These are my personal opinions:

You do realize that the grinders are part of Worlds. The grinders in effect replace the Friday and Saturday events from GenCon last year and we had less than 128 unique players in Worlds on Friday and Saturday (it's also the number of seats that we had available in those tournies as well because of table space). This year, if we run 32 grinders on Thursday, that means 256 players have a chance at getting into Saturday from Thursday's grinders. Same number goes for Friday as well, 32 grinders times 8 players equals 256 players. Now some of those players will be duplicates because they can play in more than one grinder but there are more seats this year than last year for World's qualifier's tourneys which were the events on Friday and Saturday.

If the winner qualifies from a grinder, that puts 64 player into Saturday plus the 4 from Nationals at Origins. This group then plays to a top 15 to go with last year's champ for the 16 on Sunday. In effect, this is an extra round (or day) of World's events this year versus last year. Also, it means that a player that wins Worlds this year will also have to win in both the sealed format and the constructed format. I find this a better test of who is a good player because they have to play both formats but that's personal opinion.

So last year at GenCon, there were 128 players on Friday, 128 players on Saturday, and 16 players on Sunday. This year, there is the approximate chance for 256 players on Thursday, 256 players on Friday, 70 players on Saturday, and 16 players on Sunday. There were duplicate players last year and there will be duplicate players this year. Just a greater chance for duplicate players this year because of the grinder format on the first 2 days.

As for buying product at the show from vendors, why would a business do this? If the answer is to make everyone happy or to make sure that every player gets to play in as many grinders as they want to, that just isn't going to happen. Every player isn't going to be happy and no business can stay in business if the model is to make sure that everyone gets what they want. Everything has limits, whether it be product, table space, judges, time, etc. We had several players complain about turtling and players running away in grinders at Origins. I totally despise that type of playing but WizKids can't do anything about that as they are legitimate strategies to use when playing the game. Should WizKids outlaw that. Same goes with a player dropping from a grinder before they play the first round. It's their choice to do that. Do I like that? No, but it's their choice to do that.

It's interesting being a volunteer and running events because it's let's me see both sides of the argument. At SDCC, I'm a fan and have to plan what I am doing to get the exclusives that I want. Last year, I made that choice and 1 of the items that I wanted sold out on the first day. They still had 3 days of SDCC to go and they were out. They were supposed to have product for all 4 days. I could have made different decisions if I had known they were going to sell out on the first day but hindsight is always 20/20.

Either way, this is a good discussion to have.

I would just like to say that I agree with this more than I could possible agree with anything.

I'm also a fan of hyperbole.

This is what I disagree with. It *is* the responsibility of WK to insure that everyone has the equal opportunity. By allowing drops, you skew the pool in an unfavorable way, as discussed by other posters.

Now, by forcing everyone to take a 1hr break between grinders, that person wont drop, because he cant get into another grinder immediately. He has incentive to play and win no matter what he pulled.

Its your choice to implement such a rule. Or not. But you can do something about people dropping.

If the sealed player loses 3 times before finally winning a pool, is that a better test of skill vs the evening player who couldnt play because no product was available?

Its only "fair" if everyone has the same opportunity. Which they dont.

If you limit each player to 1 grinder per day...then yes, that may be equal. But how can you say its a better test if the only reason 1 got in was because he played during the day (grinder after grinder) when someone else planned to play at night (and product was gone).

I don't see that this is feasible to enforce. Who keeps track? It sounds like an entire volunteer would need to check and see if someone is starting a second grinder within that hour.

In a perfect world, "watching" players and making sure they didn't play another grinder at least an hour after they started one would be great, but this isn't the Olympics, where volunteers are coming out of the walls and you actually have enough staff to keep track of something like that.

An easier system to implement is equally spacing out the grinders throughout the day (if there's 32 a day, once around every 20 minutes), but also making sure you can't sign up for a grinder more than 30-60 minutes in advance. Not only does that mean product will still be around throughout the whole day (at least for grinders; battle royales with cheese may be SOL), but also that the later grinders haven't already been spoken for by people who signed up for them at noon...

