Based on a staff-call email I got today, Kansas City (via PTO Feral Events) is going to be hosting one of the US regionals, and a KC-area store (Collector's Cache, for any locals who are interested) got a one-slot qualifier as well.
Based on a staff-call email I got today, Kansas City (via PTO Feral Events) is going to be hosting one of the US regionals, and a KC-area store (Collector's Cache, for any locals who are interested) got a one-slot qualifier as well.
I cache got a one slot i guess that regionals will be in Columbia MO for STL and KC. Which is a downgrade since STL and KC used to have their own.
I'd be willing to bet i could take the list from last year and tell you where all of them will be held this year.
Hometown Hobbies in Huntington, WV will be holding the only one in West Virginia. April 30th is the date. Seems like they are doing a decent job of spreading these out to where almost everyone can get to one in the U.S.
Full frontal assault, eh? Johm000 does have a highly valid point. The *** PRINCIPLE *** of this qualifier is indeed to select four folks to represent their respective nation to compete for the world title. This event's intent is one of pride, prestige and to amass a globally diverse crowd for the sake of competition.
Whether or not a personal driving factor has anything to do or NOT do with
remuneration is a personal choice / perspective which is unique to each person; which you have both pointed out and stated isn't so. There are poor folks who might like to make some money from this to define a fun and interesting future for them selves, there are others whom don't have much and they need to budget such things to justify it, while there are others whom are in it purely for the competition aspect of it. Improving upon their own game or understanding is enough, meeting / networking with like-minds from other parts of the world is exciting and for others, the win is everything. Those are only a few of many mentalities of why people choose to compete.
I compete in both magic and many other things simply for the opportunity to both better improve and to know my self. If I can $afford$ to compete, I will -- if not, then I simply will not. For me, cash prizes incite no motivation but limited edition cards / trinkets from something that * I * have attended are worthwhile pieces of nostalgia which help to spark memories at later dates in the future. Whether or not those items have any $value$ doesn't mean much to me.. but sentiment does.
For Johm000, it appears that his driving factor is pride - he wants to be known as one who represents España in MTG. Perhaps he is also not money motivated or perhaps he is. I don't really know.. and that's the point. But given those two conditions as well as yours, it doesn't seem reasonable to assert that for everyone that money is thee or perhaps even a leading factor, motivating force or even focus. Magic for my self and many others is about a challenge, fun and social interaction -- nothing more and nothing less. I do have a close friend who does compete almost exclusively for the prizes and money and has earned quite a few pro points and has placed well at pro tours.
In regards to your condemnation of his Johm000's naivety, there are many flaws in your argument which suggest either naivety or a closed mind on your behalf. Magic is game of three highly relevant factors: Deck construction (and tuning to the meta), piloting / playing the deck as well as probability. Probability is in regards to the statistical nature of how efficiently or well ones deck does what it was intended to do. Naturally, better decks are one which net higher rates of consistency -- and this consistency is derived from all three of the aforementioned factors [building, piloting and probability]. All three of which are inter-twined at some levels, while not related at others.
Some people do appear to have a freakish gift in that they almost always draw a reasonable starting hand, while others [such as my self], don't understand what the magic or method is to achieve this and constantly draw 0, 1 or 6 land hands to a degree of improbability. Given the randomization of shuffling and cutting, a certain 'luck' factor needs to be considered. Those whom frequent in the realm of luck more so than others are indeed more blessed and consistent, thus their deck is more likely to more frequently perform as expected. Because they are able to control some of the X-factors better than others, they can better anticipate their future draws thus giving them more leverage in playing a few turns a head -- which is a large factor in winning games between experienced players.
I've also raced for a few years, and more times often than not, the car with the absolute highest torque, top-end speed or even lightest of the class wasn't the guaranteed winner; these are the metrics which define better race cars. However, more often than not, it was the cars which were tuned to the highest degree and achieved a flawless and highly-predictable level of performance were those that won the races.
I competed in Jiu Jitsu for about two years and even placed well at one state championship [5th in my division]. There are numerous people whom are exceptionally good at being able to perform a few dozen different submissions, know all of the positions & how to control and work each form of guard. Those folks are certified bad-asses and have an understanding well beyond what I do. It is interesting though, because often times a very well rounded Jiu Jitstu fellow will be submitted by another person who doesn't know nearly as a many techniques. This seemingly 'worse' grappler might only know a dozzen submissions and a few forms of guard, but each one he knows to the nth degree and can feel his way into applying each of them with absolute certainty. The arguably 'worse' grappler might well realize more frequent victories because he is precise and consistent with his limited arsenal.
Magic, in the sense of consistency = win, isn't any different from any other sport or competition where both human factors and probability exist and it sure feels naive to assert otherwise.
