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Worlds: The Debate, Pros and Cons, and My Take
by The Ninja Scot If you've been on the Discussion BBS, you've no doubt seem the many threads of lines that are based on the new qualifying format for the World Championships at DecipherCon on the 5th-8th of October. Tempers have flared and statements have been stated that posed interesting questions and ask for careful analysis. While I could probably write this on the Discussion BBS, I decided to write it here in order to write as much as I could and cover as many of the topics raised in the 50+ pages worth of posts as possible. Granted, I won't cover everything and yes, I do have a bias on this as some might point out but I have tried to state both positions fairly and saved my personal opinion for the tail end. This is by no means the end-all; comprehensive guide to the Worlds format system or anything else but consider it merely a longer synopsis of the system. In any case, let's get started for we have a lot to cover. From Decipher's site, the state tournaments are from March 17th to May 31st. It's a one-day event with 6 games and does not have to have a final confrontation although that is optional. Any player from the state, province or country that corresponds to where they live or (for the exceptions of college students and military personnel) may choose to compete in either where they're stationed/attending school or where their home is. Moving during the above times of the spring also has an effect on where you can compete. If you move outside of your state/provincial/national area, without getting in touch with Kyle Heuer in advance, you will have no option but to compete in your original state if you wish to participate. First place wins the title of that area's champion for one year and receives a bye into their corresponding Continental Championships into Day 2. Please note that you will still have to arrange your own travel to the Continental Championships as well as lodging and everything else. Second place receives such a bye as well. That doesn't mean that these tournaments don't have their drawbacks, however. Granted, you do get a bye to Day 2 to the Continental Championships but if you can't afford to go to your Continental Championships, then the bye won't help matters. And as a result of that lack of assistance to such an event, the tournaments are perceived as a gimmick. Such things would promote the following players to attend the Continental Championships: Those that live near the area and those that have enough money to make the trip. It increases the apparent premise that goes against the original tenet of "It doesn't matter how much money you have, if you're good enough, we'll see that you get there." While the enticement to try to go to the Continental tournament is there, the assistance is not. So why go? If the tournament is far out of your way and your goal is to compete at the World Championships, then it's probably not the best use of your funds. If you want to attend, I'm not telling you not to but funds-wise, it's probably not as advantageous. After all, if you have the funds to attend the Continental Championships anyway, then you don't really lose anything if you don't attend States. Also, if you're skilled enough to win or come second in those championships, then you probably could win a place in Day 2 of the Continental Championship. That doesn't mean that they're not worth the experience. After all, it's a nice ego boost to win such a championship. It's a way to have as many of the state/province/national players in one place to have a highly competitive area. If you want to have more time at the Continental Championships (North America's is at a gaming convention and I'm sure that Europe's and Asia/Australia's will be at similar events), the bye gives you the day to spend seeing all that the conventions have to offer. There's also the strategic benefit. You don't have to make two decks that are of high-enough caliber to make it to the Championships and to conceivably win, not exactly always the easiest thing to do. Besides, it's fun. If you like tournaments, there's certainly no reason why you shouldn't go. While I'm not sure just how likely it would be from a Decipher standpoint, if they continue with this type of format, they could make the state/province/national tournaments more enticing if the winners had assistance to attend the Championships that they get the bye for. For the US and Canada, the winner could get a $500 voucher towards travel and accommodations and 2nd place could get $250 or $300 towards it. In Europe and the Asia/Australian contingent, the costs would be more for more expensive travel. Yes, it does not cover everything but it certainly could help matters. In the US, I would be quite surprised if you couldn't get the airfare covered by at least the first place award, possibly the second place if you work at it. It won't cover everything for everyone (obviously the closer you live, the less costly it will be) but it certainly would help break up the advantages that those that live near the area or those that have more funds would have to attend the Continental Championships. And considering the less importance that the Continental Championships are as of this moment, it really shouldn't cover everything. It's a conceivable compromise that would make quite a few people happy with these tournaments and would certainly get rid of the gimmick moniker that is in place by some over the State/Provincial/National tournaments. There will be three of these this year but only the North American's has a set location (Europe's and Australasia's are at locations not yet determined) These are two day events. The first day there will be 6 games unless there are 64+ players, in which case there will be 8 games. The top 16 (or 17 if Day 2 has an odd number of players) will play in the second day as will any State/Province. If there are more than 64 players on the second day, then there will be 8 games; otherwise there will be 6 games. There will be a final confrontation game at the end. Anyone from the continent the tournament is