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The 2 biggest problems is the lack of a constant stream of cards throughout the year and big tournaments during the winter/spring. If one of these are not remedied, preferably both, I really don't foresee anything changing.

ROOT was another strong option omitted, as it can help keep players interested and playing during the down time.

Oct/Nov - "Redemption for Micah"
Feb - "T2 Only"
Mar - March Madness on the forum
Apr/May - States
Jun/July - Regionals
Aug - Nationals

That's actually not a bad schedule for the year.  The only months that are really left out are September (when people need a little break after Nats) and Dec/Jan (when people are busy with Christmas holidays).

So 2 whole events for Sept - March...yup, not a bad schedule at all.

When you're talking about people traveling across states, I think expecting people to travel more than once in the fall and once in the spring is unreasonable.  So yeah, I think that is a good schedule as far as live tournaments go.

When it comes to online tournaments, ROOT is going all the time as someone already mentioned.  And many of the best players in the game participate there, so it is a great place to really test your mettle in the game year-round.

Great Article. Very well written. Good Job Westy!

Hey,

I have a lot of thoughts on this matter but they all seem to be rather unrelated, so this is going to be quite the nonsequeter post but here it goes...

The lulls that exist within the Redemption calander can serve a positive purpose as well as the negative one.  While it causes diehard players to struggle finding things to keep them interested it also allows less diehard players who have other interests and comitments to step back from Redempiton without falling behind. 

I think there's a major misconception in Redemption regarding how long it takes for the meta to settle in after new cards come out.  Between Nationals 2012 and the State and Regional Tournaments that happened before the release of new cards this past summer the meta changed.  There were no new cards released, no major rule changes, but people were playing different decks.  Because there are so few players and so few big tournaments it can take a lot longer for the meta in Redemption to settle.  Just because nationals has past, doesn't mean that there won't be a shift in what the best decks are until new cards come out.

MKC are you involved in any other CCG's at the moment?  How many out of state tournaments do you go to (or have you gone to) for another CCG in a 12 month period?  Is the issue the lack of big out of state tournaments to go to, or is the issue there a lack of in state tournaments that have significant competition (or in many state the lack of in state tournaments period)?

The topic of shifting the yearly tournament schedule did come up briefly at nationals but it was more about shifting nationals earlier in the summer than spreading things out.  I would like to see us go back to a place where State and Regional tournaments were less intermixed.  There was a point were the regional tournament was "required" to happen after all of the state tournaments in that region happened.  It was always hard to enforce because the people applying for regionals didn't necessarily know when other states would host their tournaments and even if it worked out within the region, players in states on the border of a region often go to state tournaments in multiple regions so the desired effect of Regionals being the last tournaments before nationals didn't always happen.  There have been several years when I went to multiple state tournametns after the Regional tournament and it never felt quite right.  I could support a requement for Regionals to be 2-7 weeks before nationals and state tournaments to be 8-18 weeks before nationals.  The potential drawback is that since most players only go to one regional you're looking at a significant lull between an early regional and nationals (since no one seems to host small tournaments durring the summer) and if I player isn't going to nationals it could make for a very anti-climactic end to the tournament season.  But ultimately this doesn't even address the issue because you're still looking at only 5 months between the start of state tournaments and nationals.

In hindsight, I think we made a mistake releasing the new cards when we did.  I nstead of getting two peaks in excitement over the course of the year (one from the big tournament season and one from newcards coming out) we only got one because the two occured at the same time.  The hope was that the new cards would help make the game more balanced for the big tournaments, which they did in part do, but I think the meta was already shifting to a more balanced place anyway.

I think part of the purpose of the RNRS system is to try to keep players interested in Redemption throughout the year and not just when the major tournaments are going on.  The RNRS system means that a local or a district has some reward in addition to the small prize support available at those tournaments.  It allows you to work toward a season long goal.  Unfortunately there has been a noticable decline in the number of local and district tournaments that have been held in the last couple years and most such tournaments do not have enough competition to make the reward (even with the RNRS points) feel truly rewarding.

