Totally agree. I am no pro player by any means but about twice a year I make it to a PTQ. I do it with the dream of winning a trip, and getting to compete on the big time. So yeah maybe if I won, I would have been the 'variance' that some people talked about here. But to me that was one of the only reasons I played competitive magic. Back to the kitchen table and prereleases for me. 99% of players don't want to win a tournament for a chance to play in a tournament for a big prize. This does support grinders and very avid players, but for me if I attend a pptq that has more than 64 players I will bounce. Last PTQ I went to had 300 players. That has to be enough.
As a grinder and a very avid player, I can say that I absolutely do not feel like the PTQ changes support me. I feel far more incentive to play in Star City Invitational Qualifiers than I do to try and qualify for the Pro Tour through this system.
You'll still make it to a local Preliminary PTQ or two and go the Regional PTQ if you qualify, right?
Prelims... depends on the schedule. If I win one, yes, I'd go to the regional.
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Winner of SCG Worcester Team Sealed Open with Gerard Fabiano and Curtis Sheu, September 28, 2013
The restrictions put on the Regional Level ones make it seem less feasible, especially with travel involved. The new PTQs will basically be glorified local events, then you have a small invite only tournament that you have to travel to makes it a worse option.
And personally, I always felt like the mid tier events help. Where a local event could range from 16-32 people a lot of times, a GP is getting thousands by comparison. The PTQs served as the middle ground where you could play among 100-400 people and were fairly regional as it is. Grinding PTQs was a lot more exciting than they will be in the future, even if it's now a higher skill to be able to get into a pro tour.
I'm also concerned about the format changes. I guess the 31 regional PTQs will have a set format, but I liked the idea of being able to play in PTQs all season knowing the format. As a personal bias, I stick mostly with Modern because the summer PTQ season for Modern means I can play the format I prefer when it's most active and I have the most free time to travel to events. Not to mention being able to play modern with 200 people is a lot more exciting for that reason. I don't imagine if stores even choose to use Modern as their format they will get more than 16-32 players unless the store has a huge scene for it, which is unlikely. Any store I go to has a share of players, but will always turn out twice as many for standard or limited events. This also probably means the Modern scene will die out with less support on the local level. I switched to Modern from Legacy already a few years ago because there was no support for it in my area. I can see the number of modern events in the area dropping as well at this rate.
At least the SCG Opens just added Modern support on the same day as Legacy, and hopefully with more GPs, means more odds to travel to the eternal GPs of the season, so I can still have a chance to play in large events with the format, but I will miss grinding Modern. Going to make the best of the last three PTQs I can attend this season.
It will be interesting to see what percentage of PPTQs in the first season are going to be sealed, lol.
If a store wants to bring in as many people as possible, limited is the safest option because you don't need a deck ahead of time so you'll get more last minute people.
It will be interesting to see what percentage of PPTQs in the first season are going to be sealed, lol.
If a store wants to bring in as many people as possible, limited is the safest option because you don't need a deck ahead of time so you'll get more last minute people.
I wonder if this is a regional thing. I don't get the idea that sealed would be more popular than other formats around here. For instance, the local game stores that run concurrent Standard and Draft for FNM draw at least twice as many for Standard. One local store dropped their concurrent Draft because it often didn't draw enough players to fire.
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Yo, Wizards.... Asia-Pacific gets shafted HARD by this.
3 Regional PTQs per season in AP means that there will most likely be some traveling done... which just sucks, especially for us island countries.
As for having more accessible, competitive play around I don't think it changes much in our situation. If we wanted to go one step up from FNM, GPTs fulfill that role here (especially with local TO's arranging the prize support to be as such). What we're getting here is instead of having one PTQ per season, we're going to get a bunch of events that will compete with how GPTs are run here, and risk the chance of players who win the prelims NOT go to the PTQ at all because of cost/distance/etc.
(Unless the promo card given is like, Moxen. Of course, the Reserved List nuts would never allow that to happen.)
