I think that is the most unfair thing I have ever heard. I could see it now how this happend.

Whiney Magic player: "I'm a pro I should not have to waste my time on these first 3 round n00bs. I cant even be seen with them! So I want byes. 1 is not enough I need 3!!!"

Why should the pros get free rides and free money. If you want to keep your pro status WORK FOR IT!!!

Eternity:

You do earn the byes, and they are given too anyone who reaches a certian rating benchmark.

For VS it would somthing like this:

If your rating is 2700 or greater: 1st round bye
If your rating is 2800 or greater: 1st & 2nd round byes.
If your rating is 2900 or greater: 1st, 2nd & 3rd round byes.

so you need to keep your rating up to keep the byes. and if anyone hits those levels they get he byes as well. They should not be arbitraily handed out.

I am in no way a pro and my Rating is over 2800 from Hobby leagues and a handful of PCQs. I have not played in a 10k or a PC I have only judged them. I am in no way of deserving 2 byes in a 10k.
If I get beat by a n00b in round 1 or 2 I deserve it. Why should a pro be chilling out eating getting extra down time and scout time. A pro is fresh minded going into round 4??? That is totally unfair.

From what ive seen at events in LA the current turn out for VS Events isn't that amazing and i assume that the average turn out for an event in other states is equal to or less than that of LA or New York (The 2 spots i believe to have the largest turn outs for VS events).
This is a problem the game needs to attract more players to survive. If new players don't start playing than slowly current players will begin to lose interest and the amount of players will drop until the game dies.
We need to do everything possible to keep players interested, to give new and old players incentive to travel to distant events. In games like this Money is the best incentive.
So although I'm not saying magic's format is perfect, it is working enough to keep the game going and its offering enough to make pro's and amateurs traveling to their events.
In this particular instance (the Wizard World 10k) i do think either prize should go up or entry should go down.
Personally i think the best solution should be is a special badge be made that allows 10k competitors to be able to go to the 10k room and nowhere else.
I'm going to the event and i don't plan on visiting anything except the 10k room so i don't think i should have to pay the same as a person coming to visit the main attractions.

You guys are really, really, really greedy.

It isn't meant to be fair. It is meant to act as incentive to get top players to travel to Grand Prix. The local amateurs are expected to (and do) show up anyway, as it's the closest that most of them will ever get to a PT-type event.

Also magic is just harder to keep your rating up.

Quoted for great truth.

You have to understand how much harder it is to be invited to a pro tour than a pro curcuit. Ive heard of people who pla magic for 6 years and didnt get invited (this is before the pro levels). All it takes is one good day at a pcq and you win. Their PTQs are in the hundreds while our PCQs are in the 30s or 40s. I think if the PC was harder to get invited to, we could have an ametuer bracket or something.but with so many people qualifing its hard to seperate the both. I was thinking more amatuer prizes, not just money maybe Money for the top amatuer, a smaller prize for second, and then special "money" promos for the next 10. I really don't know what to say, but I know that we need new players more than we need people winning more money.

I think the bye system needs to be implemented in VS 10ks. Note that I say this with a very low constructed rating, so I'm not looking for some major benefit to me.

The reason can be seen in this thread:

I think it's pretty obvious that Dalton is one of the biggest (if not the biggest) names in the game. In Magic there are pros that attend almost every grand prix and this was before they up'd the prize payouts. Two things contribute to this: a system that rewards people for how many "points" they have (this is different from points in VS and can only be gained at large events) and the byes. Byes add to the expected value of the 10k for a pro player by making it more likely they'll finish highly. You want big name players to show up at 10k's and byes add to the draw without taking money out of UDE's pocket.

Note that they would need to start the tie breakers after the last round of byes to avoid that bit of silliness that Magic has.

As far as getting new players to play at the 10k's I think the cheapest thing for UDE to do is print money. By that I mean, make extended arts that are exclusive to cons.

I forgot to note that byes in Magic also created another type of tournament. When a Grand Prix is coming to a city they have Grand Prix trials in that area in which players can earn byes to the Grand Prix. This allows for more competitive tournaments and hype leading up to the Grand Prix without UDE losing money.

I love these threads. Really. :) I just wanted to say a couple things to frame the discussion.

We only support two conventions with $10Ks now - Wizard World (LA, Chicago, and possibly Dallas this year), and Gen Con (Indy and So Cal).

For Wizard World shows, we're now providing two exclusive EA cards. Every player gets one for entering the $10K, and the other is given to people entering a side event. This started last year at Chicago, and we gave away Onslaughts and Beast, Henry McCoy. There will be a new one at Los Angeles, which will be announced soon.

We also adjust the entry fee for the $10K held at conventions. For Wizard World LA, entry is only $15, and you get two sealed deck builds - that's 10 packs of X-Men. I know it's still about $40 to get in, but you get a pretty decent value for your money.

We also introduced a new prize structure last year at WW Chicago, and increased the total payout almost 40% to $13,800. We also added cash prizes for the top amateurs. I have certainly considered an even bigger prize pool, and it's very possible that we will go to something bigger in the future.

There will always be comparisions to Magic and their Grand Prix system. They may be similar superficially, but there are much fewer Grand Prixs per year than $10Ks. Both systems have pros and cons - fewer events with bigger prizes vs. more frequent events with a smaller prize pool per event. We regularly review our program to make sure it's doing what we want.

We've also looked at byes, but currently have no plans to implement them for $10Ks.

Cheers,
Ben

The Austin 10k is including entry into the convention with entry fee to the tournament. Even the Sunday tournaments give a single day pass.

Copied of the events page,

$10,000 Championship
Format: Marvel Modern Age Constructed
Registration: Friday 6:00 – 9:00 p.m.
Saturday 8:30 - 10:00 a.m.
Start time: Saturday 10:30 a.m.
Top 8 playoff Sunday (time TBD by Saturday evening)
Fee: $25 (includes a pass to the convention for weekend)

http://www.horizocon.com/eventschedule.htm#vs

Thanks for the post Ben... it helps show that UDE does care what the players think.

I actually don't want UDE to put MORE money into the events... just cut a few $10ks here and there to make the Con events bigger. If you drop one $13.8k... that would make one $27.6k which can either have a bigger top end payout or a flatter lower end payout (or even both).

That's another question... would more players travel to $10ks if they were less frequent and had a bigger prize structure?

(And did your post imply there will be no VS at Origins or ComicCon?)

i really do think there should be something between 10ks and PCs.