I'm glad to see a GP in England again, would love for them to do another.
Further south would be good, Brighton was perfect for me but was ill that weekend so missed it, and Manchester may be too north for me to get to.
Do you think England is too small to have 2 GP's?
I'm glad to see a GP in England again, would love for them to do another though, further south maybe.
Do you think England is too small to have 2 GP's?
If you see the attendance at english GPs compared to the attendance on other european GPs - I doubt that england will get more than one gp each year.
If you look at the old elo ratings, you can get a good estimate of the number of players:
Europa: 130276 rated players
North America: 229376 rated players
Beside that, the absolut number for a continent is not that important. For me, it's more important how many GPs are close enough so that I can afford to get to them. I don't know anything about travel costs in america, but I can afford to go to almost every european GP regarding travel time and cost. With the announcement of 6 US GPs and 4 EU GPs in the last 4 month, the ratio will be 19 to 10 which I believe is ok - not really good, but ok.
I think that travel costs are a big reason that wizards decided to give Americans more chances to spend our money. In our current job market, with lack of real options when it comes to travel(fly or drive), the time spent off work and cost of everything makes it difficult to travel all over. Personally I will most likely only make it to Minneapolis because driving 9 hours and staying in a hotel would make the trip not worth making to others.
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Instead of cutting various rewards programs (and Worlds!), Wizards should probably have laid the infrastructure for a bigger presence in Europe and Japan. That would be paying dividends by now.
Going from GPs qualifying 0 players to 1 is good, but going from 16 to 1 is still a bad deal overall. Since there are twice as many GPs, why not cut down the number of invites to 8? Top 8ing a GP is a good accomplishment, it should be rewarded with a PT invite.
On a side note, GP LA in May, w00t! Hopefully it's limited like San Diego.
You can't go 16 to 8 because every Pro Tour invite comes with a plane ticket, now. Previously, they only went to high level pros and PTQ winners. I'm sure the invite system will probably get a little easier by the end of the year, but they have to determine what cut offs would be good so that they can afford all the plane tickets. It's better to be conservative in the beginning because people aren't going to ***** about the fact that additional stuff gets handed out.
There will probably even be some kind of invites handed out from the new pro player's club and possibly based on professional PWPs.
29 GPs, 13 in the continental USA. The country with the next most GPs is Japan, with 2 (Kobe in February and Yokohama in July). Canada so far only has 1, and it's practically inaccessible for half the population (although that same half of the population has had every Canadian GP thus far; why can't they give us 1 GP in the East and one in the West though? Maybe GP Toronto 2012 is coming later in the year? I hope?). Way to make Organized Play accessible for all, guys. Great job.
@flaming infinity: Magic is doing better than ever. Sales are increasing, player appreciation (that is, us of WotC, not the other way) is at an all-time high, why CAN'T they afford the plane tickets? Heck, I'm sure LSV himself can fund an entire GP T8 worth of plane tickets in terms of his contribution to WotC.
@Id: It's easier to play in every European GP than it is to play in a single Canadian GP, for about half the population (and which half the population you're referring to depends on the location of the GP; personally I'm not looking forward to GP Vancouver).
This comes off sounding like is one of those 'ugly Americanisms.' Landmass seems like a relatively arbitrary basis for this, and it almost certainly is not the measure WotC uses. It seems likely that someone there spent a fair amount of time processing sales data and tournament attendance figures.
I'm sure that someone from South America would chime in and point out how absurd North America getting 6 and Europe getting 3 versus South America getting 1 is if you're working from relative size of landmass.
Of course its not the only consideration. but it is a consideration.
All the people complaining about the US getting so many more GP's are neglecting the fact that, as a resident of Michigan, GP's in California (for example) aren't any easier for me to get to then for them to get to.
Plus, the US has a significantly higher population of Magic players, so it would make sense that there would be a higher portion of GP's in it...
This comes off sounding like is one of those 'ugly Americanisms.' Landmass seems like a relatively arbitrary basis for this, and it almost certainly is not the measure WotC uses. It seems likely that someone there spent a fair amount of time processing sales data and tournament attendance figures.
