pros are paying $80 for a Jace
I think you got this relationship backwards. The Secondary Market exists solely on the back of Tournament players. I know several tournament players who crack anywheres from 2 boxes to a case at set release so that they have most of their 50$ mythics they need, almost a playset of all the set's rares with enough trade fodder to get playsets of what they need, and playsets of all the commons and uncommons, and they buy what they need but didn't crack\trade for.
My friend and I were talking today, and we kind of came to this conclusion;
The people who play Magic competitively won't be effected as much, if at all, by this change. The don't really need they cards, and they're playing in tournaments for points, not prizes.
People who play Magic casually will be more or less upset by this. They will stop playing Magic. If there is no incentive for them to go to an FNM other than to go out for a beer after or whatever, they're not going to go. A friend of mine plays competitively, and he says that's the main reason he goes.
Seriously though. I go to my city's Gaming Society to become a better player, and eventually go to GPs and stuff.
Most players I know who still goto FNM (and they range from the 3-0-1 guys to the 1-3 guys) do so because the love to play the game, and they love playing with the other peoples at the store. Sure the random promos are nice, but usually worthless outside of trade fodder to the few Promowhores amongst us who are apart of the 2-2 crowd and don't luck into the door prize.
The only reason I personally go to FNM is because my TO gives out the foils at random. If it weren't for that, I wouldn't bother going. I'm not paying for tier 1 Standard decks, and I don't pay entry fee to tournaments where I'm just going to be outclassed.
Same principle at work. If you're not a diehard Spike, you're seeing all your incentives to play cut.
Paying anywhere from $1 to $5 (depending on location etc etc, people talk about free FNM but I've never seen that happen) just to play against a variety of decks is kind of silly.
You just strike me as someone who doesn't have fun playing magic. Maybe you might want to consider another hobby.
Man, try to stick up for the uber-casual crowd and look at what I get for it. "Waste of space." "Negative message."
the problem is your message is anything but uber-casual. the uber casual never actually leaves their own kitchen table. Has never even heard of the DCI or knew that the Magic Player Reward system even existed. Your message is that of the Psudo-Competitive the guy who goes to FNM's only to complain about the guys at the opposite end of the room with their Jace's and Primeval Titans.
Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease can you share with us your awesome data, and/or the statistically relevant sources it came from? Pleeeeeease
Say what you want, but this 25 pages thread show that MPR wasn't a so useless program. Lot of players starting for it, lot of players playing for it.
As lots of people already said, it was nice to have some prizes just for PLAYING and not only for winning. We're not all great players, and people like me find quite frustrating paying $$ and go back home with absolutely nothing (ok, if you haven't rare drafted).
Please give me back my 4/10 of textless promo cards and I'll go back and stay quiet at my 1-X table.
Historical and Empricial Data, you have a mass of tweets, forum posts, and Magic articles about the recent history of event attendance and how it corralates with the popular consensus with the current format. Affinity killed standard for a year, people came back when it rotated. people were Generally Meh about lorwyn Block and Shards Block, Event attendance waned. There was alot of buzz about m10, Zendikar, and M11 Event attendance records are being shattered on a weekly basis.
I didn't say MPR was Useless, more as I was calling it Dysfunctional. It was costly, Wizards never got it right. and there was no way to gauge it's effect on Event attendance that couldn't also be explained by other variants.
And People pay 7.50 to go watch the latest blockbuster hit. They don't take home anything except the experience of having watched the movie whatever that may have been for them. People who goto an FNM that isn't free is paying anywheres from 2-5$ typically. they get no less than 4 rounds of sanctioned magic play (and I realize this doesn't mean anything to most people, however why bother going out to play, invite your friends over play at your kitchen table) the chance at 2 door prize randoms regardless of how they placed, and if you top 2 you also get a shiney new foil.
