It depends on who you are. There are some players that will play a different deck every week and not care whether or not they win a single game with it. There are other players who will try to find the biggest and baddest deck on the block and try to bash everyone with it. In a competitive framework, we all know who will win most of the time. My point is, that in a casual framework, winning shouldn't have to matter.

UDE promoted the City Championships as a casual tournament where creativity was supposed to be the primary focus. Then they followed this up by making all of the prizes involved exclusive to only the victors of these tournaments. There were more than a few people - myself included - that thought this was a bit of a paradox.

UDE seemed to continue this trend with Hobby League. I absolutely love this format! However, the name "Hobby League" itself implies that it is not a competitive format. Why, then, is a high-end money rare being given away as first place? Now, instead of running off to Hobby League to have a good time with the new format, players are pulling old PC decks from the net and trying to find ways to adapt them to this format so they can win two EA Mobilizes... WTF?!?

I'm not suggesting that UDE has to bribe players; or that we can't have competition within these tournaments. Rather, it would be nice if UDE rewarded players for "playing the game" more than "winning the game". Maybe it would be something as simple as giving players points for playing so they can get their own copy of an EA Mobilize from the UDE Onine Points Store. That way, there's still an incentive to win, but the prizes don't become so exclusive that players don't feel that they have to go all out to win them.

maybe something random for those that dont top 4/8?

Random Punks...

Cuz it made me run PUMA.

CC

I'm playing in my first Random Punks tourney this week and I'm very excited about that.

MTU was a huge step in the right direction in terms of top-tier characters like Spidey being competitive.

And ditto everything that has been said about how great the Essential Collections are. That Hellboy product was the best thing I've seen in going on 20 years of CCG'ing.

I agree 100% with BigSpooky

I feel that this would be a great way to reward the "constant player"(rep to anyone who can guess where I stole, I mean came up with that one).

They could provide special point cards with HL kits that are worth say 500 points. A player would earn this card if they play in every HL event that month. Then UDE could make EA Mobilize obtainable on the UDE store for the cost of 2000 points. That means that a player could purchase 15 packs and play in every HL event for the month, and they would earn 1 EA Mobilize at the end of that month. They should also rotate the EA available on the UDE store every 3-6 months just to keep things fresh.

As for the current prize distribution, I think that it's fine. Like Adam said, rewarding good game pay is important. With a points system, you could take care of the other players no problem.

And before anyone says anything, I know the little system I mocked up above is not perfect, it was just as an example.

I love that UDE has stepped up and shown that they aren't forgetting about us, but need space to operate if they are going to try to make us happy.

I love the new format ideas, even if I don't like a format in particular. I like that players are rewarded for attendance and making the effort to show up. It is an advertising ploy, because the more bodies that turn up, the more people take notice. And who here doesn't want more people to play with? To trade with? To just plain hang out with?

You know what I did today? I played basketball for he first time since I destroyed my knee and ankle after that. You know who I played with? 3 of my friends from playing VS. I think two of us were wearing VS shirts while we played.

I'm looking forward to more great movements from UDE in the future!

HL getting the push it needed 2 years ago Finaly. I'm a happy little kitty.

There's no one change I can label my favorite. What I DO like are all the changes in total. I love the fact that I always have something to wrap my brain around. As soon as the City Champs were done, I got to start working on Random Punks, and after Punks is over with, I get to work on Alter Ego. There's just enough competition that it forces me to work for it a little bit, but it's also casual enough that I don't mind just showing up with jank and just playing.