Im concerned since the only time I ever got to go to a PTQ was during the Modern season since I only play Modern. But now no store is going to host a Modern event. It likely will be Standard and Sealed since it makes them the most money and sells more singles. Now im SOL and I likely wont ever be able to participate in these events. If Wizards FORCED stores to do a certain format ever season it would be way more fair.
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" 3 in Mexico, Central America, and South America" LOL
Is amusing how wizards keep ignoring us, i know we might not be the most profitable region, but that is because they are doing a horrible job with their "official" designed suppliers for our region. 3 PTQs for about 15+ countries... dammn
The former PTQ system was pretty bad. This is worse. Apparently WotC likes doing what they did with mtgo elsewhere too where they forced you to convert to a crappier client. Could have just had PTQ's where the number of invites scaled with attendance because paying out to the top 1 is pretty abyssmal in terms of PT invites especially when PTQ's around here typically get 300 and just 1 lucky person gets an invite.
I like GPs more, but I still don't really care all that much but I don't really care about getting to a pro tour at all.
Player club changes are irrelevant to me since I have never attended a pro tour and likely never will.
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"Yawgmoth," Freyalise whispered as she set the bomb, "now you will pay for your treachery."
Another issue: Even if you win the right to play in a Regional PTQ, who's going to want to do a road trip to it when you're the only one of your friends that can actually play in the thing?
I'd like to see this solved by adding a pptq side event to every rptq, so your unqualified friends can come along and play to qualify for the next season.
I guess people missed that the juiced the GP's? Am I the only one who read this?
In the 2014–2015 professional season (starting August 4, 2014), the Top 8 at each Grand Prix—and the Top 4 of each Team Grand Prix—will receive invitations and airfare to the next Pro Tour, regardless of attendance. In addition, all players with 39 match points at a Grand Prix—36 match points at a Team Grand Prix—will also receive an invitation to the Pro Tour.
The Grand Prix prize payout will now be $70,000 if the event exceeds 3,600 players.
Seriously people you're worrying about a small scale event. They even upped the amount of them and the prizes.
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In case I didn't tell you, I don't care about your opinion I just want your facts. And not the facts that make you seem smart. I want the ones that are actual facts.
Yeah....well, there goes the Hawai'i competitive scene. Almost no one except one or two people will pay over a 1,000$ to travel to the Mainland just to have a *****ty chance at going to the Pro Tour where the compensation will almost assuredly be less than what you just spent to go play in the RPTQ in the first place. What a STUPID ass decision. I can imagine it's even worse for some non-US countries, where expenses may even be higher. On top of that I'm a Modern player and no store in my area will ever host PTQ as Modern format, though not like it matters because the RPTQ are extremely inaccessible (or I should say, extreme negative EV) and more than likely you won't be able to share expenses with friends due to having 2 PTQ feed into RPTQ instead of the current system.
This just makes the Pro Tour much more caste like. Wizards really wants to kill a significant part of their community, don't they?
Seriously people you're worrying about a small scale event. They even upped the amount of them and the prizes.
A PTQ is as big as it gets in my part of the world, especially the past couple of years we've had no Grand Prix. There is no SCG here. These changes do feel like it shafts us hard.
Someone on Reddit ran the numbers on the amount of invites from PTQs under the new system.
Old system according to them has approx 300 PTQs per season, so 300 invites. New system has 31 PTQs per season, handing out either 4 or 8 invites, so between 124 and 248 invites from PTQs. I don't know the numbers on how many of the regional PTQs will have 128 players or more, but I can't imagine there are *that* many regions that have 128 eligible stores within traveling distance where 128 or more PPTQ winners are willing and able to travel.
Im concerned since the only time I ever got to go to a PTQ was during the Modern season since I only play Modern. But now no store is going to host a Modern event. It likely will be Standard and Sealed since it makes them the most money and sells more singles. Now im SOL and I likely wont ever be able to participate in these events. If Wizards FORCED stores to do a certain format ever season it would be way more fair.
You very likely buy very few cards from new sets if you only play an older format, so why would they care about players who only play that? They would much rather stores run Standard and Sealed, because those formats move more product. I'm sorry that you get shafted, but you brought it on yourself by not supporting WOTC as much as others with money.
