By limits, I meant they can use cards from any set they want... not just any card they want.

I guess I should have said "possible set pool".

If I am not mistaken... an event can only be hosted in a public place. So if you sanction an event, in your kitchen table... and 8 people off the street show up and want in, you can't turn them away. This is one of the reasons they want it at a store, or a tournament center.

At least that has always been my understanding.

haha rep for you funniest thing of the day

Thats the way I understand it. Unfortantly it doesn't happen this way. I know a few people who run those kitchen table events.

Some more points:

1) I'm not talking about hosting tournaments in my kitchen. I'm talking about public spaces.

2) I actually do want to foster competitive play. I want to see a competitive meta where it's worth people's while to build strong decks (and yes, that may include CM/VU or quickfate or good guys or Kree). I think that this sort of environment is what will be best for breeding good players and decks.

That said, I also want to structure things so that the lower half of the standings have fun playing against each other. The guys who spend hours tuning their decks should be rewarded for doing so, while the kid who just wants to play Fantastic Four (or insert favourite team here) must still have the chance of winning some cool stuff. Hopefully the more competitive players can still be decent people and help beginners improve as well.

I really hope I can achieve this.

The best way to do that is flatten out prizing and have a bottom X cut.

Flattened out prizing makes sure that everyone gets something for playing.

The bottom X cut lets the people with less than stellar records play each other for some alternate prizing that you throw in.

Heh... I would even let the winner of the Top X play the winner of the Bottom X for something.