I thnk it would be better to have the money events spread around more. How about 2 x PCs and 10 x 50K events that could be spread around the world? There just seems such a huge disparity between the PCs and the 10Ks

I realised a potential problem with changing the number of PC's in a year, and it concerns day 2. As everyone (probably) knows, day 2 consists of 3 drafts, 1 of the latest set to be released and 2 of the set before. If you increase the number of pcs, the number of sets a year would have to increase to keep up with the circuit. I'm not really sure how to get round this, but it's soemthing to bear in mind.

Rob

But we detract from the main issue here... the lack of a Pro-Circuit events ouside of the Continental US!

Whichever way you slice it, this decision is still a huge kick in the teeth for the rest of the World. A decision which ultimately may kill the game outside of the US, just as interest is beginning to pick up.

One of the main 'enticements' of the game is the prospect of qualifying for, and playing in, a Pro-Circuit event. For what it would have cost me to travel and stay in Indy to play Pro-Circuit, I could book a family holiday in Spain for a week. This decision has placed top level competetive play out of the realms of financial viability for the majority of none-US players.

Please reconsider UDE!

I noticed at Indy that a lot of the international feel of PCs has already waned - I could be wrong but I don't think there were any Aussies there, and I only played one asian player all weekend.

At LA, the pendulum will swing the other way I imagine, with less europeans, and more of the Pacific-sided players making the trip, but we're definitely talking about diminishing returns here.

This is after stop 2 of the 7 stop all-USA PC. What's the international turnout going to be like in 9 or 12 months?

Brian

I couldn't even consider attending Indy (from the UK) due to the extremely high cost of the flights. SoCal looks slightly more possible, but I don't yet know whether I'm going to be able to afford the £400+ that flights and accomodation are going to cost. When you look at a PC and consider that you'll have to make top 35 or so to avoid the weekend being a financial disaster, caution starts to override a desire to play, no matter how fun it would doubtless be.

Got to agree, I don't think Americans realise just how much more expensive it is for us to travel to the US from Europe than the other way round. I costed some trips from the US to Amsterdam and vice versa the other day and travelling to the US came out 25% cheaper! Plus food is generally cheaper in the US and the standard of accommodation higher for the same cost.

It's not exponentially anything (or even greater). You may not be aware but UDE has a fair sized European headquarters in the Netherlands (no doubt a huge factor in the choice of Amsterdam) as well as smaller offices in many other countries, as here in the UK.

Any organisation of a European event would be done (as last time) almost exclusively by the European offices and staff - hence there is no trouble at all.

Given the numbers of players, and the Regional distribution the 'balanced' split of PC's would seem to be 3 US, 1 Europe, and 1 'Other' (NZ, Australia, Asia, etc). Assuming that 4 is the number that is likely to stay for the foreseeable future, then there is no justification for more than 3 being in the US, and I would like to see there only be 2 (at least every other year).

Agreed. If you have a ratings system that is truly balanced and representative then it is a great measure, but the reality is that this is never likely to be the case.

Huge regional discrepancies occur between ratings of players in a country, let alone worldwide because of their access to high K value tournaments, and highly rated opponents.

For example - in the UK there is a good base of high standard players around London, a lot of whom have travelled to European $10k's and PC's at the very least. The good ones thus have high ratings. If you are a good player from Lands End, Aberystwyth or John O'Groats then your rating will be much lower than an equivalent player in london, simply because you are beating low ranked opponnets in low value tournaments all the time.

In the absence of anything better you have to go on registered players, or maybe players who have competed in the last 12 months. Whilst preferable, this has pitfalls too, hence I would just stick with registered players.

There were very few Europeans there.

US PC's effectively mean a choice between playing in a tournament or a holiday with the spouse/family for those of us who work, and no chance for the student players (who invariably make up a large portion of the most talented players in any game).

You guys are dismissing the Ratings as having any value, but they showed that about 1/4 of the highly rated players were NON-North-American.

Therefore, there should be 1 Overseas(in relation to the US) PC and 3 North American PC's.


I believe if UDE can secure a location that they will switch the May PC overseas.

I can't talk for others, but I was not dismissing ratings in general, just for the purposes of looking at geographic distribution of players.

In more general terms, ratings are flawed, but they are the best measure we have, and they will get better as time goes on and we have more high level events, and integration of player pools.

>>I believe if UDE can secure a location that they will switch the May PC overseas.

I do not believe this, as much as I would like to. Upperdeck have been quite reliable in this these matters before - the only location change I know of was the rumoured Berlin PC being switched to Amsterdam - and even then I don't think Berlin was ever officially set as the venue.

Nor do I think the Gencon/PC partnership will change, I'm sure that's set for a year or two yet, but that is an assumption on my part.

UDE have shown great willingness to listen to their players thus far, and to fix things when they can (Twin format PCQs, 10K pay-out structures, etc) so I am certain than many UDE people have followed this thread (and the others on various local groups) and are aware of our reaction. I'm also pretty sure they were aware we'd react this way, they ain't stupid.

Guess what, I don't think they enjoy leaving us in the dark either. I was of the opinion that one of two possibilites was the most likely:

1) They have a fix
(Euro champs, a fifth PC, a chartered flight from europe to the PCs for players, a golden goose that lays golden eggs) and are waiting for the right time to announce.

2) They can't make another non-US PC happen,
(Upperdeck US can't pay for seperate Upperdeck companies marketting but they can pay for their R+D, they want to solidify US playerbase, the weak/strong dollar, mandate from the baseball card mother company)
and can't tell us why.


Option 1) never looked too likely, and is getting less and less credible as time passes. I'm pretty sure they'd have told us what the story is by now if they could as they have nothing to gain by our grumbling and circulating lunatic explanations amongst each other.

So .. UDE .. if you can't tell us why you made the decision you made, could you tell us you're working on it?

Brian

I agree that 2 of the PC's seem to be LOCKED in at the two GenCons.

It also makes sense to grow the game in the US.

It doesn't make sense to SEEMINGLY ignore the rest of the world when it comes to the highest level of play. If we are going to have 7 American PC's in a row, then they need to go HEAVY with the overseas $10K's.

The chance of winning a little money several times should still seem appealing. Also, if you don't yet have your points, you would have several chances to acquire them for WHEN the Pro Circuit returns.