Im concerned since the only time I ever got to go to a PTQ was during the Modern season since I only play Modern. But now no store is going to host a Modern event. It likely will be Standard and Sealed since it makes them the most money and sells more singles. Now im SOL and I likely wont ever be able to participate in these events. If Wizards FORCED stores to do a certain format ever season it would be way more fair.
You very likely buy very few cards from new sets if you only play an older format, so why would they care about players who only play that? They would much rather stores run Standard and Sealed, because those formats move more product. I'm sorry that you get shafted, but you brought it on yourself by not supporting WOTC as much as others with money.
Sorry I was under the assumption that Wizards was going to support Modern but I guess not? Sure Modern events are possible with these changes but almost no store will run them. Having an entire season dedicated to Modern was fantastic. It gave Modern players 3-4 months of sunlight.
On top of that, Modern players don't want to buy new product due to Theros being a generally underpowered block. Why spend 50 dollars on boosters hoping to pull a Thoughtseize (which is just a reprint) when you can just spend that 50 dollars on either RTR packs or be smarter and buy modern singles.
"Hey customers! You should spend large amounts of money on boosters and sealed product knowingly even though after Standard rotates those cards out they will literally be worth less than all of Homelands!" Sounds like a great way to attract new players to a new format.
So, we come to this. Either play Standard or you cant play in PPTQ's which then eliminates you from competing in RPTQ's and the actual PT itself. Not to mention a lot of Sealed players are getting ****ed out of their situations as well. They wait for months for their Sealed Season and now that stores can hold Standard PPTQ's all the time, who is going to want to go through the trouble of ordering enough sealed and organizing this rather than just hold Standard tourney's.
Standard > Sealed > Modern
Im aware that this is generally how its always been, but now that stores can hold only Standard, it pretty much eliminates the other 2 formats from existing in this situation.
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Im concerned since the only time I ever got to go to a PTQ was during the Modern season since I only play Modern. But now no store is going to host a Modern event. It likely will be Standard and Sealed since it makes them the most money and sells more singles. Now im SOL and I likely wont ever be able to participate in these events. If Wizards FORCED stores to do a certain format ever season it would be way more fair.
You very likely buy very few cards from new sets if you only play an older format, so why would they care about players who only play that? They would much rather stores run Standard and Sealed, because those formats move more product. I'm sorry that you get shafted, but you brought it on yourself by not supporting WOTC as much as others with money.
Sorry I was under the assumption that Wizards was going to support Modern but I guess not? Sure Modern events are possible with these changes but almost no store will run them. Having an entire season dedicated to Modern was fantastic. It gave Modern players 3-4 months of sunlight.
On top of that, Modern players don't want to buy new product due to Theros being a generally underpowered block. Why spend 50 dollars on boosters hoping to pull a Thoughtseize (which is just a reprint) when you can just spend that 50 dollars on either RTR packs or be smarter and buy modern singles.
"Hey customers! You should spend large amounts of money on boosters and sealed product knowingly even though after Standard rotates those cards out they will literally be worth less than all of Homelands!" Sounds like a great way to attract new players to a new format.
So, we come to this. Either play Standard or you cant play in PPTQ's which then eliminates you from competing in RPTQ's and the actual PT itself. Not to mention a lot of Sealed players are getting ****ed out of their situations as well. They wait for months for their Sealed Season and now that stores can hold Standard PPTQ's all the time, who is going to want to go through the trouble of ordering enough sealed and organizing this rather than just hold Standard tourney's.
Standard > Sealed > Modern
Im aware that this is generally how its always been, but now that stores can hold only Standard, it pretty much eliminates the other 2 formats from existing in this situation.
I said nothing about supporting Modern. I said helping players like you. You do very little to support WOTC, so why should they care about doing anything to support you?
Also, it's funny that half of the Magic community says that stores will only run sealed, and half will only run Standard. Maybe you're all wrong.
Someone on Reddit ran the numbers on the amount of invites from PTQs under the new system.