being held at may compete. First place will receive the title of Continental champion for one year, a bye to day 2 of the World Championship and travel-accommodations-food for free to DecipherCon. Obviously, these are going to be highly competitive on all fronts. And the prize of an all-expenses paid trip are certainly highly enticing. But there are criticisms of this. Some have suggested having not just a Day 1 bye but a bye to Day 2 as well. There's also the lack of interest strictly for those wishing to attend Worlds, citing the difficulty involved, even considering the free trip. It's the same difficulty factor that some cite for having not just the first place player to be a part of the Day 2 bye but up to 4 players total. And the final criticism involves the possibility of people who have already qualified for attending Worlds via Regional or Open championships competing in the Continental Championship and "teaming up" to help ensure people's friends to win the prize instead of someone that might've been more skilled. Some of these criticisms are well founded, after all this certainly is a big deal. You're the champion of the entire continent and that's no small feat. You make it through two days worth of competition that spans the entire continent. I would have no problem with the winner of this to be part of the third and final day of the World Championship. However, just the winner should get this opportunity. If 2nd place or whichever place you might've given such a berth to is that skilled, certainly they could be able to make it through other means (whether it's a regional, Open or even the first day of Worlds). If your sole purpose is to attend Worlds without spending any money on your own for the trip to DecipherCon, there's no reason why you shouldn't try for these Championships. After all, it pays for everything including your own food. However, if your funds are limited, you're most likely going to prefer the path of least resistance. In that, you're probably not going to have the easiest chance of winning at these Championships. If you were going to go to these tournaments anyway (like myself) there's no reason why you shouldn't try for the Championships. But, if your goal is strictly to go to the World Championships, you're better off spending the money for DecipherCon if you had to choose one or the other. By the way, State/Province/National Championships winners certainly have a better chance to win this because they only have one day to win it on. That and if you wish to figure out just who the author of this piece is, I'm the one with the staff, sunglasses and odd attire during the tournament ;-) As for the last point of contention, people who have already have a place at DecipherCon for them (via Opens or Regional) cannot participate in Day 1 activities of the Continental Championship. Quoting Kyle Heuer in his Question and Answer session post on Decipher "11. Can I play in Day 1 of the Continental or World Championships (for fun) if I've already won a bye into Day 2? No. Give other players the chance to prove themselves." This means only that State/Provincial/National champions and runner-ups can't partake in the first day's competition. There is nothing at present from preventing someone that has already qualified for World's day 2 (whether by regional or open championship) to participate in this tournament. There is some recourse in that they will get the title but not the award of the all-expenses paid trip. In essence, they get the prestige of being the continental champion. As for fixing, that is possible as a result of leaving the Continental Championship open to everyone, just not as likely. After all, you're having those that had byes the day before and only a possible 17 from the day before. Unless your group of friends are all skilled enough to make it into such an elite caste of playing, they won't make it in. Then it's still not a guaranteed chance that they'll make an impact. Only in the last few rounds and the final confrontation could that be possible. But really, there's not much of a difference than what one can do now in such a tournament. If nothing else, it's more difficult to do so in this format because of the Day 1 cutoff. It's unethical to throw a match but it's not against the rules. However the TD might simply throw the two people out; that's at their discretion, I'm sure. I think that the Continental Championship is a great idea, could help it more if they offered a bye into Round 3 to the winner though (they after all made it through an entire continent). Would make these Championships much more prominent and enticing indeed for those that are attending strictly for taking part in the World Championship. There are 21 regions for Star Trek in the world. Each one will have a Regional Championship this year. Anyone from this region may participate, as there are no regional qualifiers this year, a departure from last year. The event, which will take place between June 1st and Sept. 3rd this year, will be a one day event with 6 games and a final confrontation. The winner gets the title of Regional Champion for one year, a bye into Day 2 of the World Championship and a travel voucher of an undetermined amount to help with World Championship travel costs. These are similar to the four Open championships that are being held this year. This year, they are held at DragonCon in Atlanta, GA (June 29-July 2), Origins in Columbus, OH (July 13-16th), Comic Con in San Diego, CA (July 20-23rd) and Wizard World in Chicago, IL (August 4-6). More information as well as pre-registration for Origins and GenCon can be found at the following address: http://www.wizards.com/conventions/Welcome.asp The three main points of contention to these are the travel voucher instead of all-expenses paid like last year, the reasoning that Open winners should have travel expenses taken care of and the system being perceived as US-Centric. Teaming up issues were already dealt with in the above paragraphs. The original qualifying events for Worlds had expenses paid for everyone that qualified, so the players only had to worry about qualifying, not trying to figure