I'm sure that someone from South America would chime in and point out how absurd North America getting 6 and Europe getting 3 versus South America getting 1 is if you're working from relative size of landmass.
I think it's a combo of both though. For example... the UK is about the size of Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin combined, shaving off some extra here or there. In that same land mass area, there is one GP... Minneapolis. People from Iowa and Wisconsin will most definately drive to Minneapolis to participate. Granted, we spend more time in our cars than the folks in the UK do... but we also don't have a great public transportation system. Having lived in the UK myself and traveled a great deal while there... I'd say it's pretty compareable. If you have the interest, money, and ability... traveling to a GP is very possible. I certainly did as much to see concerts while I lived there... if I was thre now I would do the same for Magic. The biggest hurdle is finding a place to stay, since a tank of gas in the US is pretty much equal to the train/bus ticket of the same distance in the UK.
At least they are keeping up with the trend of 1 canadian GP a year, which is nice in reality, also it's really good to see wizards giving GP winners a shot at the big league of Pro Tours since they are going to be crucial towards worlds officially thanks to the new format.
From speaking to several WotC people at Worlds, the continental distribution of GPs roughly approximates to the sales made in those regions. So the US gets the lion's share of GPs because US players buy more product than Europeans.
There are other considerations, of course, but that's the baseline.
The UK accounts for a population of ~1/5th of the US, but booster sales aren't great here and so 0-1 GPs per year is what we should expect. It helps that one of the two "PTOs" that WotC are using for organising GP events in Europe is British, I suspect.
Anyhow, a good, varied schedule. I look forward to another trip to Barca.
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Weird that they announced the format of the next PT after Dark Ascension but not of PT Honolulu...
The Pro Tour website has PT Honolulu as a Standard/Booster Draft (with Dark Ascension)
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Scientists have calculated that the chance of anything so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one. But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.
Nokia is a Swedish company and Lego a Danish company, doesn't mean they are stupid enough to ignore a large foreigh market for sake of home soil.
Or Nintendo a Japanese company , but hear the moans when America wasn't going to get Xenoblade.
Magic is a globasl game so the proportionality of tournaments should be treated as such.
Wotc would realise Europe is a huge market and cater accordingly if they were smart.
While the USA may be twice the size a lot of that space is empty and nonpopulated , where as Europe has a vastly bigger population.
The Revolutionary War was a long time ago, get over it.
This change doesn't really do a whole lot, but at least this is positive news. We don't get that very often.
Why there is so much disproportion between EU and US GPs.
Till late august in 2012 US has 13 (+1 in Canada and +1 in Mexico) while EU has just 6.. Any particular reason for that?
Yes a hand full of reasons actually.
Magic and Hasbro are both located in America so it's easier for them.
It's much easier to move around Europe than America. Paris to London is a 2 1/2 hour train ride, it takes about 3-4 hours to drive across most states end to end. There are only a handful of cities worth hosting a GP in in America and maybe 2 will be within 5 hours of any given location. Meanwhile Euro kids can drive to the closest major city and get a round trip train for about 1/2 the price of a one-way airplane ticket to a major city in America. Trains in America are so slow they might as well not exist, it takes 2 days to get from Milwaukee to Seattle.
If there are 6 GPs in Europe probably 4-5 are within 3-4 hour train rides of London, France, Spain, Germany, ect. Meanwhile if I live in the US and don't want to spend $600 in travel and hotels to go to a Magic event I might see 0-4 GPs that are within a reasonable driving distance. I've been living in Milwaukee for about 1 1/2 years about an hour north of Chicago. Since I've moved here the closest GP has been in Columbus Ohio which is over a 7 1/2 hour drive and I live an hour from the 3rd largest city in America. So yeah, Europe is lucky. You only get 6 GPs but at least you can reasonably attend them.
