Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

US Prerelease prize structure change

Status
Not open for further replies.
OK folks, keep your eyes peeled.

There are some PTOs who are going to increase the prizes for winners....

But that now lies in the hands of the individual PTOs.

Who is going to do this? Probably a PTO who has a larger attendance, and therefore a little more room to move.

I am tempted to move my admission to $18.00 and add to the prize pool.

you still get a GREAT deal on your packs, but for every entrant I would add 2 packs to the top 12 prize pool. Have 40 players, and you get 80 packs added - can easily do 21 for first in each division, 12 for second, 6 for 3rd and 4th. That would be pretty close to the original prize support.

I am interested. Would that bring people in at $18.00? You are still guaranteed 12 packs, but now there is the same incentive there used to be (or dogged close)

Let me know.

M45

The real bonus for this is the BIG events - everyone gets 12 packs, where they only were guaranteed 6 before. Makes it a real incentive to hit the big time.

Imagine a 75 person event where you add 150 packs... you would do 36 for each of the top, 16 for each second, and 7 for 3rd and 4th and 4 for everyone else.

Now, if you go to a bigger event, you get bigger competition, and bigger prizes! Sounds about right to me!

M45
 
meganium45 said:
And that lowered judge comp means, folks, for my events...

Judges will only get half a box, no longer a full box.

We will still keep the same number of judges on.

M45
Click to expand...


Too bad for the judges who make up 1/3 of the event triangle -- staff + partipants + stakeholders.

Poor judges lose again. It may be "fine" with some people and heck many do this for fun, but judges are still people with an important skill set that should be rewarded.

Please whatever you guys do, don't forget your staff in all this....


Mike
long time randomTO
longer time random judge
 
As much as 10 packs guarenteed with 2 series 1 packs sounds good i dont think many players are gonna go for a trophy,plaque for a win in a prerelease. The idea of a prerelease is to get the newest cards before they come out. I like this idea personally but i fell somehow it will hurt the way people look at prereleases.
 
Man, this is the lamest thing I've heard all day. In my opinion, this only shows that Nintendo wants to earn more money and rip everyone off at the same time. Could they not afford given out boxes? Guess not. Well, guess everyone will drop out of the tournament after the first round and just leave....like me lol.
 
Last edited:
Something needs to be cleared up, there seems to be a bit of information missing/misunderstood in the wording about the prize pay out.



When you pay your entrance fee you will get your 6 packs to build your deck. If you do not complete the tournament you do not get the 4 packs or the 2 packs of POP Series one.



So if you drop out you walk out with just the 6 deck building packs. There are situations that a PTO/TO can make an exception to these rules, but do not expect it to be simply due to dissatisfaction.
 
meganium45 said:
I am tempted to move my admission to $18.00 and add to the prize pool.

you still get a GREAT deal on your packs, but for every entrant I would add 2 packs to the top 12 prize pool. Have 40 players, and you get 80 packs added - can easily do 21 for first in each division, 12 for second, 6 for 3rd and 4th. That would be pretty close to the original prize support.

M45
Click to expand...

M45,

You may want to do your math again.

21 packs for 3 age groups would be 63 packs
12 packs for 3 age groups would be 36 packs
6 packs for 3 age groups 2 times would be 36 packs

total of 135 total packs

your 55 packs over the 80 you planned. ;)
 
Venusaur said:
Rofl Prime that's actually a good idea. That would save me 5 hours of waiting for 5 rounds to end. But why even wait until the end of the first round? Just collect your packs and leave.
Click to expand...

Sry to burst your bubble, but PTO's have been instructed that if a player leaves after 1 round they forfeit thier prizes, unless the PTO feels it is for a valid reason, you must play the minimum amount of rounds in the competition.
 
Venusaur said:
uhh ok then I guess after signing up for the prerelease I'll leave and go to a mall or something, get my 0-6 record, come back to the tournament as it finishes, and then pick up the last 6 packs. ;)
Click to expand...
Sorry but you can't do that either. If you are not there before time is called for round 1 you would be dropped.
 
Interesting concept.