As I said before one of our LGS has free Constructed FNM's and 13$ draft FNM's once a month. there is no prize support outside of Promos (FNM foils, Gateway foils, Leftover promos from release events and gamedays) and whatever swag playmats and t-shirts the store owner gets from his distributor.
The other owner Charges $7 for his FNM, part of that money buys you a pack of the latest set (I personally don't like the forced purchase but whatever). and then prize support (pool of the remaining 3.50 per head) goes to the top 4 or 8 depending on turnout. This store owner doesn't give out random promos as freely as the other store does. His attendance is reasonable, but fickle as he's the new store and most of the town's playerbase is so accostomed to the Free FNM's.
I mention this because Wizards, if they do what it sounds like they're doing, could save a ton of money by upping the Gateway card output and letting the stores give those away like candy, letting the general playerbase know this resource exsists. At the second store he owner looked at me like I had ate his baby infront of him when I suggested that he charges 4 instead of 7, foregoes the forced purchase, and instead of giving away all of that in prize support he pockets 1$ reasonable per head cost of keeping the store open, and his "trouble" for running the event. and give away all of the promo's he had recieved but didn't know what to do with. Alot of store owners don't know what to do with these cards and maybe it's your job as a playerbase to request them.
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My point is, try working with your TO and get them to change to a more inviting prize structure. If WotC does indeed increase prize support for local stores, which I believe they will, it may cause your TO to do something different.
The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.
I'd like to point out that there are no indications that they are going to stop making textless cards. They may just be available through other means.
So the uber casual crowd SHOULD beat the net-decking spikes? Wow, I gotta hear this one.
Because I honestly feel this is a troll. That's exactly it, you make it seem like the "good-guy" lost when in fact that's not the case whatsoever. A player brewed up a casual deck, then went to a sanctioned tournament.
I have no idea how FNM got this reputation of "Homebrew vs Homebrew" because it's a load of junk. That also doesn't mean it's directed towards Pro Tour players either. It's the lowest K rating event, to introduce tournament style to people. Nothing more, nothing less. Show me where it says "casual players only for FNM"
Since this player did not find any success in his current status or K rating in constructed, and felt no reward in his MPR's as a consequence, means these people are just sore losers, and are unable to admit to themselves if they wanna win, they have to iron out their faults.
I never said they should. I said that FNM shouldn't reward solely the net-decking Spikes. In fact, on at least one occasion I suggested (of TOs, not Wizards) a prize structure that still gives the highest reward to first place, but of a flatter curve than a serious tournament. Hell, make it "pack per match win" or something, even.
End of the day I have no idea how people are managing to misinterpret my posts so wildly.
Time for me to put in my 2 cents.
Here's my problem with this.
My city is pretty large, we boast 3 world-renowned colleges, and a dozen relatively well known ones.
In my city we have 2 Premiere shops.
1. Is on a college campus and charges > MSRP for boosters.
2. Is way off college campus, primarily filled with PT quality players, who generally refuse to play FNM and pull people from it to join in their private games. When they do play, it's a slaughter.
So now, my alma-matar's(Graduated in August) TO is screwed. Gamenight is over. I'm not about to pay >$4.50/pack, and I was already pretty much disillusioned with waiting 3 hours at the other shop for FNM to go off just to lose.
Now, I've gotta quantify this, I'm not a bad player. When I was active on MTGO I held an average rating between 1750-1800. I'm out of my league against these PT players. I went near-infinite on MTGO, throwing in maybe the price of a booster per draft. I went 3-15 at the shop(During ROE's release when the skill spread was better I went 3-2).
I'm not going to lie to any of you and claim that the MPR was the only thing keeping me playing there, it wasn't at all. But it was a really nice kickback for what really amounts to an exercise in frustration.
So if WOTC's plan is to push the stores, I'm not impressed and I think it was a mistake. If people weren't in the stores, it wasn't because the stores were great. I know it gives me less incentive to go and play, because I always knew I'd at least come out with something, and I'm *really* not a fan of the "Everybody's a winner!" mentality, I lost, don't patronize me. I'm not a winner.