Simply keep the sheet with the names on it. Check for multiples at the end of the day. If you find out that a player was in 2 grinders within an hour, that player is DQ'd and barred from another.

Inform them ahead of the consequences and you curb the intent.

To be the best you have to play the best.

Longer reply, as promised.


The definition of "equal opportunity" cannot be "have an event whenever you want it." The only way to do that is to have infinite product on hand, and I think we can all agree that is not feasible.


What we can do is to set aside a certain amount of product for certain times. One process is to be very militant about it and say "1 pod every 20 minutes" and that means having about 40 pods per day. Administratively, that's harder (as you have to keep watching a clock) and for many players, they'll see that they are 2 hours away from being able to play, walk away, and then forget/get involved with something else when the appropriate time comes. It doesn't solve the problem for the player looking to play in the evening because when he shows up at 6:00 PM, lo and behold, the last 7 grinders of the day are all full up (and they are full of people who may or may not show up). So it's harder to administer and it doesn't solve the evening player's issue. Not sure I like this one.


Another process is to say "we're gonna have an event that starts at 6 and another that starts at 8, no matter what." Then we run pods as we can through the day and if we run out of that days product (not counting the 32 boosters held aside for those 2 events), then we're done and we start handing out raffle tickets for the last 2 events. If we don't run out of product, then at 6:00 and 8:00, everything runs smoothly. This process seems attractive.



You are volunteering to be the signup police here? Or you want me/crew to be doing this? If the answer is to DQ them from Worlds retroactively, that punishes the player but doesn't solve the problem at all.


Despite the awesome power that people seem to have, I find it very challenging when a player wants to exercise his free will over my objection.


What's more, it doesn't make sense to me either. It accomplishes nothing. There will be a sign up line. If/when player X drops out of a grinder, he does not get to rush to the head of the line saying "excuse me - I didn't like my pull so I get to sign up for the next grinder, you all will need to wait a moment while I get reseated." No, he goes to the back of the line and signs up last. Goes into the next pod available.



They do. Both players live on the same planet. Both players knew when GenCon opened. Both players had access to the same map of GenCon and equal access to finding the WK tables.


Now, each player may make different CHOICES about when to come. But making a different choice doesn't mean that you don't have equal opportunity.



Because the test for making Saturday's event is proving that you are capable of winning an eight player event once. Not necessarily every time you play, but once.


One of the things that has always bothered me about clix is that our games take nearly an hour to play. That means, in an event, you play an opponent once. These card games that play in like 20 minutes? They have an hour round too, and you play "best of three". That is such a better test of strength of player versus player.


So, in the end, when we run a huge sealed event and take the top 15 or so players to the next level, all those guys? Proved almost nothing. They had a good pull, they had a good day.


The grinder system, allows people to have a bad pull and still be able to prove themselves as much as the guy who had a good pull. By trying again.


If someone chooses not to play until 6:00 or 7:00 in the evening, they cannot possibly have the same opportunity to play as the guy who starts in the morning. There's less time in the day, forget about product.


Opportunity =/= Choices.



There are folks who would wish it were run differently. I hear you on that. That, to me, is different from a problem. IMO, a problem is when we say "X" and do "Y". In this case, we've said "while supplies last".


This answer tells me you're not really interested in helping to solve the problem. Friends are warning me you like to debate and not solve. So, I'll give this one more go.

Scenario - you are in charge. You are going to tell WK how many grinders to bring cases for. What's you number?

And to that end, product CAN be set aside to make sure that grinders can happen in that time frame. But there is no guarantee that if you show up there will be a game.

a - Table space - we are limited in table space. If there's no room to play, we cannot seat a pod even if we have 16 people ready to go.

b - Time - if you show up at 10:30 expecting to be able to jump into a 3 round event, you are not understanding how time works.

c - Other players - if 7 people are standing there, ready to play but there is no 8th person, no grinder will be seated.