Old system according to them has approx 300 PTQs per season, so 300 invites. New system has 31 PTQs per season, handing out either 4 or 8 invites, so between 124 and 248 invites from PTQs. I don't know the numbers on how many of the regional PTQs will have 128 players or more, but I can't imagine there are *that* many regions that have 128 eligible stores within traveling distance where 128 or more PPTQ winners are willing and able to travel.
I think that Reddit person made a mistake. The source given appears to list 200 PTQs, not 300. So probably fewer, but not by the margin that poster was indicating. Maybe even more? I have no idea how many advanced stores there are or their geographic distribution.
Someone on Reddit ran the numbers on the amount of invites from PTQs under the new system.
Old system according to them has approx 300 PTQs per season, so 300 invites. New system has 31 PTQs per season, handing out either 4 or 8 invites, so between 124 and 248 invites from PTQs. I don't know the numbers on how many of the regional PTQs will have 128 players or more, but I can't imagine there are *that* many regions that have 128 eligible stores within traveling distance where 128 or more PPTQ winners are willing and able to travel.
I think that Reddit person made a mistake. The source given appears to list 200 PTQs, not 300. So probably fewer, but not by the margin that poster was indicating. Maybe even more? I have no idea how many advanced stores there are or their geographic distribution.
My main concern is my local area(ish), from their list APAC is getting 3 PTQs and I wouldn't expect that more than 1 are going to be in Australia and/or New Zealand, which would mean that either:
- They alternate PTQs between the 2 countries, which means that for most people, PTQs are not feasible for half the year.
- Only one country gets them at all (I would guess that NZ misses out in this case, I'm pretty sure Australia is the biggest market)
- Both countries get one, which I doubt will happen, the rest of the area is too large
Even if Australia has them every season, its going to require people to spend quite a bit on flights/acommodation if the regional (National) PTQ isn't in their city this season, thats even assuming that one large store doesn't just host them all. I just don't really get it, they are taking a system that had issues mainly in one area (was it mainly the US that had the oversized PTQs or was this happening elsewhere too?) and trying to blanket apply it everywhere.
Someone on Reddit ran the numbers on the amount of invites from PTQs under the new system.
Old system according to them has approx 300 PTQs per season, so 300 invites. New system has 31 PTQs per season, handing out either 4 or 8 invites, so between 124 and 248 invites from PTQs. I don't know the numbers on how many of the regional PTQs will have 128 players or more, but I can't imagine there are *that* many regions that have 128 eligible stores within traveling distance where 128 or more PPTQ winners are willing and able to travel.
I think that Reddit person made a mistake. The source given appears to list 200 PTQs, not 300. So probably fewer, but not by the margin that poster was indicating. Maybe even more? I have no idea how many advanced stores there are or their geographic distribution.
My main concern is my local area(ish), from their list APAC is getting 3 PTQs and I wouldn't expect that more than 1 are going to be in Australia and/or New Zealand, which would mean that either:
- They alternate PTQs between the 2 countries, which means that for most people, PTQs are not feasible for half the year.
- Only one country gets them at all (I would guess that NZ misses out in this case, I'm pretty sure Australia is the biggest market)
- Both countries get one, which I doubt will happen, the rest of the area is too large
Even if Australia has them every season, its going to require people to spend quite a bit on flights/acommodation if the regional (National) PTQ isn't in their city this season, thats even assuming that one large store doesn't just host them all. I just don't really get it, they are taking a system that had issues mainly in one area (was it mainly the US that had the oversized PTQs or was this happening elsewhere too?) and trying to blanket apply it everywhere.
Well, London in the uk apparently also had oversized ptq's but that was mostly due to people from Europe coming and the fact London is easy to get to. In my city of dundee in Scotland, we're lucky to have 100 people. Which I imagine is the case in most places.
They can't give more and more invites to PTs, and this is a way to cut down on the number of PT invites. Nobody wants there to be fewer PT invites (except for people already going), so whatever way they did this would make people sad.
Well, why can't they give more and more PT invites?
