Sorry for not showing Alex, but for those of us that have to get our ratings up to qualify for Indy, we needed to play in the higher valued CC. If the two events hadn't been on the same day I definately would have gone to both.
Hopefully UDE comes up with something for players with under 10 PC credits (ie: like me with 9 - ouch!).
Mad props again to Eric for running such a great event, he gets my vote for judge of the year. BTW, I felt like such an *ss for bagging on the Italian Marvel Origins packs, especially after I cracked a foil Beatdown, doh!

I'm pretty sure if you're a real "PRO", you should stop playing VS and play WOW instead... ;)

I was actually planning on going to the mock-pcq, despite the long drive, but this other game came up at the last minute that I just had to play in. My brain said, it's 7AM, why would you play vs 2 hours away when you could play sleep and not have to move; hell, you don't even have to think. Then it made my decision for me and promptly turned off its left side. I'm pretty sure I wasn't gonna make it after waking up at 10:30.

-Cabby
"Pro-sleep" Player

I already apologized to Alex pseudo-personally (instant messaging!), but it's worth doing again. I'm really sorry for scheduling this event head-to-head with the cash tournament at NJoy. I apologize, it was entirely my fault, and i take full responsibility. That was short-sighted on the part of myself and Game Empire, and i'm going to really make an effort ensure it doesn't happen again.

Here's the list of things that i definitely need to improve on:

• verify local events to minimize conflicts
• communicate our start time with the store better. (our start time was noon, the store understood registration to start at noon)
• communicate our prize support expectations to the store better. Game Empire didn't have enough MTU packs to prize out using the entry fees... and i didn't find out until Thursday, too late to order any.

All that said, City Championships were a big success for us. I'll post some more thoughts on the why's and how's in Erick's Hobby League is Awesome thread.

Foil Italian Savage Beatdown. I saw it with my own eyes-- just desserts for the guy running the mono-team deck featuring Big Leagues and Against All Odds.

Wow, I have read some silly #### in my day, but this is completely idiotic. Basically if you don't know the situation then keep your ### out of it. The money tourney was scheduled before the cc, and Patrick and I had already committed to attending that. Trust me chief, we have mad love for the game. ON Wed. nights when no one comes to EdgeWorld for vs. We are always there playing and trying to get a draft. So get your head out of your ### and stop being so damn critical of things you know nothing about.

Sigh. Short-sighted comments have and always will be your downfall.

Mid-level events will attract players of all kind. There are still a lot of competitive players in VS and they have been attending all the City Champs. And most casual players will go because not everyone has a store in their area. In fact, our last PCQ season saw higher numbers of amateurs than ever. People want to play in organized events that draw in a variety of players... cash or no cash.

Don't let your event blind you. It was bad timing and honestly... the location is a little out of the way. I know EdgeWorld is pretty far the other way but I have a higher local base than you guys do. I'm pretty sure that if we run the same event at EW... we'll get a higher turnout. I just don't like to run cash events because of the complications involved.

If the events had timed out better you probably would have gotten 24 people at your tourney! I know most of the people that went to the CC would have gone to your tournament if it had not conflicted!:cry: And I would have gone to your CC if it wasn't on Easter Sunday, but what can you do when you have a life beyond VS? Maybe next month comunications will be better, and everyone can plan events on different days!

Not so sure if this is true.

At least 8 people at Pasadena are Game Empire locals who do not even attend PCQs so would probably not go for a cash tourney.

The other 7 were questionable but you would know more than I would since they are all Comic Cult players.

Okay, but I'm pretty sure the Comic Cult regulars would travel, we always do, I can't really speak for the others but I have seen some of them at other events! and Pasadena and Northridge aren't that far apart. By the way Comic Cult has other regulars that don't come out and travel our hobby lately has been about 8-12 people!

I have to say, that I don’t agree with this statement. As much as I can see why you may be “upset” at the turnout, I don’t think it’s justifiable. I know you worked hard in putting the event together, and the turnout wasn’t what you expected, but from where I see it, the event was a “success”.
Based off of what you’ve seen locally, you know that the player base for VS is not there. In fact, the only local store running and support VS in the area is Njoy Games, while there are so many other “gaming” stores in the area. On a regular, how many people really show up to the weekly events? Half the player base that was at the MPCQ event was non-local to the area, which in itself was a success. I agree, if it weren’t for the competitive CC, you may have had a larger turnout.
I would suggest waiting until the next event, to make such a strong judgment.
As for the low turnout at the City Championship, I'll bite the fact that if it weren’t for the “holiday” it might’ve been a better turnout, and I will take the blame for scheduling the event on Easter. As others have mentioned, next time, we’ll do a better job of avoiding such conflicts.

Some what off topic:

This is precisely the reason why I think UDE needs to go back to some sort of a point system as oppose the rating invites. I don’t think a player should decided whether to attend or pass up an event because it might hurt/help their chances to attend the PC.
I for am one of those players whose ratings are so low, I might as well not even think about attending the next 500 PC’s. I know my rating isn’t low because I’m a bad player, but primarily because I would prefer to play “Jank” decks at local events mainly because if I needed to qualify for the PC I could attend the PCQ’s and earn points.

One can always ask your local store to sanction hobby league. The number of points up for grabs is relatively small, but it can add up over time. Playing for ratings points every week will eventually add up to get to the 2650 threshold. By my calculation, it should only take 3-4 weeks of very "serious" hobby league play to get there.

Providing you win!!!:laugh:

Hehe, in my case it would probably take about six to eight months to get to that point.

But in all seriousness, I still think the PC based primarily on rating is not a system to employ. Let say that I attend all my hobby leagues for the next month and win each event and get my rating to 2650. What incentive do I have after that to attend the hobby league from that point onward? Heck I would be more inclined to just sit at home until the PC, thus making the new structure counterproductive to what UDE was trying to accomplish – more attendance at the local scene.

I would like to point this out again.

mazerat helped me out at our WoW Sneak last week with getting more chairs (our venue ran out of chairs after 150), setting up, breaking down and was even the last (and only person) who helped me load all the chairs and tourney junk back into the store from the venue... and he still had an hour drive back home. For his help I gave him packs of WoW and MTU and it turns out he gave all his MTU to the City Champs for prizing... along with many of his EAs which he spends ridiculous amounts of money on buying packs from EW.

That kind of generosity amazes me and I wish there were more players like him.

Thanks again Warran.