And lastly, to your final point [if I understand it correctly] I do agree, it would be nice to have both states and regionals return, perhaps even to see additional higher level tournaments. IMHO, there aren't nearly enough vintage tournies and I would love to see some so that the most iconic cards can be enjoyed and envied.
This is naive to say the least. The idea that the people who win the tournament are even close to consistently the best players in the room is completely false, and its blatantly obvious to anyone who has ever played in a event of this size, or even watched coverage for that matter.
Also its a lot easier to say this when you live in a country not the size of a entire continent. Try dropping 400+ bucks on a weekend trip where t8 barely breaks you even then talk to me about the money being irrelevant. I live in a state 8 times the size of your country, so yes the money does matter when you start considering the costs involved.
Not to detract from one of the few OP positive moves we have seen in the past year or so, it just seems like with the absurd numbers MTG is doing we could do a little better with organized play than "heres a lot more competition at the worst ev tournament in magic".
I don't actually believe that Ottawa will get a regional qualifer, but nothing would surprise me.
As far as judges goes I'm pretty sure Manitoba only has one level 2 judge, and very few level 1 judges. I'm not sure SK has any L2's, don't know about L1's.
Imho you can't run these local store events without having at least L1's, L2's would probably be prefered tbh.
That maritimes doesn't get a regional q is just as bad as Winnipeg not getting one. Wpg-Calgary is like 14 hrs thereabout and I doubt we will get much more than 2 slots for in store events.
The big winners in this I'm guessing will be southern ontario which will probably get an additional 10+ slots now :/
Even being a Saskatchewan resident, I have no idea just how many judges live in the province, but the number is probably comparable to Manitoba.
The one thing that irks me about this change is the choice to have the tournaments in April, compared to mid-May the past few years. Yes, I'm a student, I have finals and whatnot (insert obvious bias here), but personal conflicts aside I'm still curious as to why they thought some of the smaller-scale events should be on Easter weekend. Doesn't really make that much sense...
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Even being a Saskatchewan resident, I have no idea just how many judges live in the province, but the number is probably comparable to Manitoba.
The one thing that irks me about this change is the choice to have the tournaments in April, compared to mid-May the past few years. Yes, I'm a student, I have finals and whatnot (insert obvious bias here), but personal conflicts aside I'm still curious as to why they thought some of the smaller-scale events should be on Easter weekend. Doesn't really make that much sense...
I have issues with April as well due to work since I work with flooding and April is usually very bad for me. I'm guessing I won't be able to play this year
National Invites : 1 Invite with airfare
So wizards provides the airfare and the invite but thats it. So we would be responsible for the other prizes and judge fees.
Err... Can you confirm this? Anyone else?
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Apparently my LGS has the opportunity/invitation to host one of these qualifiers (in New Brunswick), assuming we can scare up an appropriate level judge. I'm sure in the weeks to come we'll find out one way or another if we can actually pull it off.
As far as the rail travel derail goes, Canada does have a coast to coast rail line, and passenger service across it. But it isn't TGV, and it would be very cost prohibitive to make it so. Only one region in Canada may warrent TGV upgrades (the Windsor to Quebec City corridor, or more likely the Montreal to Toronto subset of it)
Kyle Ryc is the Regional Coordinator for the Judge Program in Canada. If you need help finding a judge, I recommend contacting him.
Seconding this. And in general, if you're ever in a situation where you need a judge for an event but don't know if there's one nearby, you've got a couple options:
[LIST=*]
[*]Swing by the [URL="http://judge.wizards.com/"]Judge Center[/URL] (log in with your DCI # and password -- you don't need to be a judge to do this), and click the "People" tab, then the link for "judges near you".
[*]If that doesn't find you a judge, hit up [URL="http://www.wizards.com/Magic/TCG/Events.aspx?x=judge/resources/coords"]the list of Regional Coordinators[/URL] to find out who to contact for further help.
[/LIST]
List tags are malformed.
Seconding this. And in general, if you're ever in a situation where you need a judge for an event but don't know if there's one nearby, you've got a couple options:
[LIST=*]
[*]Swing by the [URL="http://judge.wizards.com/"]Judge Center[/URL] (log in with your DCI # and password -- you don't need to be a judge to do this), and click the "People" tab, then the link for "judges near you".
[*]If that doesn't find you a judge, hit up [URL="http://www.wizards.com/Magic/TCG/Events.aspx?x=judge/resources/coords"]the list of Regional Coordinators[/URL] to find out who to contact for further help.
[/LIST]
This. Kyle is a busy guy, if you can find a nearby Judge through the Judge center, it will save him a lot of time relaying messages. I do know he expressed a lot of concern being able to find Judges for all the local qualifiers. There's so much going on at the time, including post-secondary exams, regionals the week before, and of course local events, that it really is difficult to try and find people willing to travel for all the necessary events. It doesn't help that the local qualifiers are intentionally dispersed, while Judges tend to be centralized around major cities.