I'm not a fan. Ultimately though, this decision I think will only be a game-breaker for a relatively small number of people.
Guess it's back to strictly EDH (unless the FNMs make it worth it... January will be nice, anyways).
I agree with this in part. I would often bring somewhat experimental decks to FNM to test hoping others were doing the same, when in reality they are just copying the lists card for card online, or copying the list and changing 1 or two cards and calling their custom build so they can win maximal prize. It is definitely discouraging, and I don't share the mentality of people who do that, and I also really don't care losing to them because in actuality I am losing to some 1 elses deck. The benefit is that when I do well my homebrew I feel really good about myself I played 4 color control the last standard event I played before rotation and the main spike at the kept walking past me throwing out snak comments to me like those 2 cards dont belong in the same deck! or Ill bet you always have mana issues. He was wrong on both accounts. Initially I did have problems but I played the deck and lost with it and made it better and ended up placing with the deck.
All you can really do is use this as an opportunity to become a better deck builder to beat the top archetypes, or give in and net deck and win some prize, or simply don't go to those events because they don;'t fit your style. There are more casual events,but the more casual the less the prize. We play peasant weekly, for a buck per person, with a payout of like 5 bucks for first, 3 for second, and 2 for third. And after that 5 or 6 of us usually sit around and do a game of edh. But do you really play magic for prize? I don't. It's a nice bonus, but the real fun for me is building and trying new decks.
We charge $5 per person to play in our FNM tournaments (standard type 2 constructed), and we provide a little over 1.5 packs of support per person for prizes, plus the FNM cards of course. We open up 1 pack for each person who has entered the tournament (always the newest magic set), spread out the rares, put the uncommons in a pile, the foils(including foil rares) and tokens into another pile, and then the commons into 1 or 2 piles depending upon turnout. We then take 1/2 the amount of people who entered, plus a few extra packs and spread those out into a number of piles (8-10 piles typically due to our large turnouts for fmns (around 35-40 people on average these days)).
First place gets to pick the first rare and gets the first pick from the piles (pack piles, uncommons, foils/tokens) plus an FNM card. Second place gets the second rare pick, the second pick from the piles, and an FNM card. Third through X each get a rare and a pile for as long as the piles last (not counting the commons). Up until the last one or two places everyone at least gets a rare no matter what, and the random chance at one of the two remaining FNM cards. The last one or two places each get at least a rare pick and eithor all or 1/2 the commons.
We decided early on that it was important that we provide the best support for our playerbase for our tournaments. Sadly this isnt the case for most shops, but all in all it seems to have worked out for the best for everyone.
Prize support for our non-fnm tournaments is structures the same (minus the FNM cards) however we hand out a promo from the batch we get from wizards for each set, (not sure if they are gateway promos or what they are called, but anyhow) to each person playing, plus add in a better promo of some kind (right now the extra gameday memnites that we had left over from the scars gameday) to hand out like the FNM cards (1st and 2nd plus 2 random to others). All in all it works out fairly well, since they get a little something extra for showing up for the non-FNM tournaments, and we get a solid and growing playerbase that is willing to come in and buy singles, packs, sleeves, etc for the tournaments, casually, or otherwise :).
Since when has FNM been aimed at casuals? It may be aimed to be a stepping stone to competitive play, but aren't competitive decks/players the first start to that route?
Just because certain people feel the desire/need to bring their ☺☺☺☺ty homebrew and then get upset when they get stomped with it doesn't mean that FNM is all of a sudden a casual place.
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Slaughter Cry
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Fruit don't talk. Fruit just listen. And wait.
What?
The reprint policy (non)change was not some 'greater plan' at work. It was a decision they had to reverse pending threats of lawsuits.
Also, this thread is mostly a pile.
Here is a good reason why MPR was cut:
There is no measurable gain for such a program.