out where they would come up with the money. Such an idea helps especially with minors since they would have to pay for a guardian to attend with them as well. Now, there are essentially four people that have all their expenses paid for: The returning champion Mike Harrington and the three continental champions. Four people out of 29 players is less than 14%. The result: a significant drop from last year's participants. This also results in having fewer people from outside the North American continent if there isn't enough money in the voucher for the winners to cover the difference, prompting the US-Centric outlook on this year's World Championship. Also, the fact that there are no Opens in either of the other two continents helps foster this belief even more. As for the Open winners, it's not strictly a region-only event; anyone in the world can attend and potentially win them. They should gain something more than a regional winner and the only thing that could really add to that status is to have the travel expenses covered. I can see why Open winners should have more prestige to their title, as far as an award is concerned. After all, they do win an all-comers tournament, not exactly a simple feat. However, I don't see it happening unless you up the ante to the Continental Championship, most likely in the same manner I suggested above. An Open champion doesn't deserve the same type of benefits the Continental Champion does so no Day 3 automatic berth or anything related to that. In fact, I see that the Day 1 bye staying put for the Open. However, I think that Open winners should be given an all-expenses trip to DecipherCon as well. Still not as many as last year's 30 free trips but it's 8, not all that bad either. As for the US-Centric apparent nature to this qualification method this year, it doesn't increase European attendance or decrease it either. There are 5 regions in Europe and there was one Open last year and Australia/Asia had just the one regional. This year, there will be Continental Championships on each as well as each regional, resulting in 6 people from Europe and 2 from Australia/Asia (27.59%) at the minimum. There is also the Day one of Worlds to which people could qualify for Day two of Worlds at if they have the means to do so. And really, that's what this comes down to: Money, namely the amount that the voucher contains for the winners of the regional championships. If Decipher does what I hope it does, it will take in regard the cost differential between each non-North American regional and DecipherCon's eventual location (which has not been revealed yet, so don't start making plans for Virginia Beach just yet) and adjust accordingly. Using Norfolk as a template, flying to Norfolk from anywhere in the US for the dates Oct. 4th and Oct. 9th at 6 am both departing to and from each location costs no more than about $520 (using lowestfare.com and comparing to other similar sites). In Europe, just from the main airports from the winners last year, the costs varied from $513 in Madrid to $1456 in Stockholm to even $2780 in Brisbane. Now, this is not to state that these prices will not go up or, most likely, go down, that's simply how much it is to give you a very rough estimate of the cost. Obviously though, there's a large differential in comparison to the costs in the US. My suggestion is to have the travel voucher to cover the cost of airfare and, if there is the necessity of a guardian, to have the airfare for the guardian included in the voucher. I can understand why Decipher would wish to distinguish the importance of Continental Championships and a way that they manage that is by paying for everything but having regional and open champions unable to attend simply because of being unable to pay for the flight. If the flight is paid for, I'm sure that the winners could pay the lodging and food for themselves. If not, well I'm sure Decipher and the individuals involved will come up with something. Granted, you might not stay in the hotel of similar costs like the Cavalier (unless Decipher can arrange a better rate for you) but you will get there. As for the US-Centric nature of Worlds, there are two proposed ideas to increase a more World-centric approach to Worlds, at least in theory. One, give the top 10 players of both Sealed Deck and Constructed deck an automatic bye into Day 2. That would result in adding 8 Americans, 7 Europeans and 2 Australians added (1 American has already qualified as he's the World Champion from last year, 1 European and 1 Australian are in the top 10 of both). The result would add 17 more people to Day 2 barring any overlap, resulting in 46 people in Day 2, 20 of whom are European or Australian. At least in theory. The problem with it is rather twofold: the means to get them to DecipherCon and the handicapping of not-as tournament rich areas to have a chance at such spots. The proposed idea has no means to offer to get them to DecipherCon and the main problem with getting to DecipherCon isn't about enticing them with byes but rather the monetary assistance in order to even use those byes. There's also the argument that if they're skilled enough to get such high rankings, they can earn the right to attend via Regional and Opens. Granted, there aren't any Opens in either continent this year (which I hope is fixed next year, even if it's just one additional one in Europe, possibly at either Esslingen, Germany or GenCon UK if it's held that year), but that doesn't mean that one couldn't be created if the need arises. After all, the Seattle Open wasn't affiliated with any large convention and that had more than decent turnout overall. Surely it wouldn't be that difficult to manage one or more in Europe if deemed appropriate by Decipher. The other problem is that for tournament-rich areas, they wouldn't have so much of a problem as would people that aren't able to go to tournaments or worse yet, people that run the tournaments. They might be quite skilled and yet, unable to make it to many local tournaments for whatever reasons. Not only that but realistically, if you're skilled enough to succeed in normal tournaments, then you