They have tournament support available for local stores.

What do you recommend?

vermillian said:

I'm aware that they're trying, and that's good. What I think they need to do is to follow through by promoting the play kits with stores, helping to advertise stores' events, and try to set up some coordinated events to act as feeders for some kind of regional tournaments, too. The kits are a good start, but to really succeed with it, they have to be a starting point with plans looking farther down the line, not the sum total of their support.

That's mostly what I was trying to convey.

i kinda see the need for tornys.. but I think it is a bit early.. sure it is good to drum interest.. but we only have teh core set.. there isn't much deck choice here.. we need at least one cycle to be finished b4 there can be any real decent events… besides casual "teach and meet" events.

booored said:

The first three tournaments being organised in the UK are going to be run with the "only one core set" rules.  This is a temporary measure to open up the game to as many people as possible, since it is pretty much sold out already.

Since tournament entry is free, and there is no prize support from FFG, these should be friendly tournaments with the intention of getting like minded people together from around the area.  It is also quite nice to be building decks and testing them and tweaking them in advance.

One reason why tournament support will never be as large as in Magic is because of the nature of a LCG.

CCG require perpetual purchases of products. Tournaments (especially the standard format) encourage this behavior in the customers (limited formats being the extreme example).

With a LCG, once you've bought 1 (or 3) Core Sets, the company is done with you. They can't expect additional income from you (until expansions start being published).

The duration of the relationship between the customer and the company isn't as great.

Also, from the FLGS's perspective, the lack of market for single cards make it less interesting to hold these events. When a store holds a Magic tournament, they can expect to sell last minute singles to players missing a card or two to tune their decks. With an LCG, what's the store's return on investment? They'll sell a couple soda and sandwiches during the day, at most…

kaffis said:

Erm, that is blatantly untrue. There were local tournaments and play nights for well over a year before WotC got involved with local support. I was playing since the beta release and did so for years before the expense became unjustifiable. WotC codified what a number of local store owners had been doing. This is FAR smarter and MUCH better business than just trying to create a program and hope people will like it. They actually studied what programs were successful and blended them together and made it very easy for stores to join the program.

If A:N gets to that same kind of place where numerous stores are running regular play programs FFG will likely support their efforts and commoditize it for others.

the1gwiz said:

I'm going to have to insist you post all your comments on the first line. I can't be bothered to shift my gaze downward.

All jabs at the OP's apparent sloth aside, he makes a good point. There is no viable sanctioned tournament scene for LCGs in the US. Regional, con, and backyard MN events do not qualify as a tournament scene. Sorry, but they don't. Game night kits are cool, I guess, but they seem more like a "thank you" that the store operator can provide to people whose money he already has instead of a way to excite new players. He's not going to sell any more LCG product to a player who already has it. Magic, on the other hand will always sell more product, even in league play. But back to the OP's laziness…. a scene has to start somewhere. If it's up to the players to organize their own tournaments, then so be it. There are literally dozens of people on various boards on this site alone willing to come up with ideas for hosting tournaments. Or there's google.

P.S. A more legitimate reason to not get involved in this game is the pretentious labeling of decks, hands, and discard piles. I guess there is such a thing as too much theme(for me, that is).

P.P.S. My postscript is still a lame reason not to play the game.

P.P.P.S. NBN forever.

SiCK_Boy said:

How about all the new players that buy a copy (or three) of the game because they want to enter the tournament with their friends, or because they see the players in the tournament having so much fun that they want to join in the next one?

Plus the expansions are going to start coming out eventually, giving players more things to buy. :)

On a personal note, "Why I am not playing this game…" is because I am STILL waiting for the copy that I pre-ordered to arrive. The store I am trying to buy it from hasnt received ANY copies from their distributor. This makes me a sad sad panda. :(

~ Tim

 "…Also, from the FLGS's perspective, the lack of market for single cards make it less interesting to hold these events. When a store holds a Magic tournament, they can expect to sell last minute singles to players missing a card or two to tune their decks. With an LCG, what's the store's return on investment? They'll sell a couple soda and sandwiches during the day, at most…"

The market for single cards also make setting prizes quite easy, which, in return, allows the game to enjoy a continuous flow of small organized events on a local level. Take my area for instance. Even though I live in a small town, we have 2 or 3 Magic events every week, which is a lot in my opinion! Yet, not one event has ever suffered from lack of interest. I see two reasons for this.

1. When a store organizes an event, all they need to do is open a few booster packs and allow the winners to chose from it in the order of their ranking, taking turns. So, the winner gets first crack at the card pool, and then the one who finished second, third, and so on. When everyone picked a card, they start over until all cards are gone. With only 4 or 5 boosters, chances are that the winners will walk away with at least 1 or 2 rare and costly cards, making their whole participation worthwhile. But even if they don't get any expensive cards, the promise of a better draw the next time, brings players back week after week. From the stores' perspective, this format is also advantageous. They charge a very small entry fee (just to cover the prize boosters), and in return, they get a constant buzz in their store, selling a crapload of booster packs and singles to the crowd.

2. The other reason why it is quite easy to get people interested in organized events, in Magic for instance, is the worldwide ranking system. When a Magic player participates in a legal event, however small it is, he or she gets points and can immediately compare that score to all other players in the world. This leader board brings out the competitive side of most players, encouraging them to compete week after week.