Well I just looked up the flights to some GP locations from some Airports in soutern Germany (which is, as everybody should know, quite central in teh middle of northern europe)
And most flights are about 200-300 $ (2way), but you can easily double that if its not from a central point but from one way to the other, for example, Italy, England, or Spain to Poland.
And all that before hotel, and of course those 200-300$ airlines ask for are only the "advertising price", you will need taxis, extra fees at the airport, hotel rooms are also more expensive and so on.
So basically a trip, an American would call "to the next state" is much more expensiv here.
I hope nahholmes, you get it, and all the people repeating this "europe is small, get over it and travel" lie.
Are we talking about Euros? Cause a 2-way flight from Vancouver to Toronto is $700.
Ryanair is amazing! I would kill to have something like that in the states. Sure it may be a little bit less comfortable, but you can easily travel to almost any location and back for under 100 Euro. I lived in Germany along the border with Luxembourg for 4.5 years. Traveling there was so much cheaper than anything I've ever experienced in the states.
If you want to travel in style (i.e. not ryanair) it will cost money. Same can be said in the states.
That being said, I aggree with above posters, Europe is reducing the number of events because there is such a large focus on eternal formats. I'm all for eternal formats, but you have to realize Wizards primary focus is on rotating formats where they can maintain their bottom line. Many eternal players just aren't interested in buying huge numbers of packs so wizards allocates less money.
No, I did the math to give you $ numbers, so its easier for you to understand.
also, I just used nahholmes numbers as a comparison, wo said that an expensive flight to the other end of the states+ hotel costs 600 dollars.
Except, he didn't say it was "an expensive flight". 600 dollars to go from midwest to west coast including hotel is from cheap to a little bit of a good deal. You'll only get those fares if you don't fly back unitl Monday, and your hotel is likely to be pretty shady.
THnk about this: Hotel for thursday, friday, saturday, sunday night is going to be about $50 a night. That's $200 right there, and you are staying in a dive hotel. Obviously this can be split, but the flight can't. And yes, a flight from the midwest to California for $400 would be practically a steal.
I´m just sick of reminding some guys here, that traveling over here is much more expensive, doesn´t matter whether its , train, plain,car, especially if its international travel and not just in a country.
And we're sick of reminding you that, no, it really doesn't.
You guys have it worse. Not only do you not get any Grand Prix ever, you also have to compete with Europe for any ratings based (in old system) and Planeswalker Points (in new system) invites for tournaments.
We have our first PTQ in my local city, Cape Town this weekend though
You can't really say travelling is cheaper in Europe than in America, nor vice versa.
My experience has been:
- Hotels are usually way cheaper in the US, its usually easy to get sth. where every person does not have to pay more than 20-25$ and this even includes breakfast more often than not; in Europe, it is rarely possible to find something reasonable for less than 25€, something close to 30€ is normal (which is like 40$). Plus, the hotels are usually even worse than in the states and more often without breakfast.
- Low to middle distance travel is usually cheaper in the US. A bus from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia costed, like, 30$. Thats 300 Miles (close to 500 kilometers). If you are trying to travel distances like that in Europe, you usally have no other option than the train or flying. And if you're travelling 300 miles by train, you're lucky to get something for about 80$; often, you wont even find anything reasonable and the train costs like 100€ (130$), and thats for one way! (there are some cheap offers and you're lucky to get those; and then you can even travel distances like 700 kilometers for ~30€)
- Big distance travels are usually cheaper in Europe. There is almost always some cheap way to fly approximately to your destination for 100-150€ for both trips, if you're in time and look hard enough. In America, its rather tough to overcome such distances reasonably (either timely or money-wise) at all.
AND
In Europe, point one and two are much more relevant, because distances just are a lot smaller in general. Larger hotel and travel prices easily add up (multiple nights, get there and back again etc.), making travelling such distances definitely not cheaper in Europe
In America, point three is just much more relevant, because America is friggin huge.
Therefore, travelling is not cheap in either of them, for completely opposite reasons, and things that are cheap on the one continent are not on the other and vice versa, but thats because their relevance are just weighter oppositely, too.
