Now that Wizkids has put the games in the stores hands, how will things be run at your venue?
We have two venues here, and a most of us play at both, I am a judge at one venue, and my friend is the judge at the other.
When Topps shut Wizkids down, we decided to play in the "unrestricted " format the Wizkids had in the AP rules. The judge could play if there was a second judge to rule on his game. It worked well, and both he and I got to play. It has worked well for the past year as we ran league events for store credit (which everyone used towards HoT).

We have decided to keep this format, and not take a LE for running the events, instead we have gone to a 1st place, 2nd place, and fellowship for the prizes. So we may win a prize, and we may not. Our first event we both went home empty handed, but we still loved it.

Will your venue be running the old normal way? Or has the store and your judge changed it up a bit?

Running in the title, not rinning. sorry lol.

I like that format. The only reason why this works is because the judges are playing as well. I am a person who wouldn't mind judging but hates the aspect of not playing.

At our Venues, we've continued to run things per the old AP/OP set-up; we have Unrestricted events, Restricted events, Floor events, scenario events, etc...the whole gamut.

There are three Judges among our two Venues here, and we take turns running events (about 6-7 monthly on average). This way everyone gets an opportunity to play as well as keep their Judge "chops" up to muster.

We continue to offer prizes as AP/OP stipulated. Our philosophy is consistency of experience wins out over other considerations more often than not. I've also discovered that offering a second place prize sometimes encourages folk to try "just hard enough" rather than go for the win.

We don't have a super competitive group. Most play comic accurate themes, or just pieces they like to play. Everyone does strive to win, but this format fit well for everyone. And here, the second place prizes actually gives the opportunity to a few who never really win. But usually come close.

LOL, as my grand-daddy used to say, "Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades!"

I get what you're saying, really I do. I also have a great group of players that share a wonderful sense of comraderie.

Having said that, I have never been able to bring myself to reward the "first loser-up". If there is a player that keeps coming close but can't cross the finish line, a second place prize really doesn't encourage them to get any better IMHO.

Bear in mind, this isn't a criticism; far from it in fact. This is simply a reflection of my experiences running events locally and beyond is all. If what you do works for you and your players, more power to you I say!

Ha ha ha I say that!

I get what your saying as well. I didn't take it as a criticism. So no worries good sir. Every venue seems to have different types of players, and I really like that we now get to run things how we want to.
Each store can cater to what the needs and wants of the players are.
And I think it's great.

Agree 100%.

Yes it totally is.

I technically don't count, because we aren't running games...

BUT, if we had gotten prize support...

I think that the venue and I were about settled on running fewer tournies but offering more than three prizes in each one.
The details weren't worked out, but they didn't have to be, unfortunately.

i started running the games again at Hobby Bunker under the old AP/OP set up. we kept the game format that WK sent with the prizes, we did shake the prizes up a bit. for instance the first sealed was for Thor the Reigning. i know alot of other venues did this, since it made more sense to kick off the set with the LE that best represented the set rather than an Event Dial. if you are in the Boston area join us at Hobby Bunker in Malden, we always welcome new players. http://my.calendars.net/hobby_games

Same here with the LE Thor. Made it more of a "Marquee" event,

I hope NECA brings Marquees back. and Pre-releases, those were a blast. In MA the store that ran it got hundreds of clix fanatics together for a full day of openning boosters and playing clix. we met the VT group, great bunch of guys there, and tons of other players. it was a great opportunity for trades as well. NECA bring back pre-releases! make more figure LEs and make the feats participation prizes. it was awesome that the LEs for Galactus and Starro events had unique sculpts. it really brought players out of the woodwork.

On behalf of those in the "VT group", let me say "Thanks!"

I loved those big pre-release events. They were awesome and everyone seemed to have a really good time, which is totally a credit to not only the Venue and the envoys running the event, but also all the players in attendance.

I forsee us running things how we generally did before.

1) Those who show up decide what format/pts limit/etc they want to play that day. And what prize is up for grabs.

2) Judging - We, as a whole (there's ussually only 4-7 of us), share "judging". Pretty much it's just common sense & opening the rule book/faq pages as needed - exactly what goes on in any other miniture or board game. No need for someone to NOT play just to turn a page.... (and certainly turning pages doesn't entitle you to a prize)

WK opinion on how we run stuff? Well, they can host & run their own tournies however they please. They can offer suggestions to us.
But in the end? It's the paying customers at the individual shop lv whos' opinions matter most.

I'm trying to run events to balance the interests of the players, the venue and the mothership (NECA/WK):

As long as the venue can stock boosters, I intend to run sealed events for the LE figures. I'm sensitive to player's budgets, so I'm going to try a mixed constructed/single-booster-sealed event this week. I figure that having the LE figure as a sealed event prize means that the figure can then be used in the constructed events, and also that a bad booster can be offset by the chance for a player to leave with a figure they don't have.

Depending on how that goes, and if I can expect exactly four or eight players, I would like to have a booster draft at some point, so players can experience that.

Because of the budget situation, I am delaying FLOOR. I *like* the FLOOR format, but I want to wait until most of my players have a sufficient collection of HoT...it won't be long, but still....

I haven't ever really believed in "retirement", although I have frequently scheduled events in which I had to say "no colossals" or "no cardboard" to make a certain scenario work smoother. I will probably run at least one event (at larger point value) that is "Marvel Only" for the purposes of a HoT prize. That seemed to work very well for the DC/Crisis events.

I want to run at least one event that has an Event Dial (that week's prize) in play for every game. I'm not crazy about event dials in general, but forcing everyone to play one (that they are expecting) doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

For "Mjolnir" I will probably require a "weenie" type team (either a low point build, or a build with only characters under 51 points, or both) to try for the hammer.

My events are lucky to have some new (and returning) players, and I want them to experience a variety of different ways to play HeroClix. I almost always ask for input on point values players would like to try. We've had a year-end tradition of going up against Spectre/Galactus...with the new sets maybe we will bring that back for a week?

Sorry for the long answer! Short answer: Basically we're awarding a prize a week, with an event structure decided just a week in advance. We're doing a mix of events reminiscent of but not exactly like the suggested format. I'm mixing up the prizes, trying to keep them attuned to the event of the day.