I've always liked the idea of mostly-uniform prize distribution. They do that in LOTR, and it's one of the BEST things I like about Decipher tournaments.

Listen, this solves a number concerns:

1. The ones who win big at pre-releases are the ones who would probably buy the most boosters at the local shop. By letting these players "win" lots of boosters, they're less likely to spend more money at the card shop.

2. This keeps "sharks" from jumping around at various local pre-releases in an attempt to gobble up the big prizes.

3. Prizes are "equalized" so that small tournaments and age-groups don't have EXTREMELY ABUNDAND prizes as compared to large tournaments and age-groups.

GREAT CHANGE PUI!! :) :)
 
I have to react.

We need a competitive spirit to drive players to actually attend an event and play their best. ANY event, casual or not. Would people attend League without product support? I think we need to only reflect on the situation on some of our international TOs/League Leaders who are constantly being asked for X promo from local players. Without the product, people could essentially stay home and play Apprentice. Don't say it won't happen. This prize structure is killing competitive players. The enviroment will become stale.
Click to expand...

How did you think we got our players, not because of us bagging for Promocards and being able sometimes to give them some. We humiliate ourselves to do that so that our players getting the idea of being equal to other players. If it was for myself I would never ever ask for them.
Come on we (in the Netherlands) are running leagues WITHOUT support, NO prices no Promo's nothing, only the things we get donated from some dear friends overseas and that's hardly enough if you have large playersbase. And see we still get new players.
Coming Sunday we have an after Release, the Prizepool is ZERO (they don't know I got some Prerelease Wartortles to hand out that's a surprise) and I have already 35 preregisters players.
And that's more than a lot of official prereleases with large prizepools had.

So don't tell me tournaments will get less attendance, it's nonsens.
US players are spoiled by the large prizesupport and now they are turning it back.
I followed the attandance number of the US prereleases wondering when the decision was going to be made to lower pricesupport.
Well here it is and it's still a lot what there is to earn.
I see that there is even judge/staff support, how would your tournament run without that, when PUI tells you, to do it for nothing because you love the game and there should be no compensation for doing something you love.
( I sure still wanna trade my position with a US PTO position, but I don't think I can find someone who wants to stand in my shoes)

Did no-one really no-one even thought about writing a letter (or make a phonecall, because PTO seems to have a direct line with POP) asking if:
You are allowed to hand out each persons 2 booster + 2 POPseries boosters and to use the remaining 2 booster to build up the price awarding for top 4 (or whatever).
If your playersfield is only attending with larger prices for the "top" players that would be my first thing to do.

Sorry but I get totally sick of this, work something out which covers the needs of your playerfiel, aks permission to do it.
Or pay the extra's by yourself like we are doing for years, but if that was the US situation there would be less OP left overthere.

Also the admission of $15 is much less, in the spare situation there is a prerelease overhere you pay 20 but most time 25 Euro to attend and NO full boxes to earn.
And that our OP is not growing is not because we most times have less support, there are more important things wrong and pricesupport is just a part of it.
 
Last edited:
This may lower prerelease attendance, I know I will not travel, what was it something like 150 mi. to attend one again, even if they say they'll boost prizes on attendance, because there's no gaurantee that there will be a higher attendance. This will free up time and money for me to attend more CC's, SC's, and stuff. So if we are moving the attendance to these type of venues where the true competitiveness is then we are encouraging sales from two different angles 1) fewer prizes at prereleases means I'll be spending more on buying cards 2) Attending more Constructed events means I'll want to be more competitive and want more cards to be able to be.
 
You know what I don't actually care what they do. Because in my opinion we of this damned age are darn lucky to even have all of this stuff that Nintendo provides us with. We barely had any of what we have today in the old WOTC days. You guys should be happy that we even get prereleases. Cause back when I was playing in WOTC days there were barely any prereleases at all, at least none that I saw. So be happy guys, that Nintendo is so much more willing to provide us with so much more than WOTC and DCI ever did. That's all I have to say. I may not be as competitive as you guys but I do understand the true spirit of this game.
 