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Traveling by car is more expensive in Europe because gas is much more expensive. Traveling by plane is cheaper in Europe if you travel with low-cost companies like Ryanair (unless you also have those), otherwise I don't know. As for any other transports, I have no idea.
So, the only effective way for either to travel is cheaper in Europe?
Another difference is in the hotels. In Europe, if you pay for a room for a certain number of people you can't put more than that number of people in the room (I guess you can sneak people in, but you risk them finding out).
Thats actually illegal in the US too. Hotels charge extra for each additional person beyond 2 and have a maximum room occupancy (typically 4 adults or 2 adults and 4 children).
Further south would be good, Brighton was perfect for me but was ill that weekend so missed it, and Manchester may be too north for me to get to.
Do you think England is too small to have 2 GP's?
If you see the attendance at english GPs compared to the attendance on other european GPs - I doubt that england will get more than one gp each year.
I think that travel costs are a big reason that wizards decided to give Americans more chances to spend our money. In our current job market, with lack of real options when it comes to travel(fly or drive), the time spent off work and cost of everything makes it difficult to travel all over. Personally I will most likely only make it to Minneapolis because driving 9 hours and staying in a hotel would make the trip not worth making to others.
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Instead of cutting various rewards programs (and Worlds!), Wizards should probably have laid the infrastructure for a bigger presence in Europe and Japan. That would be paying dividends by now.
There still should be more EU GPs though.
You can't go 16 to 8 because every Pro Tour invite comes with a plane ticket, now. Previously, they only went to high level pros and PTQ winners. I'm sure the invite system will probably get a little easier by the end of the year, but they have to determine what cut offs would be good so that they can afford all the plane tickets. It's better to be conservative in the beginning because people aren't going to ***** about the fact that additional stuff gets handed out.
There will probably even be some kind of invites handed out from the new pro player's club and possibly based on professional PWPs.
@flaming infinity: Magic is doing better than ever. Sales are increasing, player appreciation (that is, us of WotC, not the other way) is at an all-time high, why CAN'T they afford the plane tickets? Heck, I'm sure LSV himself can fund an entire GP T8 worth of plane tickets in terms of his contribution to WotC.
@Id: It's easier to play in every European GP than it is to play in a single Canadian GP, for about half the population (and which half the population you're referring to depends on the location of the GP; personally I'm not looking forward to GP Vancouver).
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Of course its not the only consideration. but it is a consideration.
All the people complaining about the US getting so many more GP's are neglecting the fact that, as a resident of Michigan, GP's in California (for example) aren't any easier for me to get to then for them to get to.
Plus, the US has a significantly higher population of Magic players, so it would make sense that there would be a higher portion of GP's in it...
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I think it's a combo of both though. For example... the UK is about the size of Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin combined, shaving off some extra here or there. In that same land mass area, there is one GP... Minneapolis. People from Iowa and Wisconsin will most definately drive to Minneapolis to participate. Granted, we spend more time in our cars than the folks in the UK do... but we also don't have a great public transportation system. Having lived in the UK myself and traveled a great deal while there... I'd say it's pretty compareable. If you have the interest, money, and ability... traveling to a GP is very possible. I certainly did as much to see concerts while I lived there... if I was thre now I would do the same for Magic. The biggest hurdle is finding a place to stay, since a tank of gas in the US is pretty much equal to the train/bus ticket of the same distance in the UK.
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There are other considerations, of course, but that's the baseline.
The UK accounts for a population of ~1/5th of the US, but booster sales aren't great here and so 0-1 GPs per year is what we should expect. It helps that one of the two "PTOs" that WotC are using for organising GP events in Europe is British, I suspect.
Anyhow, a good, varied schedule. I look forward to another trip to Barca.
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The Pro Tour website has PT Honolulu as a Standard/Booster Draft (with Dark Ascension)
Scientists have calculated that the chance of anything so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one. But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.
The Revolutionary War was a long time ago, get over it.
This change doesn't really do a whole lot, but at least this is positive news. We don't get that very often.