Because PTs are special. They are the best of the best. The more players you add, these each of those statements is true. They wanted PTs at somewhere around 300 a little over a year ago, and the last PT was ~400. They had to cut back somewhere, and as mentioned above, this does increase overall skill on the PT meaning my second statement above becomes more true.
Pro Tour Born of the Gods was won by someone who qualified from a PTQ. Qualifying by PTQ does not mean that you don't have skill.
The UK is about the size of 2 average US states. And not much bigger than the state I live in. We never get a GP or GPT.... and oh yeah few, if any PT events.
Prelims... depends on the schedule. If I win one, yes, I'd go to the regional.
Top 8 of SCG Invitational, Las Vegas, NV, Dec 13-15, 2013
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Winner of SCG Worcester Team Sealed Open with Gerard Fabiano and Curtis Sheu, September 28, 2013
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And personally, I always felt like the mid tier events help. Where a local event could range from 16-32 people a lot of times, a GP is getting thousands by comparison. The PTQs served as the middle ground where you could play among 100-400 people and were fairly regional as it is. Grinding PTQs was a lot more exciting than they will be in the future, even if it's now a higher skill to be able to get into a pro tour.
I'm also concerned about the format changes. I guess the 31 regional PTQs will have a set format, but I liked the idea of being able to play in PTQs all season knowing the format. As a personal bias, I stick mostly with Modern because the summer PTQ season for Modern means I can play the format I prefer when it's most active and I have the most free time to travel to events. Not to mention being able to play modern with 200 people is a lot more exciting for that reason. I don't imagine if stores even choose to use Modern as their format they will get more than 16-32 players unless the store has a huge scene for it, which is unlikely. Any store I go to has a share of players, but will always turn out twice as many for standard or limited events. This also probably means the Modern scene will die out with less support on the local level. I switched to Modern from Legacy already a few years ago because there was no support for it in my area. I can see the number of modern events in the area dropping as well at this rate.
At least the SCG Opens just added Modern support on the same day as Legacy, and hopefully with more GPs, means more odds to travel to the eternal GPs of the season, so I can still have a chance to play in large events with the format, but I will miss grinding Modern. Going to make the best of the last three PTQs I can attend this season.
I'm going to try this before I complain about it. Remember we are having normal PTQs for the next season with this replacing the season for PT Louie.
If a store wants to bring in as many people as possible, limited is the safest option because you don't need a deck ahead of time so you'll get more last minute people.
I wonder if this is a regional thing. I don't get the idea that sealed would be more popular than other formats around here. For instance, the local game stores that run concurrent Standard and Draft for FNM draw at least twice as many for Standard. One local store dropped their concurrent Draft because it often didn't draw enough players to fire.
3 Regional PTQs per season in AP means that there will most likely be some traveling done... which just sucks, especially for us island countries.
As for having more accessible, competitive play around I don't think it changes much in our situation. If we wanted to go one step up from FNM, GPTs fulfill that role here (especially with local TO's arranging the prize support to be as such). What we're getting here is instead of having one PTQ per season, we're going to get a bunch of events that will compete with how GPTs are run here, and risk the chance of players who win the prelims NOT go to the PTQ at all because of cost/distance/etc.
(Unless the promo card given is like, Moxen. Of course, the Reserved List nuts would never allow that to happen.)
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Is amusing how wizards keep ignoring us, i know we might not be the most profitable region, but that is because they are doing a horrible job with their "official" designed suppliers for our region. 3 PTQs for about 15+ countries... dammn
I like GPs more, but I still don't really care all that much but I don't really care about getting to a pro tour at all.
Player club changes are irrelevant to me since I have never attended a pro tour and likely never will.
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I'd like to see this solved by adding a pptq side event to every rptq, so your unqualified friends can come along and play to qualify for the next season.
In the 2014–2015 professional season (starting August 4, 2014), the Top 8 at each Grand Prix—and the Top 4 of each Team Grand Prix—will receive invitations and airfare to the next Pro Tour, regardless of attendance. In addition, all players with 39 match points at a Grand Prix—36 match points at a Team Grand Prix—will also receive an invitation to the Pro Tour.