certainly have more than a better chance of making it via Regional or other means, which many of the Top 10 have, at least as far as Constructed rankings, done in many occasions. In essence, you're shifting the prejudice from international players to those with less of means to attend local tournaments and tournament directors. The Sealed Deck World Championships however sound quite appropriate. Since the beginning of Worlds, it has always been focused on Constructed rather than Sealed Decks. This previous year, we had Sealed deck Qualifying tournaments used to qualify for Regional. I think that the next step should be a separate World Championship for this format. It would increase the number of players in attendance at DecipherCon immediately for one plus it promotes another facet to playing their products. It's also profitable in the long run so everyone wins. The World Championships is a 3 day event at DecipherCon which will be held at an unknown location as of yet on October 5th-October 8th (My birthday by the way ;-)) The first day, open to anyone without a bye, will have 8 games. The top 38 players will advance to Day 2 among the other individuals with byes. If there are more than 64 (theoretically speaking, there will be a maximum possible of 68 people), then Day 2 will be 8 games as well, otherwise there will be 6 games. From Day 2, 12 players will advance to Day 3, which will have four games and a final confrontation. First place results in the title of World Champion for one year as well as an undetermined championship prize and a paid trip back to DecipherCon 2001. This is also the most controversial part of the new World's Qualifying tournament structure. Just to summarize the dissents on this structure:
Obviously, quite a few disagreements with this system. Many of them stem from having 39 potential entrants from Day 1 make up more than half of the participants able to compete in Day 2 of the World Championship. The largest tournament that Decipher has ever held was the Blaze of Glory pre-release Sealed Deck at GenCon with 100 participants. If we use those numbers for the amount of people that will be a part of Day 1, that would result in just under 40%. However, I doubt that there will be less than 100. After all, there is the perception that it is easier to win a place into Worlds if you have the money to get there. The more people there are, the less likely the chance to place high enough. Granted, there people that were given travel vouchers which will hopefully pay for a vast majority of expenses to attend DecipherCon but they had to go through more arduous tasks in order to achieve in essence what a person with perceived less skill but luck in living location could manage. However, no matter where DecipherCon is held, the same will always apply with as many slots as there are open to them. But I think that 39 are too many. I like 10, possibly 11 for lack of even players. In an 8 round tournament, it's going to be more of your deck and playing skills rather than simply luck that you placed so highly. Also, it adds up to a potential 40 players on Day 2, helps to quash the "crap-shoot" notion and has the effect of making it more of a special feeling. After all, if you make it in the top 10 of a tournament of over 100 people, you certainly have some serious skills. It still has a large contingent of players from DecipherCon in Worlds but it's not more than half that would be the case with this year's. It does increase the attendance on DecipherCon while still not making seem as though they increased World's just for more attendance. It does improve the importance of other qualifying events and diminishes the perceived ease of winning a Day 2 berth. And lastly, it offers more prominence to non-World's related activities. After all, if there's only a maximum of 11 people out of these 100+ people, you've added 28 more people to other tournaments at DecipherCon. DecipherCon isn't just about Worlds, it's about everything associated with Decipher all in one package. There are some things that you can't change, no matter what you do. You can't change the fact that those without prestige or lack of recognition won't have some impact. You can't change the fact that "legends" playing each other in the beginning will have more likelihood of a more difficult game rather than a "legend" playing someone that's unknown. After all, everyone was unknown at one point. You improve by playing and planning. Anyone can be a "legend" if they have the skills and luck to help them succeed in a large tournament and with the ability to do well over and over again. A legend is nothing more than a label that good players are given. Doesn't mean that unknowns aren't able to do that, maybe they just need their chance. Maybe this is their year. You can't expect that everyone will agree with changes being done on practically anything. There's nothing wrong with disagreeing, we do it all the time. Just because someone might benefit or has no real perceived place to even disagree with something, doesn't mean that they can't have their say either. Places of forum are open to all and aren't just for positive comments. Negative comments can be just as helpful for a company or for the average person. It helps you think, it presents a viewpoint that you might not otherwise agree with and forces you to do one of three things: You either disagree, you agree or you compromise. If you disagree, that doesn't mean that you stifle their comments, it means that you present your truths and evidence to counter them. If you agree, you help support by adding more detail and information to the position. If you compromise, you take what each one has to offer and modify it so that both parties are satisfied. In effect, this article is about compromise and I hope that I've presented everything both accurately and in a reasonable fashion to all. If you'd care to comment about this article, my address is theninjascot@yahoo.com. All comments will be replied to. Ciao, The Ninja Scot (who hopes to celebrate his birthday at DecipherCon, you're all invited ;-) The Ninja Scot
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