We'll have to wait until we have a list of ALL the events to really see where we stand on providing judges for all of them. We don't even know if certified judges are required for these events or not.
List tags are malformed.
with the way the population is distributed in Canada it doesn't make sense to hold the tournament in the West very often. You've got two thirds of the population relatively close to the East coat with the other third spread out over B.C, Alberta and the prairies. Hosting in Toronto or Montreal makes way more sense.
If you head to the Wizards Store & Event Locator, and search for places to Play, select Premier Events below the date range, then pick National Qualifiers, you can see the map. That was the first place that I found them, since my "local" store won't probably put up an announcement on their webpage until the week of (I keep telling them that I can't see their dry erase board of "Events" from my house 200 miles away, but they must not believe me).
Edit: Apparently there is also a handy shortcut to the Event Locator from the Wizards National Qualifers page:
Canada(4) - Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, and Montreal.
USA(17) - Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, Albuquerque, Kansas City, Dallas, Minneapolis,
Chicago, Detroit, Columbus, Atlanta, Charlotte, Orlando, Washington D.C., New York, and Boston.
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----
Lightning Bolts don't kill creatures. State-based actions kill creatures.
I cache got a one slot i guess that regionals will be in Columbia MO for STL and KC. Which is a downgrade since STL and KC used to have their own.
I'd be willing to bet i could take the list from last year and tell you where all of them will be held this year.
My wife was on MTV with this video.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUutIZg2EpU
No, read what I said again: Kansas City will be hosting a Regionals event, and Cache got a one-slot. Some info is now up on the organizer's site.
----
Lightning Bolts don't kill creatures. State-based actions kill creatures.
Whether or not a personal driving factor has anything to do or NOT do with
remuneration is a personal choice / perspective which is unique to each person; which you have both pointed out and stated isn't so. There are poor folks who might like to make some money from this to define a fun and interesting future for them selves, there are others whom don't have much and they need to budget such things to justify it, while there are others whom are in it purely for the competition aspect of it. Improving upon their own game or understanding is enough, meeting / networking with like-minds from other parts of the world is exciting and for others, the win is everything. Those are only a few of many mentalities of why people choose to compete.
I compete in both magic and many other things simply for the opportunity to both better improve and to know my self. If I can $afford$ to compete, I will -- if not, then I simply will not. For me, cash prizes incite no motivation but limited edition cards / trinkets from something that * I * have attended are worthwhile pieces of nostalgia which help to spark memories at later dates in the future. Whether or not those items have any $value$ doesn't mean much to me.. but sentiment does.
For Johm000, it appears that his driving factor is pride - he wants to be known as one who represents España in MTG. Perhaps he is also not money motivated or perhaps he is. I don't really know.. and that's the point. But given those two conditions as well as yours, it doesn't seem reasonable to assert that for everyone that money is thee or perhaps even a leading factor, motivating force or even focus. Magic for my self and many others is about a challenge, fun and social interaction -- nothing more and nothing less. I do have a close friend who does compete almost exclusively for the prizes and money and has earned quite a few pro points and has placed well at pro tours.
In regards to your condemnation of his Johm000's naivety, there are many flaws in your argument which suggest either naivety or a closed mind on your behalf. Magic is game of three highly relevant factors: Deck construction (and tuning to the meta), piloting / playing the deck as well as probability. Probability is in regards to the statistical nature of how efficiently or well ones deck does what it was intended to do. Naturally, better decks are one which net higher rates of consistency -- and this consistency is derived from all three of the aforementioned factors [building, piloting and probability]. All three of which are inter-twined at some levels, while not related at others.
Some people do appear to have a freakish gift in that they almost always draw a reasonable starting hand, while others [such as my self], don't understand what the magic or method is to achieve this and constantly draw 0, 1 or 6 land hands to a degree of improbability. Given the randomization of shuffling and cutting, a certain 'luck' factor needs to be considered. Those whom frequent in the realm of luck more so than others are indeed more blessed and consistent, thus their deck is more likely to more frequently perform as expected. Because they are able to control some of the X-factors better than others, they can better anticipate their future draws thus giving them more leverage in playing a few turns a head -- which is a large factor in winning games between experienced players.
I've also raced for a few years, and more times often than not, the car with the absolute highest torque, top-end speed or even lightest of the class wasn't the guaranteed winner; these are the metrics which define better race cars. However, more often than not, it was the cars which were tuned to the highest degree and achieved a flawless and highly-predictable level of performance were those that won the races.