The Grand Prix prize payout will now be $70,000 if the event exceeds 3,600 players.
Seriously people you're worrying about a small scale event. They even upped the amount of them and the prizes.
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This just makes the Pro Tour much more caste like. Wizards really wants to kill a significant part of their community, don't they?
A PTQ is as big as it gets in my part of the world, especially the past couple of years we've had no Grand Prix. There is no SCG here. These changes do feel like it shafts us hard.
Old system according to them has approx 300 PTQs per season, so 300 invites. New system has 31 PTQs per season, handing out either 4 or 8 invites, so between 124 and 248 invites from PTQs. I don't know the numbers on how many of the regional PTQs will have 128 players or more, but I can't imagine there are *that* many regions that have 128 eligible stores within traveling distance where 128 or more PPTQ winners are willing and able to travel.
You very likely buy very few cards from new sets if you only play an older format, so why would they care about players who only play that? They would much rather stores run Standard and Sealed, because those formats move more product. I'm sorry that you get shafted, but you brought it on yourself by not supporting WOTC as much as others with money.
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Sorry I was under the assumption that Wizards was going to support Modern but I guess not? Sure Modern events are possible with these changes but almost no store will run them. Having an entire season dedicated to Modern was fantastic. It gave Modern players 3-4 months of sunlight.
On top of that, Modern players don't want to buy new product due to Theros being a generally underpowered block. Why spend 50 dollars on boosters hoping to pull a Thoughtseize (which is just a reprint) when you can just spend that 50 dollars on either RTR packs or be smarter and buy modern singles.
"Hey customers! You should spend large amounts of money on boosters and sealed product knowingly even though after Standard rotates those cards out they will literally be worth less than all of Homelands!" Sounds like a great way to attract new players to a new format.
So, we come to this. Either play Standard or you cant play in PPTQ's which then eliminates you from competing in RPTQ's and the actual PT itself. Not to mention a lot of Sealed players are getting ****ed out of their situations as well. They wait for months for their Sealed Season and now that stores can hold Standard PPTQ's all the time, who is going to want to go through the trouble of ordering enough sealed and organizing this rather than just hold Standard tourney's.
Standard > Sealed > Modern
Im aware that this is generally how its always been, but now that stores can hold only Standard, it pretty much eliminates the other 2 formats from existing in this situation.
U Tron
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RG Loam
UR Blue Breach
RBU Grixis Goryo
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GBW Junk
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I said nothing about supporting Modern. I said helping players like you. You do very little to support WOTC, so why should they care about doing anything to support you?
Also, it's funny that half of the Magic community says that stores will only run sealed, and half will only run Standard. Maybe you're all wrong.
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I think that Reddit person made a mistake. The source given appears to list 200 PTQs, not 300. So probably fewer, but not by the margin that poster was indicating. Maybe even more? I have no idea how many advanced stores there are or their geographic distribution.
My main concern is my local area(ish), from their list APAC is getting 3 PTQs and I wouldn't expect that more than 1 are going to be in Australia and/or New Zealand, which would mean that either:
- They alternate PTQs between the 2 countries, which means that for most people, PTQs are not feasible for half the year.
- Only one country gets them at all (I would guess that NZ misses out in this case, I'm pretty sure Australia is the biggest market)
- Both countries get one, which I doubt will happen, the rest of the area is too large
Even if Australia has them every season, its going to require people to spend quite a bit on flights/acommodation if the regional (National) PTQ isn't in their city this season, thats even assuming that one large store doesn't just host them all. I just don't really get it, they are taking a system that had issues mainly in one area (was it mainly the US that had the oversized PTQs or was this happening elsewhere too?) and trying to blanket apply it everywhere.
Well, London in the uk apparently also had oversized ptq's but that was mostly due to people from Europe coming and the fact London is easy to get to. In my city of dundee in Scotland, we're lucky to have 100 people. Which I imagine is the case in most places.
Pro Tour Born of the Gods was won by someone who qualified from a PTQ. Qualifying by PTQ does not mean that you don't have skill.
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