If all of the above are reasonable, why is "out of product" not an equally valid reason for an event to fire?

1 - I'm not sure how I feel about using different product for the event. Doesn't that then open the door to people claiming that they are "gaming" the system (i.e., making sure that they are playing with product that somehow is easier to win with than another)? Shouldn't all of the players who qualify for Saturday do so equally? Doesn't that include what sealed event was played? Not all sealed events are equal. A Web-of-Spidey event is much more likely to include a themed team than the grinder format posted (which is one DC75 booster and one Cap booster). Doesn't that change the dynamic of the grinder? (I'm not opposed to this, but I'm not sure how I feel about it)

2 - Buying other product leads to issues. For one thing, I'm not WK. So am I putting out the money for that product or is WK? If it's me, then I have a problem because I don't get paid back (the grinder receipts go to GenCon and ultimately GenCon pays WK). If it's WK, we all have a problem because, like most companys, there is a process to making purchases and doing it on the fly? Just not that likely. Even if the highest ranking WK employee on the floor wanted to do it, there's still a corporate master that must be called and have an expense like that verified.

They are not limited to 32 for the weekend. There is product for at least 32 per day.

Darn tootin. See above about equal access to the event.

This takes your problem of people dropping and makes it WORSE. First of all, instead of being a 3 round event, it's now a 2 round event. The speed with which a person will buy in goes up. Second of all, the price of collulsion drops in half. Right now, if you want to collude and game the system, you need to buy 8 spots. With "top 3", you can buy 4 spots and know that one of you is getting in.

If you do that, I'd say you should then go back to the "one big event that eats up your whole day" system.

That same real world means that you cannot have unlimited product.


No one has ever promised infinity. There's a promise that events will be running for 15 hours. They will be.

Each event that runs all day - Battle Royals, King of the Hill, and Grinders - have product set aside for them. No one can (or should) commit a specific number for any of these events. Because if there is X product held aside for Battle Royals but, because of grinders, BR events are not firing as frequently as we expect, there should be no problem taking product from the BR-pile and using it for the grinder-pile. Or vice versa (if less grinders fire off while BRs are hopping like crazy).

On the other hand, if Grinders go faster but Battle Royals are running to schedule, it would be unfair to BR players to take their boosters so that grinders can run.

So there will need to be some "on the ground" decisions made. It will depend on how things actually happen.

Well, lets be honest. Thats what Gencon attendees WERE told. They were not told they had to be there at 9 am while supplies lasted. The description says play when YOU want morning or evening. If there was an expectation product would be there for evening players (who set their schedules accordingly) then it was created by WK.

Not sure I agree.

Why "cheat" if you know that by winning you will lose the world title and the right to make a figure. Better to wait that 30 minutes than risk it.

Well, this was why I raised the its not personal issue. And look how long that lasted...

I dont know what post you read. I gave several ideas, from players dropping, to how much product I'd use and how. Never attacked you personally or questioned your motivations at all.

Understood. It was an option. I'm siding with "let people play as much as possible" and so if *I* could use other sealed product I would.

Well, good to know. That makes at least 64 Grinders.

Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Once again....

My goal would be to get 100+ player into Saturday's event. You may want more or less. You havent said, so I dont know your expectations.

If I *could* have product "every 15 minutes" as someone suggested, (essentially 45 boosters per day), I *would* bring it. If WK gave that to me, I'd accept. I thought that would not be possible. You again havent said.

Given that, I could get 100+ players by using 64 grinders and letting the top 32 (2-1) "losers" in the event as well. So that is what I would do.

If by chance there were some other multiple of 16 available (80 grinders and top twenty losers for example) I might consider that. But again your not telling me how much is allowed and just asking for me to guess your motives and limits. I dont know your expectations for Saturday and you wont say.

