We just held the first of the Ruby/Sapphire "biathalon format" Challenges in San Diego this past weekend and it went really well. Let me share some of the things we did to help make this fun and successful (see pictures at http://thepokebeach.cjb.net/rschallenge.shtml for examples).
Enjoy,
- CHRISBO
- 1.> GameCube with GameBoy Player and e-Reader attachments. This was by far one of the most impressive things we did. During the TCG rounds we used the e-Reader as a timer (card was "Professor Elm's Training Method"), and during the GBA rounds we held a "featured match" on the big screen. It would've been cool to have two TV's (one for each player in the match), but we could only round up one GameCube anyway. Make sure that both parties are agreeable to the TV match, as some players may not want others to see what Pokemon they're using. Fortunately in our case we had plenty of volunteers eager to "show off" .
- 2.> EON Ticket and e-Reader. After registration started but before we were ready to start, we hooked up the e-Reader to the GameCube and started scanning the EON Tickets that everyone had just gotten. In hindsight I probably just killed a half-dozen sales for e-Reader (oops!), but everyone was excited to be doing it while waiting for registration to finish. Even if you don't have a TV setup like we did, a couple of GBA's and the e-Reader will do nicely.
- 3.> Explain the new changes in TCG format. Most everyone in our group was already familiar with the new Nintendo rules, but it doesn't hurt to remind people of them until they become like second nature to us.
- 4.> When filling out card lists, write down ALL of the cards that they receive. One change that I was not prepared for is that the tournament rules for this event allow players to alter their TCG decks in between rounds. This is new for the Pokemon environment, but the T.O. tells me that this is the way he's always done sealed and pre-release tourneys in the past. I was a bit wary at first, but since there were only two rounds of TCG, I had no objection to it and it turned out to work pretty well. My guess is that this will probably be true for the upcoming Sandstorm Pre-Release events next month, so we'd better start getting used to it.
- 5.> Have players write down all of the cards with the quantities in roman numerals ('iv' instead of '4'). When doing a quick deck check, I got screwed up a couple of times when I read "Energy Removal 2" as being two cards. D'oh >_<!! Also, they don't give you much room on the front of the registration form, so I recommend everyone writing their cards down on the backside instead.
- 6.> If players don't want to play in a certain portion of the tourney, have them tell you up front. We were almost ready to announce pairings for the first round of GBA play, when one of our move checkers found an illegal moveset. Turned out the person just made up some moves because they only wanted to play in the TCG portion of the event. I have no objection to anyone wanting to play in only one aspect of the "biathalon", but if we didn't catch the mistake when we did we would've had to redo pairings and such.
- 7.> Side events. If you have a lot of people who don't want to play in the biathalon, hold a side event like a booster draft or GBA-only tourney, or something like that just for kicks.
- 8.> Lunch Break!! The GBA portions of the tourney go really fast, so there should be plenty of time for a break after Round 3 before the second of the TCG rounds.
- 9.> Playoffs. Be prepared to handle tie breakers. Six rounds is a bit on the short side, so either cut to a Top4/Top8 or some other good way to resolve ties should be planned for in advance. In our case, we had a GBA match to break the tie; others may prefer a TCG match, Rock-Paper-Scissors, or some other combination. But for some reason they didn't like my idea of a karaoke sing-off, I wonder why / .
Enjoy,
- CHRISBO