While the above reasons seem to be quite specific to CCGs, I see no reason to think they could not, at least partially, be applied to Android: Netrunner. Although CCGs have the advantage of rare cards as prizes, they are essentially prize money! Most players who compete on a weekly basis have an extensive card pool. They do not compete to win new cards for themselves but to score expensive cards that they can sell for profit! By that logic, if FFG could supply prices at least on a bi-monthly basis, it could give players enough reason to compete weekly, giving a huge boost to the Android player scene. Giving the format of LCGs, however, these prizes should not to be card-related; so, the current playmat, token, etc prizes are a good start. Although, I can see rare, promotional cards to make their way into LCGs as well. Obviously FFG cannot introduce new cards just for tournaments, but they can release alternate versions of already existing cards, such as versions with new artwork or ones signed by the autor, etc.

The most crucial thing, however, I think would be a worldwide ranking database. Such a system would be a huge boost for the competitive scene and is certainly not limited to CCGs. With small to moderate investment, FFG can build a system that track players around the world, using a unique ID. This would also give the World Championship a whole new meaning, as only those players could compete in it whose ranking is high enough.

Anyways, I see no reason why Android could not become the next prominent card game out there. It just needs a little investment: a flow of cool prices and a worldwide ranking system, but it could really pick up! Plus, Android has a tremendous advantage over its competitiors: it is very unique and TREMENDOUS FUN TO PLAY! :)

FFG already stated in a video from Worlds that future Game Night Kit content would be more "game focused" as in things you can actually use to play the game with rather than trophy items. Also, they said alternate art cards are on the list of potential future prizes.

From an OP perspective, I can see doing tournaments for each Data Pack release where the top player(s) can win the new pack as the prize. I think that and the Game Night Kits are an okay start for local OP. In between them, meeting up  to test your newest builds on a weekly basis isn't so bad. Now I just need several other people to buy a core set so I can get a local group going.

Rince said:

Amazing post and I agree with all points. FFG has been bit lacking with organized play and CCGs with my experience really need a solid organized play to survive for a longer time. Otherwise game might live for couple years and start dying after that. I feel it is same thing with LCGs. FFG has a huge potential with organized play and I hope they start to using it more until the game starts going down (I feel AGoT is in this turning point now). This topic is one of the most important in these boards.

EDIT: MTG is not hugely popular in here Finland but there a lot of organized play which really keeps it alive and well known.

 Another way for a store or other tournament organizer to deal with prizes could be to open a Core Set, and have the top prizes be the cards that people buy to fill out their sets. The neutral cards and other cards that often get splashed into other decks would be useful too. Heck even the chits would be okay prizes for people who play with multiple decks.

Hell it'd be great if FFG sent out packs of the cards to fill out the set.  I know it's not going to be necessary in the long run, and I'm not going to buy a second Core just to get them, but as prizes… I'd be all right with that.

From what I've gathered, FFG (and the various retailers who deal with translations) aren't the ones who make the AGoT tournament scene live. Certainly not at the local level. Also, the biggest tournament each year is not the *cough* World *cough* Championship held in the States (54 players in the Melee, 81 in the Joust), but the European Championship held in Stahleck (66 players in the Melee, 130 in the Joust) - that's right, folks, Stahleck has more than half again the players (though the Melee would probably be smaller if there wasn't a card to design). From what I know, the TO for Stahleck is not affiliated in any way with FFG and FFG had no hand in the organization,

So yeah, it's very much up to the players to organize the tournament scene.

Khudzlin said:

On the local level it is partly true, and it is actually the same with every other card game out there. Yet, when you look at Magic or WoW and how much buzz those card games generate as opposed to LCGs, you realize that the difference is staggering. And what is responsible for this difference, is the amount of support and infrastructure the mother company provides for event organizers. So saying that organization depends solely on the gamer community might apply to some local groups but certainly not to the community as a whole.

In my opinion, part of the publisher's responsibility is to to provide motivation for local playgroups to organize events. Once that is taken care of, everything else pretty much happens on its own.

Sorry if this is somewhat aside from the main thread.

I played the original Netrunner CCG 13 or 14 years ago with my teenage son. We also played other CCG's ranging from StarTrek:TNG to Battletech to Shadowrun to INWO (we never played M:TG, and that was before Yu-Gi-Oh arrived on the scene). We thought Netrunner was one of the best, in particular because it's a 2-player game. We amassed hundreds of Netrunner cards. We were disappointed when it was discontinued. We never played in any tournaments… we live in a small city in central California with very few "face to face" card or board gamers.

Anyhow -- to the point >> Since Netrunner is strictly a 2-player game, all you have to do is find one friend in your town who likes complex games, and "teach" it patiently. Or you might search the net for someone in your town who played the original legacy version.

A few days ago I was able to purchase the new "Android:Netrunner" while visiting San Diego, CA. All of the first publication had sold out at that store (Game Empire). I will bring it back home, and try it again. It will be fun to see if the old Netrunner cards can be combined with the new version -- although it will be obvious to the opponent if you add any of the old "legacy" cards in your deck!!

That is why I say: "Why I will play this game…!"