Great post!
If that is the goal of Battle Roads, then I feel they are partially a success, but can be improved upon.
I agree that Battle Roads do bring real competitive tournaments to an area. That is something Battle Roads do accomplish. League tournaments can be fun, but you won't have people coming in from out of the area to play. Battle Roads brings competitive tournament scenes to that area, at least for that one day.
That leads me to my first problem. They are only held twice a year in each location. I'm not being greedy, I'm just saying that Battle Roads could keep players interested in competitive play throughout the year if they were held more often. I don't know if this would be possible, but I would like to see it.
I agree on principle. In practice, it'd be difficult to impossible to police correctly. The BRs aren't FNM. They are free events sponsored completely by PUI. Without revealing more, I'll just say that there are plenty of good reasons that BRs are not FNM, and probably won't be for a while.
My second problem is the prizes, or the prize card. I don't feel the trophy card is a good prize for a event like battle roads if we are thinking of battle roads as an event that brings competitive playing to an area. In my opinion, the better prize card would be a foil of a very playable trainer. Give out foil Roseanne's Researches, or Bebe's Searches, or Cynthia's Feelings. Heck, give out a BR-stamped Claydol or Uxie. Those cards would let experienced players feel happy because it is a special looking good card (they love RH trainers, don't they?) and let new players feel happy because it might be a card they don't have a lot of.
IDK about you, but I feel that the Victory Medal card is far better than most players believe it to be. 3/4 of the time you play it, you're getting a card from your deck. 1/4 of the time, you get to choose what that card is. I'd put it on the same level as Pokedex for its ability, especially as a Trainer. Now, I wouldn't be opposed to having other cards in there as well. They just don't have the glitz and glamor of something called "Victory Medal" that has that pretty Gold or Silver medallion in the picture.
My third comment would be to keep the k-value of the event as it is; small but influenctial. I feel it gives the event a decent reason to play if your looking to gain rating points. It gives that class of player a reason to play.
Agreed and supported. I wouldn't have players coming from as far as Chicago and Kentucky (I think) to my events if they weren't Premier rated. Yet, the rating needs to be small enough for the events to remain at least mostly local.
I think it would be fantastic if TOs could run Battle Roads throughout the year in their area/s. They do promote competitive play. I do wish there were more of them, possibly double what we have now. I would love to see a new Battle Road show up with each new set (every 3 months). And since TOs can run them, I would hope more players would try to become TOs and start running events so they could take some pressure off of their local PTOs shoulders.
This, I think, would be superior to the current system, and it would probably add to the prestige of pretty much every level across the board. The problem is that there are only 3 months between each set. What you're proposing is that each set has a corresponding 1-2 weeks of low-level Premier support before the high-level stuff starts. Unfortunately, there are only 10 weeks between set releases. The PTOs are generally working towards setting up the next big Premier event cycle, and most registered TOs that I know prefer to play. This would only service a very small proportion of the game, and I really don't think it's a great idea without more fleshing out.
I think Bullados's idea of Battle Roads is the closest to what BRs are now. Entry-level is not what they are, as I've explained before. Neither is 'new player friendly'.
It largely depends on the TO that's running the Battle Road. I've seen plenty of BRs that are, quite simply, States or Regionals in miniature. And that's fine. If that's how a TO wants to run their events, more power to them. In my events, though, I try and make sure that every player has as much fun as possible by giving away as many door prizes as I can afford, ensuring that everybody walks out with something (even if it's just a WOTC era promo), and always making sure that the kids are more important than the event itself. It's led me to having 2 out of my 4 Premier events where both the Seniors and the Juniors outnumbered the Masters, and a third where the Juniors outnumbered the Masters.
In general, the face of an event is decided by the TO and the Staff that work the event. I work hard to make my events as kid-friendly as possible, and many of my league parents appreciate me for it.