Yes a hand full of reasons actually.
Magic and Hasbro are both located in America so it's easier for them.
It's much easier to move around Europe than America. Paris to London is a 2 1/2 hour train ride, it takes about 3-4 hours to drive across most states end to end. There are only a handful of cities worth hosting a GP in in America and maybe 2 will be within 5 hours of any given location. Meanwhile Euro kids can drive to the closest major city and get a round trip train for about 1/2 the price of a one-way airplane ticket to a major city in America. Trains in America are so slow they might as well not exist, it takes 2 days to get from Milwaukee to Seattle.
If there are 6 GPs in Europe probably 4-5 are within 3-4 hour train rides of London, France, Spain, Germany, ect. Meanwhile if I live in the US and don't want to spend $600 in travel and hotels to go to a Magic event I might see 0-4 GPs that are within a reasonable driving distance. I've been living in Milwaukee for about 1 1/2 years about an hour north of Chicago. Since I've moved here the closest GP has been in Columbus Ohio which is over a 7 1/2 hour drive and I live an hour from the 3rd largest city in America. So yeah, Europe is lucky. You only get 6 GPs but at least you can reasonably attend them.
Are we talking about Euros? Cause a 2-way flight from Vancouver to Toronto is $700.
If you want to travel in style (i.e. not ryanair) it will cost money. Same can be said in the states.
That being said, I aggree with above posters, Europe is reducing the number of events because there is such a large focus on eternal formats. I'm all for eternal formats, but you have to realize Wizards primary focus is on rotating formats where they can maintain their bottom line. Many eternal players just aren't interested in buying huge numbers of packs so wizards allocates less money.
It's not being nationalist it's just business.
Except, he didn't say it was "an expensive flight". 600 dollars to go from midwest to west coast including hotel is from cheap to a little bit of a good deal. You'll only get those fares if you don't fly back unitl Monday, and your hotel is likely to be pretty shady.
THnk about this: Hotel for thursday, friday, saturday, sunday night is going to be about $50 a night. That's $200 right there, and you are staying in a dive hotel. Obviously this can be split, but the flight can't. And yes, a flight from the midwest to California for $400 would be practically a steal.
And we're sick of reminding you that, no, it really doesn't.
We have our first PTQ in my local city, Cape Town this weekend though
My experience has been:
- Hotels are usually way cheaper in the US, its usually easy to get sth. where every person does not have to pay more than 20-25$ and this even includes breakfast more often than not; in Europe, it is rarely possible to find something reasonable for less than 25€, something close to 30€ is normal (which is like 40$). Plus, the hotels are usually even worse than in the states and more often without breakfast.
- Low to middle distance travel is usually cheaper in the US. A bus from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia costed, like, 30$. Thats 300 Miles (close to 500 kilometers). If you are trying to travel distances like that in Europe, you usally have no other option than the train or flying. And if you're travelling 300 miles by train, you're lucky to get something for about 80$; often, you wont even find anything reasonable and the train costs like 100€ (130$), and thats for one way! (there are some cheap offers and you're lucky to get those; and then you can even travel distances like 700 kilometers for ~30€)
- Big distance travels are usually cheaper in Europe. There is almost always some cheap way to fly approximately to your destination for 100-150€ for both trips, if you're in time and look hard enough. In America, its rather tough to overcome such distances reasonably (either timely or money-wise) at all.
AND
In Europe, point one and two are much more relevant, because distances just are a lot smaller in general. Larger hotel and travel prices easily add up (multiple nights, get there and back again etc.), making travelling such distances definitely not cheaper in Europe
In America, point three is just much more relevant, because America is friggin huge.
Therefore, travelling is not cheap in either of them, for completely opposite reasons, and things that are cheap on the one continent are not on the other and vice versa, but thats because their relevance are just weighter oppositely, too.
So, the only effective way for either to travel is cheaper in Europe?
Thats actually illegal in the US too. Hotels charge extra for each additional person beyond 2 and have a maximum room occupancy (typically 4 adults or 2 adults and 4 children).