What if there was a "super-District" tournament held some weekend in the late fall in a fairly central location.  By "super-District" I mean three district tournaments all held the same weekend in the same place.  You could do two sets of events Friday night, three (or four depending on the number of players) sets of events Saturday, maybe even one more set of events Sunday afternoon.  Because it's three different tournaments you'd be able to play in the same category more than once.  Then there could be a prize (provided by a generous host or from slightly higher entry fees) for the "overall champion" for whoever performed the best across all of the events they participated in.  Would that be enough to draw some top players to drive to?

Tschow,

Tim "Sir Nobody" Maly

Quote from: SirNobody on September 10, 2013, 11:55:18 AM

What if there was a "super-District" tournament held some weekend in the late fall in a fairly central location.  By "super-District" I mean three district tournaments all held the same weekend in the same place.  You could do two sets of events Friday night, three (or four depending on the number of players) sets of events Saturday, maybe even one more set of events Sunday afternoon.  Because it's three different tournaments you'd be able to play in the same category more than once.  Then there could be a prize (provided by a generous host or from slightly higher entry fees) for the "overall champion" for whoever performed the best across all of the events they participated in.  Would that be enough to draw some top players to drive to?

This sounds like something that Travis (uthminister) could pull off in OH (pretty central, but "Redemption for Micah" is already based in OH).  Possibly Gabe in could do this in IA (kinda central) or maybe Terry down in TX (not very central).  In the long run it might be nice if there was one major tournament in the North ("T2-only"), West (Bryon in Cali maybe), South (Terry in TX), East (Roy or John), and Center ("Redemption for Micah" in OH).  Maybe these could become a new category of tournaments (like they have the "Majors" in the PGA or Pro-Tennis circuits).  Perhaps they could give a substantial number of RNRS points as well.  Something like:
Nationals - 50 pts (limit 1)
Regionals - 40 pts (limit 1)
Majors - 30 pts (limit 1)
State - 20 pts (limit 1)
District - 10 pts (limit 2)
Local - 2 pts (limit 5)
There could even be a requirement that these "Major" tournament would need to be held between Oct-March.

I like the idea of Majors.

MKC are you involved in any other CCG's at the moment?  How many out of state tournaments do you go to (or have you gone to) for another CCG in a 12 month period? 

For last season, I was averaging around 2 Regionals and 1 'higher than a regionals, lower than a Nationals' tournament a month, most out of state. Then again, an average Regionals brings in anywhere around 300-500+ people while the 'higher than a Regionals' brings in 1000+, so the motivation, interest, and incentive to go for better prizes and better competition was always very high.

Is the issue the lack of big out of state tournaments to go to, or is the issue there a lack of in state tournaments that have significant competition (or in many state the lack of in state tournaments period)?

Both, really. I'm used to making the roadtrip with my team to out of state tournaments for my other CCG so traveling is never the problem. Lack of big tournaments both in and out of state for Redemption is what partially caused my PND from 2010. Staying active on the tournament scene is a huge factor in garnering and keeping interest. At least for the competitive crowd.

Hey,

RNRS needs to be hugely overhauled as it is so I'd be ok with that.

What would you like RNRS to accomplish that the current implementation does not do?

Tschow,

Tim "Sir Nobody" Maly

Exclusive Host/Judge playmats.

A very interesting article that went up recently on the ARG website that can relate to whats been talked about here regarding future tournament structure and metagame progressions:

http://articles.alterealitygames.com/the-future-of-yu-gi-oh-the-arg-circuit-series/

Definitely worth the read.

I am interested in the idea of circuit series similar to what is being run in other ccg's, but wonder if there are enough host's across the country to  buy into an alternative tournament circuit?  I am also far removed from playing MTG(11 years ago) so I have no idea any more how they manage such things.  How do they handle costs/prizes/fees.  It would be helpful if anyone who participates in anything like that to chime in.

ARG (one of the largest CCG vendors) will be the ones providing the prize support. I'm sure its a combination of both advertising and entry fees. For Regional and YCS tournaments the entry fee is always $20, but the player receives 5 of the most recent booster packs in return (the equivalency of $20).