Mass mailing operations are extremely costly, and the promise of quarterly mailings is not a metric that can be measured when it comes to player growth, event attendance, etc.
In store promos are much cheaper, simpler, and more easily show results.
There are plenty of things they could replace MPR with, and they will probably do one or two things. If the company was actually in trouble, they wouldn't replace anything with it, but they aren't, so expect things.
And considering how much money MPR cost them, I could expect some decent new initiatives that DON'T involve opening your mailbox.
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This actually is 100% pure speculation. They've never come out and said that it was to reverse pending threats of lawsuits.
Its equally feasible that their sudden reversal was the result of an unexpectedly large number of stores complaining about a perceived sudden devaluing of their inventory. Either one of those would be enough to scare the book balancers into reversing. Furthermore, either one would have reasons for WotC to not go into details. Its understandably frustrating to everyone out there who were told "great news guys, we can reprint those old calssics you've been clamoring for, and heres why [outline of reasons why they can]." only to have that revoked later in the week with no eplanation whatsoever.
This might be counter-productive. Now, as before, the method of getting promos hinges on going out to a registered venue; the only difference is the promos are earned exclusively at the store as opposed to being mailed to you.
There's the issue that the promos are fewer in number, but given the store-centric policy Wizards seems to be crafting, I have a feeling that the intention is to make all of the incentives based around going out to play Magic.
Obviously, they didn't announce it as they should have, but understand that the mailings were going out in mere days, and any forthcoming changes would be instituted in 2011, as MPR has already used up all of their budget for this year. (Yes I realize fiscal years and all that, but for the 2010 calendar year, MPR did all it was expected to do already.)
So I would guess they thought (probably a bad plan) to hold off on revealing the exact changes for now.
The reason I expect something else, is because the announcement states as such, as pointed out by many in the thread.
So resources are being Redirected. They aren't flat out absorbing the large budget portion devoted to MPR. They are spending it in a new way.
While this announcement was lacking on specifics, they DID say that the MPR change would result in something else, because the resources from MPR would be put to use elsewhere. We just don't know what just yet.
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Even the casual Magic play who just plays edh will buy half a box worth of boosters in the first month or 2 of a set release because they want that EDH bomb Rare in the set. If you play Magic with real magic cards you're a loyal Customer of the Magic Brand. Most Card Shops are now holding EDH leagues, I know I'm running one for my LGS
Okay so take my numbers and chop it by 2/3rd you have a 600k program with 200k worth of waste, and frankly that waste estimate was probably being nice.
And this doesn't even begin to discuss the fact it's a Direct Promotion with no way to guage it's effectiveness. People played DCI sanctioned events before the MPR even existed, Even before the FNM program. And most data ties event attendance to the player satisfaction with the recent sets than what the MPR card was the previous quarter. Attendance ate it whilest Darksteel was a legal set. recovered slightly when it rotataed, and dipped again with lorwyn. and didn't really spike back up until zendikar. The MPR existed that whole time.
it's more common sense for wizards to let the Game Stores distribute these promos out to the players to encourage event attendance. because in the end the entities that benifited the most from the MPR program wasn't wizards or the players it was the Event\Wizards Play Network Coordinators. also it was my experience that there were alot of players who had problems with their mailings, either being late, or missing cards due to supply, with no real meanigful way to rectify that issue.
Wizards is cutting a 600k program, and it sounds like what they're doing is funneling those resources back into the WPN. They can proboally double the promo output from the old MPR program for half the cost that way.
How often do you think this actually happens?
Around here, we have 4 stores, 1 of which runs free FNMs on thursday and thus has no store credit for prize, and doesn't sell singles. They give out 2 randoms and 2 FNM cards to top 2 though.
The rest of the stores? FNM cards are for top 4 every time. "randomly" the 3rd and 4th place person will always somehow get them.
