Sidekicks, as I'm currently envisioning it would allow one "experienced" player to bring along a new player/ sidekick and play 2v2. This would be intended to introduce new players to the game directly at the competitive level in a fun way and get them to see the prizes and such.

So each team of players should automatically get 2 promo cards of some kind. But that's just for attendance. What would you do to increase the prize pool for the better finishing teams?

Would you allow people to play on a team that aren't new? Would that lead to degenerate BS that would go against the point of the project?

What kind of prizes would you find compelling enough to go out and teach somebody to play?

I would go with some sort of product as prize support ideally with the newer player getting more than the experienced player so they can build up their card pool. Experienced players couldn't be on a team together for this event since it does defeat the purpose. But this sort of event could be great to get people into VS. We do something similar here in Wilson with YugiOh where the older players play with some of the younger kids to help them learn the game and seems to be popular. And just getting more Vs. players would be reason enough for me to try it out.

Most players are against the starters, right? But many stores still have the starters. I can get a few stores to put up starters as prizes for new players or something like that. Anybody else able to get their local shops to back something like this?

If there was a decent starter out there I'd say itd be a great way to do it, maybe even consider making it a sealed event with a starter and a few boosters.

Have a group of players ahead of time to be your experienced members of the teams.

Have them build their deck and their partner's deck
When registration happens, assign a new player to a partner, give a player meeting style event so that the team members can discuss how the decks work.

Have the prize, based off of attendance, be in the boxes of boosters range, as well as playmats, stuff like that (VS PENS THOSE THINGS R WONDERFUL) I guess. I dunno, but either way, i'd be willing to go in on this tourny