I would also bring a few "extra" boosters, to cover for defective/mismatched boosters and as a possible last chance idea. They can also be "saved" for evening raffels as you stated.

While I'll be understanding (yet still upset) if there are no BRs in the evening (likely the only time I'll be able to play) because there were tons of other people having fun in BRs during the day... I'll -not- be understanding or happy if no evening BRs occur because BR product was ganked so that "Johnny-droppy" could get in another grinder.

Just sayin'.

In all fairness, this is a pretty extreme example of what exists in the realm of possibility. I think Norm is just trying to illustrate that there are a lot of logistics and considerations that occur behind the curtain (not that it will stop folk from armchair quarterbacking ).

The probability of this actually happening is pretty low IMO. Too many logistics involved.

Can't you already buy spots for grinders on gencon's website? I believe they had the grinders listed so if you are an evening player why not just but tickets for the event now?

I don't agree that havingng a certain number of players in Saturday's event makes the event a better reflection of skill. As a someone coordinating a competitive event, I'd rather see 50 skilled players face off than to have 100 players face off where half of them are people who did not make the cut.

On top of which, taking top 2 cuts the number of rounds for a grinder down by 1, thus making the "grinder thrashing" more of an issue. To solve that, we'd change grinders to be 16 player grinders (to top 2). And in the morning, maybe that would be ok, but by evening, I expect you'll have 10-12 people getting antsy that no one else is showing up to play.

There was one point in time where the idea was to maybe run one "36 hour hall" From Thursday morning through Friday evening. This idea morphed into the 2-day, 15-hour hall BECAUSE of the very valid point that by 2 or 3 in the morning, 6 guys will be waiting for 2 players to show up that won't happen until the next morning.

So what I'm hearing from you is that 64 grinders is the appropriate number of grinders to have product for. Where we differ is who should be rewarded with seats out of those grinders. So, to that, I can say that we will have enough product for 64 grinders. Actually, we should have more.

Now, if that makes Saturday "less special" for you. To that, I'm sorry. But we are having as many events as you seem to feel there should be, so the original "problem" - how much product to have on hand - it sounds like we're in a good place.

To me, the number of events to run isn't about Saturday. Saturday is going to be populated with the 4 qualifers from Nationals, any other qualifiers I get told about later (I'm not 100% sure if there are any international qualifiers or not), and then the grinder winners. There is no stated (privately or publicaly) attendance goal for this event.

Here's what typically happens to me/us. We run an event. We run out of some product. The feedback is "WK should have known better - how could they have not guessed that the response would be this big." (This happens similarly with set releases, but that's a huge digression).

Personally, I find much of the armchair after-the-fact quaterbacking annoying. Because it implies that thought didn't go into it. In fact, it's often quite the opposite and that surprises are... unexpected.

In this case, I kept hammering on the question of "how many" because I knew how many we have planned for (at least 32 per day) and I had not heard from someone who was positing that we should be equipped to handle the demand to actually put a stake in the ground and say "THIS is what the demand will likely be."

Because EVERYONE involved agrees that supply should equal demand. If I could find proof that there will DEFINITIVELY be a need for product to run 100 grinders, I will shoot an email off to WK, show them the evidence and say "hey, we should get more product there." And I know the WK guys well enough at this point to know that they'll respond to that.

But I think 100 is not going to happen. I'm CERTAIN that 16 grinders per day are going to happen (from Origins, it's a "gimme"). So we've more than doubled capacity for each day. Each day has product for at least 32 grinders and some of those will be allocated to specific time slots to ensure that there are evening events.

it sounds to me like we're in a good place, at least by your expectation. If 400 people show up on Thursday morning and I'm out of product, I'm sure I'll get slammed on here, but I know that you will have my back and say "yeah, 50 grinders in a day out of the gate? You were expecting too much from WK to have that much product on hand"

Are we talking about GenCon last year or GenCon that hasn't even happened yet? Hard to tell from some of these posts...:P

Grinders are what we'll be using in GenCon 2011.