Jolt I am right along with ya. I agree. You took first place and all you got was that? Even though you gave me the playmat, you should have still gotten more packs at least. First should deffinatly get the ea, shirt, deck box, and playmat. On the second day in merrick, there were only 19 people and I placed 6th, so I walked out with three packs, an ea, and a tshirt which wasnt so bad.

I've never had a problem with prize support in our Pre-releases, there always seems to be plenty of prizes handed out. I was in Los Angeles for this one and Orange County for Avengers, and both times were very well supported. I was third (out of 64) in the first flight and got 4 packs, a playmat, Manhunter (who went to top half), and the stackers. Totally happy.

We had 42 Players at the Madison,Wisconsin Prerelease and if you went like so

4 Rounds of Play

4-0 wins you got 10 packs plus, box,mat,shirt,ea
3-1 4 packs, box,mat,shirt,EA, down to a certain ranking

Everyone else got a pack for playing. If you won anything as a door prize you could not win the same item. and they were given away randomly after the prizes were handed out.

The second flight had the same prize structure but no mats, deckboxes, or T-shirts were left.

Just to be fair to all the various organizers... there are guidelines that UDE has for prize support. Sometimes, the PTO got more players than prizes, so they have to adjust so they can reward as many players as possible... other times, they have abundant prizes and enough players to warrant extra prizing without suffering a financial hit.

If you really feel that your prizing for your event was insufficient, talk to the PTO. Maybe he can explain why it was that way. At the least, he/she will be aware of it and then can adjust for future events.

With 29 or 30 players at mine the prize break down was as follows

1st-4th got
1 mat-1 tin-1 shirt-and packs

5th-8th got
7 packs

I dont know what the bottom got...my pal finished 24th and got 2 packs...

Top 16 got the manhunter EA

Our PTO was shocked with the turnout and annouced prize placement pre-play....Also our tourney ran late with lots of ties at the top...so I am sure thats why 5th-8th got off so well...

I agree with what you are saying, but there should at the very least be a minimum standard for what a person can expect to get at different performance levels that is the same across all SP events. Those standards should be made public so that players have a reference and documentation so that abuses to the system can be identified.

Personnally, I love the distribution done by Unity (DOCx's TO)...

Here's what we got.

4-0=>6 packs+EA
3-1=>4 packs+EA
2-2=>3 packs
anythings else=>2 packs.

at anytime any player may trade half his packs for a deck box or a playmat.

Extra prizes were given out for the final 2 flights for anyone who didnt trade for accesories as we were running low on stock for mats and tins. However, we did have enough products though, 60 playmats, more than a hundred deck tins and enough packs for 15 full flights. I think you should talk to your TO about managing events. :)

BTW, we had our sneak at a convention centre, great venue to be.

I can't say that I paid too much attention to how prize distribution was going to be at the tournys I went to, but the first (which was Kingsgames) only had about 26 people or so and after going 3/3 I got one pack. That was a little dissapointing since the last time I went 2/4 and got the same thing. Oh well.

Dissapointingly my friends and I went to Neutral Ground on Sunday and there were only 26 people there compared to the Avengers pre-release which had 75! I went 2/2 and got 3 packs! There was an extra small shirt left over (I don't know how this happened) so they asked if I wanted it and they gave it to me. I randomly got the deck box. Weirdly they wouldn't do booster drafts. The last time it was because there were too many people and they said they ran out of packs. This time they just didn't seem interested.

I think in any situation when it comes to the extra prizes given to stores to promote a pre-release like the deck tins, mats, and shirts just give them all away no matter who shows up. People who are going and spending their money shouldn't be penalized for others who don't show. I can understand not giving out that many packs because the place has to make their money, but the other stuff is just to entice the players in the first place. I don't know, just a thought.

Oh, one more thought. At the Kingsgames one one players held up 3 to 4 different games by a half an hour each. One player. When the judge called time the guy would take up to 20 to 30 minutes to finish the games up. I watched and clearly when there was nothing to do he still kept on playing and taking his time when everyone else was waiting. The judge there should have done something after the 2nd time it happened. It's ridiculous for just one player to hold everyone else up by 2 hours by the end over the course of the pre-release.

Erick- I agree with what you said, but at my Pre-Release ran by Kings Games, there was a box full of Packs, Deckboxes, Playmats, Martian Manhunter EAs, etc. The packs could have at least been better then that. Hell, 1st place at mine didn't even get a Deckbox.

All I can say is expect me at Neutral Ground for the next Pre-Release.

As shown on PES' website (http://www.professional-events.com/U...cinnati,OH.htm), pack prizing for a 4 round Swiss was:
If you got less than that, then you either did not have enough players or there was not enough product.

6-0 should not translate into 3 packs and a mat... it was just wrong.

It sounds like your PTO ran swiss PCQ style so he may have had to spread your prizing out more. Did you ask him about it?

We did a 30-man, 4-rounder on Sunday and 1st and 2nd (both were 4-0) got 10 packs, a mat and a deckbox.

This is slightly off topic but I played in a sealed Tourney at Diecon this year and after the tournament the store owner that sponsered it tried to deny us prizes by saying "Packs are $4 and you paid $20 for 5 packs so no prizes" The judge had a talk with him and eventually got 1/2 a box or so to split for prize.

Sometimes people just dont have a clue what constitutes real prizes. I wish UDE would step up a little more and guarentee prizes support like wizards does or MTG. I went to a Magic prerelease 7-8 years ago (Stronghold) in Columbus Ohio and about 400 more people showed up than expected. The TO had to rent a second convention hall and organize essentially an entirely new event on the fly and still pulled it off with no one getting stiffed out of prizes or being turned away. The only glitch at all was the hour wait to start and being mailed the prerelease card a month later. Of course, Mike Guptil is a Judging GOD and he now works with UDE so maybe someday it will all get figured out.

At the Sneak Preview I went to, we got about 50 people. About 6 of each item were given out randomely. Then

5-0:Got 20 or more packs, I forgot
4-1:Got 10 packs
3-2:3 Packs
2-1:1 Pack

Top 24 got Manhunters.

For the other prizes they start at the top, and worked their way down, atleast one prize dropped down to 5, and 6 place.

I took 8th(4-1) at mine, and from the looks of some of the other Sneaks people have posted, I am lucky I got what I did.