Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Meganium45's guide to leaguing! Support, growth for 2005 and on!

i seriously wish one of my two leagues was like that (not the timewarp one).
1. i am the oldest person there (excluding thedarktwins, but i come almost every sunday). so, i teach people how to play and such. this is not a problem for me, but when i am not there, there is no one to teach someone how to play if someone is new. also, the league owner doesn't know the new rules, and refuses to look at the compendium unfortunatly.
2. everytime i tell the kids about events, the league owner barks at me saying "by telling them that, they won't come here that day. they will go to a different store and i will lose business." not really, considering that league is sunday, while some events are saturday, and the kids only play pokemon at the store.
3. the league owner refuses to stamp previous seasons, so kids can't get their badges. tell me, how is it possible for someone to earn their badges in 6 weeks when each league session is only sundays at 2 pm???? the league owner refuses to listen to ANY of my input, and he is a total jerk to me. however, i keep going (and paying the $4.00 fee for each week) because the kids need me, and i know that me helping them is really important to them.
i have spoken to mike and dave in person (at philly regionals) about these problems. hopefully, they will be resolved.
 
A very nice article indeed. I couldn't relate to it more. One thing I try to do is get to know the parents and gain their trust. In today's world, a parent may be relieved to drop their kid off at a place for a few hours to do some errands or just have a few hours of quiet time, but in reality, they worry. Giving the parents the trust and security they need to trust me into making sure their kids are safe is one big step I take when being a LL.

I also have been taking down phone numbers from EVERYONE who attends league. This is for emergency contact information only. A month ago I had a kid that tripped and faceplanted into the tile ground TWICE on different league occasions, which left blood everywhere and him screaming about the pain. :eek:

Luckily his brother was there and called his mom on a cell phone so that she can get down right away and take any necessary precausions such as hospitalization, etc. Luckily, his nose or teeth weren't broken but that still doesn't mean he faceplanted into the ground HARD. I am thankful that the store employees also got involved in helping out with the clean up and comforting the kid along with me, his brother, and the other players. It was after this incident that I've decided to take down phone numbers in case something like this, or heaven forbid, something worse ever happened and we needed to get in contact with the parents or whoever.

Running tournaments every month is another thing I take pride in doing. This keeps the competition level among the older players up, and it also is exciting for the younger players because they get a good amount of door prizes such as promo cards, booster backs, POP boosters, etc. These kinds of incentives aren't that costly and it keeps up the excitement and the interest of the players. The top 4 players get very big prize awards as well, more than generous I must say.

I think everything else that Maganium45 covered is good enough and the main thing with the emergency contacts are what I think need to be covered, let alone being done by every league leader out there.
 
Well... this was really helpful, because I am trying to start a new league in my hometown.
Unfortunately I just know 5 people that would play including me. So...should I start the league and maybe tournaments with Modified or with Unlimited?
I kinda want to start with Unlimited, because here hasn't been anything since the big boom we had here with Pokemon. So they might probably be better in Unlimited, plus I have at least 4 decks in Unlimited, but I don't even have for me and my sister two modified decks. So what do you think?
 
Most of the new kids who come to my league start playing unlimited, so that sounds like a good choice to start things off.

Good Luck!
 
b0n3z said:
So...should I start the league and maybe tournaments with Modified or with Unlimited?
So what do you think?
Click to expand...
I think that's the best thing to do to get people back into the game and get their feet wet.

Also, hold an unlimited tournament for $3 a person so that you can use the money for purchasing NEW packs (in this case, Unseen Forces is around the corner). Also give away some new pre constructed decks as door prizes or as another unique kind of award for some kind of recognition, whether giving a "good try" award to the last placed person, or whatever you see fit.

Do these kinds of unlimited events around 2 times so that people can have some new cards to build some decks with. After that, start trying to move things up into the Modified format for tournaments, then eventually the league. This should also motivate people to purchase packs of the newest cards, whether it be some booster packs, some preconstructed decks, if not both including booster boxes.

It's stuff like this that gets people in the hang of the modified cards but like I said, you got to get their feet wet and break them in slowly by doing the initiatives that I layed out above. Eventually, your league will grow by word of mouth, like mine did. You could also start passing out flyers at a mall or even get permission from card/comic stores to hang a league flyer in as another way of advertising. I only had around 10 players when I took over my league last year, and now after a huge successful league year later I have over 60 registered players.

Good luck! :thumb:
 
Ok Thank you very much. This is really really helpful.
Well with this I'll try my best and if it gets really good we might have a city championsship in one or two years!!!


b0n3z
 
b0n3z said:
Ok Thank you very much. This is really really helpful.
Well with this I'll try my best and if it gets really good we might have a city championsship in one or two years!!!
Click to expand...
Hey, no problem, happy to help. However, IMO, don't wait 2 years to throw a city championship. City will start around February (I think) or sometime during the beginning of next year. By then, assuming you are running a lot of events to get people motivated enough to purchase/aquire new cards, your people should be ready to start competing in a City, State, etc.

You've got to start them off in a huge event such as a city sometime, and I recommend having a city during the upcoming tournament season. If you think about it, we have at least 5 months to prepare for the big tournament events, which is plenty of time to aquire new cards, make new decks, and test out their decks and new strategies.

If you wait too long to start a big event, most people would probably get bored and not want to play anymore if they know they have to drive somewhere far just to compete in something big like this. Perhaps it would be best to get feedback from your players to see what they think, but I'm just telling you what I am based off my personal experience already, because my league was like yours where people didn't have the newest of cards. It only took my kids a month or 2 in order to get the newest cards they needed for their decks, so do what you can to promote, promote, promote! :wink:
 
Well I'll do everything.
But in Germany it's not like in the US. First off we don't have State Championships, because our City Championships are like State Championships...HAHAHA...
Well...I'll see if I get something running and even if I don't I'll see and try to get them to the next closest City Championship!

b0n3z
 
remember all yugioh is dying and many yugioh people here are coming BACK to pokemon
be ready for a +20-30 person addition to league :)
 
Rulemaster said:
how do you get a bunch of new players with older cards to switch over to modified?
Click to expand...
What I did back when my players only had older cards was run Unlimited Tournaments to where people would compete for modified packs and preconstructed decks. I did charge a fee for these events back then, so getting money together for the prize support was no problem and all, and plus the store loved getting the business so they offered me a discount so that I can get ahold of more prize support.

I held a few of these things and also made sure to let everyone know to come to the pre releases. Usually after the 1st or 2nd (usually 1st) pre release, people will have modified cards to play with.

Ever since then, my league has been a "modified only" league, making sure everyone stays current with the format changes each year. Your players that have older cards will make contributions to the store (some HUGE) by purchasing newer booster packs and such to get themselves up to date. Since I purchase a lot of booster boxes in general, I usually give my newer players a good portion of my extras as well as energies to help them make a newer deck.
 
Our TO purchases the spare product from our prereleases here to sell/give out at tournaments. Holding small tournaments (fee or not, less of a fee will attract more players) with modified prizes will allow people to get their modified cards sorted.

My TO is gonna try to own a new league soon, which I'll be effectively running myself, so that we can increase the Edinburgh player base, so thanks M45 for the tips!
 
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