I imagine within a month we will hear about what the planned change on the shop side of things will entail. For now I am simply going to be patient and wait to here what we will be getting in replacement of it. Once we know what the replacement for it is going to be, then we can compare the old to the new and see whether it was a reasonable replacement or not. (You all can of course do what you want, but for now Im just going to be patient and wait.)
And if those stores were reported enough, they'd lose their ability to run FNM's. What they are doing is violating WotC policy.
I'm in favor of reporting all stores that do stuff like that.
You'd think that, but nobody at Wizards cares about little stuff like this. Trust me, people report all 4 of the local stores for different things all the time around here. Everybody has their "favorite" store and hates one or more of the "other" stores.
I think you got this relationship backwards. The Secondary Market exists solely on the back of Tournament players. I know several tournament players who crack anywheres from 2 boxes to a case at set release so that they have most of their 50$ mythics they need, almost a playset of all the set's rares with enough trade fodder to get playsets of what they need, and playsets of all the commons and uncommons, and they buy what they need but didn't crack\trade for.
Most players I know who still goto FNM (and they range from the 3-0-1 guys to the 1-3 guys) do so because the love to play the game, and they love playing with the other peoples at the store. Sure the random promos are nice, but usually worthless outside of trade fodder to the few Promowhores amongst us who are apart of the 2-2 crowd and don't luck into the door prize.
You just strike me as someone who doesn't have fun playing magic. Maybe you might want to consider another hobby.
the problem is your message is anything but uber-casual. the uber casual never actually leaves their own kitchen table. Has never even heard of the DCI or knew that the Magic Player Reward system even existed. Your message is that of the Psudo-Competitive the guy who goes to FNM's only to complain about the guys at the opposite end of the room with their Jace's and Primeval Titans.
Historical and Empricial Data, you have a mass of tweets, forum posts, and Magic articles about the recent history of event attendance and how it corralates with the popular consensus with the current format. Affinity killed standard for a year, people came back when it rotated. people were Generally Meh about lorwyn Block and Shards Block, Event attendance waned. There was alot of buzz about m10, Zendikar, and M11 Event attendance records are being shattered on a weekly basis.
I didn't say MPR was Useless, more as I was calling it Dysfunctional. It was costly, Wizards never got it right. and there was no way to gauge it's effect on Event attendance that couldn't also be explained by other variants.
And People pay 7.50 to go watch the latest blockbuster hit. They don't take home anything except the experience of having watched the movie whatever that may have been for them. People who goto an FNM that isn't free is paying anywheres from 2-5$ typically. they get no less than 4 rounds of sanctioned magic play (and I realize this doesn't mean anything to most people, however why bother going out to play, invite your friends over play at your kitchen table) the chance at 2 door prize randoms regardless of how they placed, and if you top 2 you also get a shiney new foil.
As I said before one of our LGS has free Constructed FNM's and 13$ draft FNM's once a month. there is no prize support outside of Promos (FNM foils, Gateway foils, Leftover promos from release events and gamedays) and whatever swag playmats and t-shirts the store owner gets from his distributor.
The other owner Charges $7 for his FNM, part of that money buys you a pack of the latest set (I personally don't like the forced purchase but whatever). and then prize support (pool of the remaining 3.50 per head) goes to the top 4 or 8 depending on turnout. This store owner doesn't give out random promos as freely as the other store does. His attendance is reasonable, but fickle as he's the new store and most of the town's playerbase is so accostomed to the Free FNM's.
I mention this because Wizards, if they do what it sounds like they're doing, could save a ton of money by upping the Gateway card output and letting the stores give those away like candy, letting the general playerbase know this resource exsists. At the second store he owner looked at me like I had ate his baby infront of him when I suggested that he charges 4 instead of 7, foregoes the forced purchase, and instead of giving away all of that in prize support he pockets 1$ reasonable per head cost of keeping the store open, and his "trouble" for running the event. and give away all of the promo's he had recieved but didn't know what to do with. Alot of store owners don't know what to do with these cards and maybe it's your job as a playerbase to request them.