As a competitive Magic player, I care about the future of MTG organized play. WotC has done such a bad job, for so long, it seems like it only makes sense to shift as much power as possible to other hands. My vote is for a player led system. For my part, I’m reestablishing the chess-like Elo ratings system that competitive players preferred, and WoTC abandoned, apparently, because it didn’t fit their business strategy. In support of this effort, I run a regional circuit on top of LGSs events.
Before Saturday, I had never run a magic event larger than a draft pod. On Saturday, I jumped into the deep end, with 47 players registered for the main events with almost a case of Modern Horizon’s 2 in prizes on the line. The results were mixed.
On the positive side…
I had a lot of good feedback. People enjoyed the event, and that’s important. I left feeling basically good about how things went. What did I do right, that you might consider copying?
I got a good running start, 3+ months out. I have other things going on, and you probably do to. It’s easy to get overwhelmed when you’re doing something new and you’re out of your element. Give yourself some room. Leaving a lot of lead time was harder than it might’ve been due to lingering Covid concerns, and that contributed to a distinct problem(discussed below).
I played in a lot of different places and really focused on personally inviting people after playing matches with them. I didn’t do this after every match, and you don’t have to be the most outgoing person around, but doing as much of this as you can will make a difference. In particular, if you can win over players who have influence over others, that can pay off huge. Between getting a long running start and making contact with lots of people, the idea of a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchase_funnel comes to mind.
Finally, on my first event, I chose to take a greater than expected loss instead of trying to hold the financial line and risking a poor play experience.
On the negative side…
The economics of the event were worse than expected. I was expecting to lose $500, or maybe $1000 at the outside. When I ran through the numbers in my head, after the fact, the end result was closer to -$1300. Getting lower than target attendance hurt, especially with guaranteed prizes. I knew this was a risk. I thought I’d be able to break even on a second event in the winter. Now, I’m not sure about that.
Up front, I had support from several LGSs (Local Game Stores). I didn’t charge the 2 vendors for space this time. That’s where I was looking to make up ground the next time around. I think I could get $500 for vendor space next time, but that’s hardly guaranteed. If I were to run another tournament, this would be one of the first things I’d nail down, along with the hiring the best judge I could find (see below).
I saved around $280 on product from LGS support, before another $170 worth was donated. The quality of the event was further enhanced by a player donating a $250 box for a Top8 draft. I separate this out because it probably wasn’t necessary and I don’t think it effected sign-ups.
* I’ll probably get $300 back on unopened product, making net product costs roughly -$1200.
* Renting the 3400 sq ft site was $500.
* Furniture rental was $560. 25 tables, 80 chairs, and stands for table# cards.
* Staff(incl judges) costs were $600
* Misc costs were around $100 (printer ink, pens, table# cards, )
* +$1-200 back on food sales.
* +$40 from direct singles sales.
* +$1550 from ticket sales
I think an LGS doing significant sales could save another $300 on product. Along with $500+ value from vendor space, I think the economics for holding a stand-alone event, outside of their primary location, could turn positive pretty quickly with enough attention to detail.
Negative #2
…was a call over potential counterfeit cards. Before Round 4, deck checks were perform, and one player had rather thin feeling cards in his deck. A judge believed, fairly strongly, that the cards were counterfeited. They did feel thin, but they were not obvious counterfeit’s to me. The player argued that the cards were simply old and had been played with for years.
If you are going to host an event with significant prizes, you can’t gloss over the need for judges. The head judge should probably a level 2 judge. You shouldn’t assume that the quality of judging which is accepted, within a local community, for Friday night magic, will create faith in the integrity of a larger event. The degree to which difficult calls will land on you is inversely proportional to the degree to which your judges, especially your head judge, is accepted as a source of authority among the players who will be in attendance.
Before going further, I need to say that I failed in giving judges the attention I should, both in hiring and in the run up to the tournament. I don’t mean for anything here to reflect badly on the judges, who I’d be happy to have as floor judges, under a good quality level 2 head judge.
During early event preparations, I had several level 1 judges tell me they weren’t available. I reached out to one level 2 judge who told me that he was no longer judging. I started planning this event back when Covid was a much bigger part of the daily conversation, and I was hesitant to reach out to other level 2s who were vocally against doing anything while Covid was still an issue. When a level 1, who I’d met a couple of times, and who other’s seemed ok with, told me he’d be comfortable running the event, I was eager to put that down on paper and move on to other preparations. In the weeks before the event, a couple of level 1 floor judges had to back out, and I got my 3rd judge the day of the event(“New Judge”).
The Head judge did not have the sort of take charge personality I’d expected to see, and when New Judge, who seemed very authoritative and experienced, raised concerns over potential counterfeit cards, the scorekeeper came and found me. I did not come into the event expecting to make this sort of call. I had expected to unload this sort of responsibility onto my judges, a big part of the reason they are there. But having judges isn’t magic, especially if you haven’t done your part in selecting and preparing them.
I had a hint of a deer in the headlights feeling here. I listened to the judges and the player. I asked myself how certain I had to be to disqualify someone. If I was 75% sure he was cheating would I do it? 90%? I wanted to trust my judges, especially the one who really seemed to know what he was talking about. Otoh, maybe I thought it was 50/50 that the cards were fake. This is a far cry from any threshold I’d be comfortable with a disqualification. The judge claimed there was no intermediate penalty, and while I haven’t thought about it deeply, that rings true.
At first, I was close to letting New Judge’s call stand. I wanted to trust my judges. Then I pulled back. I wasn’t qualified to make the call, and I didn’t know the judge well enough to know if he was or not. I told the player to just go back and play. In retrospect, I think I found the right answer. Even so, as it was, I took longer to get there than I should have.
What is the takeaway? This isn’t Friday night magic. Spend time hiring, and talking to, your judges. Find a good level 2 judge to run your event. This is what they do.
What next?
You’re an LGS doing enough sales to ensure product availability, or have connections that get you very close to that, and you know to hire a good level 2 judge to run your event. Should you run your own standalone tournament?
Yes! If Magic is going to be the great competitive game we want it to be, people have to make it great. People have to choose to run tournaments. To be judges. To build a player rating system. And to be players that people want to play with.
I’m encouraged to hear others expressing interest in picking up this ball and running with it. I’m available if anyone wants to talk to me about an event they’re planning on running. I’ll tell you what I think. Maybe you’ll want to have it rated in our system.
Until then, thank you,
John