Dark Legendary Master said:
You know what I don't actually care what they do. Because in my opinion we of this damned age are darn lucky to even have all of this stuff that Nintendo provides us with. We barely had any of what we have today in the old WOTC days. You guys should be happy that we even get prereleases. Cause back when I was playing in WOTC days there were barely any prereleases at all, at least none that I saw. So be happy guys, that Nintendo is so much more willing to provide us with so much more than WOTC and DCI ever did. That's all I have to say. I may not be as competitive as you guys but I do understand the true spirit of this game.
Click to expand...


Ehhhhhhh I'm double sided on that part, I liked WOTC more on some levels... but for the MOST part (NOT prereleases) I like the prizes more for this... such as the scholarships and all. Basically what people are getting at is why should someone who places dead last get the same as first place... there's no point to the tournament then if they're doing it like that they might as well just make the friggen prerelease things more so league based and do something like if you reach so many points or something you get this many packs... Right now there's not a point in the tournament other than ranking. What the heck does a trophy do for a prerelease? Oh wow I took first place in a tournament that happens every few months in many many different places... save the titles and trophys for a championship not a prerelease and give us our friggen prize support pack... it's really crappy dude seriously, we are all in it for fun but doesn't part of that fun come from doing really well in the tournament and knowing you're getting more packs?
 
Last edited:
Of course, the only thing stopping the (P)TO from offering extra prizes to top place finishers is their profit margin ;), since the new prize structure is simply what POP will put in the prize pool... :)

(oops, didn't read the new posts after #40! - I see this has already been discussed above...)
 
Last edited:
You know what they say "If it aint broke dont fix it" Alas another change to the Pokemon game that has illicited and will illicit feelings on both a positive and negative note. For myself I probably wont travel anymore for a pre-release. See below.

Some of us like travelling because it allows us to do 2 things: Support OP and play for a change. Now some places might take a hit because there is no box to be won, so the travellers will stay and play in their own "backyard". But others still might travel long distances as the POP tourney packs are a nice incentive, plus more packs obtained at a prerelease means having to acquire less later on to complete sets, and it is nice seeing people in those "far away" places.-BJJ
Click to expand...

Brian I totally agree with you on this statement. Unfortunately you will now have 5 less people that will travel to Milford for a pre-release.

you still get a GREAT deal on your packs-Meg
Click to expand...

Big deal I can get a GREAT deal on E-bay for packs. The money I save traveling I will just use now on E-bay. Before, I saw it as the money I spend traveling will offset if I win a box. As a matter of fact I would use that box to help build a collection. Now Im thinking about only purchasing single cards through e-bay and not keeping collections anymore.
 
With this new structure everyone, except those few who won boxes in the past, will go home with more cards. And this is bad why?

GymLeaderPhil said:
This stops those card sharks from walking away with a box for essentially just showing up.
...
Woooh boy, I won an award for being much more luckier in the cards I pulled from the packs. That's all it is. If it was a true draft, I would see some point in awards, but with this sealed format, it's all luck based.
-Phil
Click to expand...

So how do you explain the "sharks" ?

I agree that sealed deck is a lot of luck. Prereleases are supposed to be fun. Everyone gets to see and play with the new cards.

GymLeaderPhil said:
This is a competitive game. When you start giving equal prizes to all attendees, we've lost our gimmick. Nobody has a reason to give it their all when there is no difference between what Mary and Ted get in the end. Then people stop showing up.
Click to expand...
farbsman said:
Winners will receive a trophy, plaque or similar item.
Click to expand...
Did I misread something? Sounds like a big difference between what Mary and Ted get in the end, assuming you meant that one came in first and the other didn't? One gets to take home a trophy and the other doesn’t. But both get ten packs of the new cards! Also, ratings are always on the line. Isn’t POP going to use the overall ratings for the top sixteen invites this season?

Time alone will tell but I bet that, with more people bringing home more cards from this new structure, we will see higher attendances at the prereleases. This should be an added draw to the newer players who don't have much of a chance to win the prerelease but need the cards even more.

Competing for a trophy is fun and it is more than enough incentive for any true competitor.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top