The new PCQ format could not be better. Nothing made me happier than to hear that we were running 8 rounds of swiss. I actually felt like winning the SoCal pcq was an accomplishment, unlike the 15 man constructed PCQ I played in before the switch.

Heralds sealed is awesome. My deck was next to impossible to build, I ended up taking the entire time to build my deck, even misreggin because I barely finished in time. Sealed decks that are hard to build are awesome.

I played Armageddon 3 times in the same turn. In sealed. And lost.

Man I am so awesome. Thanks Molecule man and Dr Doom 6.

Edit: Stu is right, Divinity is in fact awesome. Incredible power with incredible drawback. I lost a game in t4 to Divinity + Ultron. oof.

Divinty is indeed very good, esp. when you dont read it and run your 5 drop into it and get koed. LOL:grin:

We had 22 players in our Sealed PCQ in Cincinnati. Despite the fact that our average skill player level was insane (we had 2 PC winners and several other guys who have won over $1000 playing Vs.), the new Amateur prize payout was there to give something to those who haven't had as much experience or success playing this game. I guess the only bad thing was that some people didn't come because it was Sealed, but then again, I think the same would happen if it was Constructed.

So, for players, I think the new prize payout is amazing. There's something there for Amateurs. There's also increased prizes for the top 8 (ok, a deck box doesn't seem like a lot more, but it's pretty good). The participation foil for the first 24 players is nice even though this one doesn't seem as amazing. Btw, did anyone notice that the EA Mockingbird has Mutant text?

For competitive players, like Adam said, it's a really nice accomplishment to come out on top at just 1 tournament with all the players available there. You actually feel like you earn it. Too often before, it felt like our sealed tournaments were half full of guys who didn't do well in constructed. It almost felt like a side tournament. Now, it's the focal tournament. And I like that.

As a judge, I really liked running 1 tournament only. We managed to run do deck reg/const., 6 rounds of Swiss, top 8 draft, and 2 rounds of top 8 (cause we know 98% of the finals are never played out) in just over 7.5 hours which was fantastic. On top of this, we even had plenty of time to do deck checks. Hell, I even had time to go out to dinner and get home at a decent time!

Yeah, we got off on that too. I would claim that they did it for the One World format, but they surely printed them way before my article came out.

Still no word on the Minions in San Jose? Is there a website for that TO?

Just checked the UDE tournament search feature and the Minions deck lost in the semi's. Which really surprises me, as it seemed consistent, but then again he may not have been facing an Ahmed deck. I'm only certain on one of the other 3 in the Top 4 being Checkmate/VU now that I think about it. There may have been a Society deck and possibly Villains burn.

-Mike

EDIT: Hmm, my Mockingbird doesn't have any Mutant trait, what are you talking about?

Well... we had our 1st Constructed DC Modern PCQ today and we had 17 players. That actually isn't bad considering we were in San Diego (not our normal Premiere Events area) and our turnout for Silver was less than that.

The Amateur prizing really does help get new players involved.

Checkmate/VU won (yes... we did play out the entire top 8) but the metagame was actually quite varied (CMVU, SS, WWIII, PUG, IG and Shadowpact were all there).

21 people for the sealed PCQ in Delaware yesterday. About the same turnout as always.

Slops to UDE for not sending 8 deckboxes for the top 8. They sent only 4.

There were seven amateurs.

In general:

The turn out was pretty much the same, although the event time was better, there was more time to get there [started at noon] and also ended earlier as well, we got in a couple of random 4-man drafts after the PCQ was done. Part of the lowish turnout was because some people didn't really notice there was a PCQ until about the week leading up to it, otherwise a lot more people would have went. In all a better 'experience'.

As for the EAs, the participation one was nice. Not the level of previous PCQ prizes [like Titans Go, Birthing Chamber, Press the Attack, etc]. Then again, we'd rather Mockingbird than ANOTHER Sovereign Supreme.

Rare for the top 8 prize is definately nice, it's an incentive to go, and something to go for.

Also, some guys got some amateur prizes, so that was good to see [there were people there we'd never seen before, so that may be what brought them out.]