I competed in Jiu Jitsu for about two years and even placed well at one state championship [5th in my division]. There are numerous people whom are exceptionally good at being able to perform a few dozen different submissions, know all of the positions & how to control and work each form of guard. Those folks are certified bad-asses and have an understanding well beyond what I do. It is interesting though, because often times a very well rounded Jiu Jitstu fellow will be submitted by another person who doesn't know nearly as a many techniques. This seemingly 'worse' grappler might only know a dozzen submissions and a few forms of guard, but each one he knows to the nth degree and can feel his way into applying each of them with absolute certainty. The arguably 'worse' grappler might well realize more frequent victories because he is precise and consistent with his limited arsenal.
Magic, in the sense of consistency = win, isn't any different from any other sport or competition where both human factors and probability exist and it sure feels naive to assert otherwise.
And lastly, to your final point [if I understand it correctly] I do agree, it would be nice to have both states and regionals return, perhaps even to see additional higher level tournaments. IMHO, there aren't nearly enough vintage tournies and I would love to see some so that the most iconic cards can be enjoyed and envied.
~Patrick
no thanks. I enjoy nationals in east coast (especially my city muhaha )
Standard:
Retired.
Modern:
Blitzhelix! RW
EDH (1v1): I am a jerk! RG
Tiny Leaders (1v1): BURN! R
Selling domain "walkingtheplanes.com"- PM me with serious inquiries.
Thanks to Sioux for the Sig!
^v^ The Hooded Pumpkin's Trading Patch ^v^
Deck Tech:
UDagon's Fish N ChipsU
I would be surprised if it's not east coast, like 90% of all nationals are there
I guess that's unfair, since 2000 nationals has twice been outside of the eastcoast, so only 80%
Even being a Saskatchewan resident, I have no idea just how many judges live in the province, but the number is probably comparable to Manitoba.
The one thing that irks me about this change is the choice to have the tournaments in April, compared to mid-May the past few years. Yes, I'm a student, I have finals and whatnot (insert obvious bias here), but personal conflicts aside I'm still curious as to why they thought some of the smaller-scale events should be on Easter weekend. Doesn't really make that much sense...
Batterskull: The 4chan party van of Magic. Starring Stoneforge Mystic as the driver of this massive trollbus!
I have issues with April as well due to work since I work with flooding and April is usually very bad for me. I'm guessing I won't be able to play this year
Err... Can you confirm this? Anyone else?
As far as the rail travel derail goes, Canada does have a coast to coast rail line, and passenger service across it. But it isn't TGV, and it would be very cost prohibitive to make it so. Only one region in Canada may warrent TGV upgrades (the Windsor to Quebec City corridor, or more likely the Montreal to Toronto subset of it)
Seconding this. And in general, if you're ever in a situation where you need a judge for an event but don't know if there's one nearby, you've got a couple options:
[LIST=*]
[*]Swing by the [URL="http://judge.wizards.com/"]Judge Center[/URL] (log in with your DCI # and password -- you don't need to be a judge to do this), and click the "People" tab, then the link for "judges near you".
[*]If that doesn't find you a judge, hit up [URL="http://www.wizards.com/Magic/TCG/Events.aspx?x=judge/resources/coords"]the list of Regional Coordinators[/URL] to find out who to contact for further help.
[/LIST]
List tags are malformed.
----
Lightning Bolts don't kill creatures. State-based actions kill creatures.
This. Kyle is a busy guy, if you can find a nearby Judge through the Judge center, it will save him a lot of time relaying messages. I do know he expressed a lot of concern being able to find Judges for all the local qualifiers. There's so much going on at the time, including post-secondary exams, regionals the week before, and of course local events, that it really is difficult to try and find people willing to travel for all the necessary events. It doesn't help that the local qualifiers are intentionally dispersed, while Judges tend to be centralized around major cities.
We'll have to wait until we have a list of ALL the events to really see where we stand on providing judges for all of them. We don't even know if certified judges are required for these events or not.
List tags are malformed.
Edit: Apparently there is also a handy shortcut to the Event Locator from the Wizards National Qualifers page:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/events.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/events/nationalqualifier/usa
I don't know how long that has been up, I was looking for it a couple of weeks ago and didn't see anything.
Standard:
Retired.
Modern:
Blitzhelix! RW
EDH (1v1): I am a jerk! RG
Tiny Leaders (1v1): BURN! R
There's one at Coolstuff a week after the 8 slot qualifier.
On posting Garruk of the Wild
My wife was on MTV with this video.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUutIZg2EpU
Canada(4) - Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, and Montreal.
USA(17) - Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, Albuquerque, Kansas City, Dallas, Minneapolis,
Chicago, Detroit, Columbus, Atlanta, Charlotte, Orlando, Washington D.C., New York, and Boston.