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Thank you for playing Magic at PAX East
Tom Shea
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hello Everyone!
I want to thank everyone who played in any of our events at PAX East this year. We always want to improve the events and how they run. One of the things I definitely want to do next year is the draft workshop. When is a good time for us to do that? We will be working on offering a little less mini master choices. The 8 man pick up seemed really popular. We definitely want to hear from you about things that you would have liked to see us doing and doing more of.
We will offer more Commander next year. We will offer a sealed on Saturday. We will put a standard event on the event schedule. The question on that is when is the BEST time to run that? We are working out the kinks in how we pair mini master. We are thinking that having players doing deck construction then moving to play their first round opponent would be better than building in front of their opponent. We welcome your feedback so we can continue to improve Magic events at PAX East.
Tom Shea
TJ Collectibles,and Magic Organizer
I want to thank everyone who played in any of our events at PAX East this year. We always want to improve the events and how they run. One of the things I definitely want to do next year is the draft workshop. When is a good time for us to do that? We will be working on offering a little less mini master choices. The 8 man pick up seemed really popular. We definitely want to hear from you about things that you would have liked to see us doing and doing more of.
We will offer more Commander next year. We will offer a sealed on Saturday. We will put a standard event on the event schedule. The question on that is when is the BEST time to run that? We are working out the kinks in how we pair mini master. We are thinking that having players doing deck construction then moving to play their first round opponent would be better than building in front of their opponent. We welcome your feedback so we can continue to improve Magic events at PAX East.
Tom Shea
TJ Collectibles,and Magic Organizer
Tom Shea on
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I played a good deal in the starter league, here are my thoughts (note that I skipped on the demo dude because I played a solid week of Magic on the computer and felt comfortable playing).
1- The basics of handling a new deck: This may have been covered by the Demo dude but I saw some new comers who did the same mistakes I did. The first was to mix all the booster cards I got in the pack with the basic intro decks. I ended up with cards I could not really use. Second, you have to shuffle those cards a good deal, and not just cutting the deck here and there like when you play cards. All the cards are sequencial so I often ended up with mana floods or creature floods.
2- We often managed to help each other out, but it would have been nice to have some people do the rounds from time to time and comment on what we were doing. That is quite the minor thing though, because as I said, it was an interesting experience to share and talk with other new players.
Edit: You know what would be great for next year? A 2 hour "Learning Magic" like the D&D folks do. Have it cover playing, what to buy as a new player, and how to start building a deck. Something to really introduce Magic as a hobby. Follow that with a slight discount on intro decks or whatnot and I would bet you'd pull some new customers into the fold.
Granted the idea was proposed only on the Monday before PAX, but when Spawnbroker suggested this, it wouldn't have taken much effort to take ownership of this and make sure it happened.
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showpost.php?p=18596269&postcount=95
You basically scrapped nearly everything that was good from last year for a format in which 50% of the players pay $10 for one booster pack. This is a shame. Mini-master is a cute format that maybe people would like to play on a lark, but it's gimmick Magic, and shouldn't be forced on people.
I heard plenty of grumblings about this. In line for the MTG Commander Panel, I spoke with 3 guys who brought Standard decks and wanted to play. They were told to find 5 more people. That's hardly a way to run Magic! The prize support was 1 box for the winner of an 8-man, in which each player paid $15. That's $120 for a Magic booster box! Given the level of customer service, players would have been better off anteing $15 directly onto the table, and then the winner could pocket $120. Walk over to any reasonable dealer, and they'll sell a booster box for $90-$100.
Again, lack of attention to detail. The ONLY MTG panel at PAX was about Commander, and you ran 2 events, both running up against the concerts?
How zero Standard events made it to the schedule, I cannot understand. "Standard wasn't popular last year" is no excuse. Your responsibility is to the MTG and PAX communities first. I understand the bottom line's important, but some events will run at a net loss. Advertising your events, having a clear schedule, and not bungling things so much will help.
Speaking of not bungling... You've been a TO for how long? This is so obvious. This shouldn't be a "we are thinking..." this should be an "OMG we are so sorry."
The setup at the Hynes was better, insofar as Magic had a bit of an obvious area for people to congregate. This year, Tabletop bled into Magic, and it was hard to figure out where the Magic players were, aside from the people in mini-master events.
The newbs to Magic (bless their hearts) are just keen to have some fun, but MTG veterans of all skill-levels are left in the cold. Treat PAX like a GP minus the main event. That means drafts, scheduled side events, maybe even promo giveaways for participation. Cut the most hardcore stuff (Vintage, Legacy) and insert some wacky stuff like the Grand Melee. Promote Commander. If allowed, use a microphone and announce queues to generate interest. Nothing sends a Magic player to your booth faster than "need one more for a Mirrodin block draft!"
Oh, and be excited! Your staff looked so bored and lifeless with the exception of the "Learn to play" folks. You've got jobs working with MTG, and you're at PAX! If you're not excited about this, I'm sure WotC and PAX can find someone else who can bring people who are enthusiastic and want to make fun times happen. Next year, I hope they do.
NO MORE TABLECLOTHS! they were a massive pain. They got horribly wrinkled, made a mess of cards, and lost some cards. One person stands and takes two or three games with them.
Train your staff better - on Friday we were told to "just go play" for Intro League, not that there were tables for it. There is no excuse for several staffers to have no idea what is playing where and how the events are running.
Mark off the Magic area better - I did see some bleeding over from table top, but not much, maybe bigger signs will help as well to clarify who should go sit where.
Clarify Intro League - I had a few people who had no idea how it should be working, if it was individual games recorded down, or best two of three matches, and what the rules were on the deck. Some people played only the one from the box, some people had heavily modified theirs with multiple packs. Even if the rules are just posted on a wall with big betters for people to all be on the same page.
More Commander! And with prize support more related to the casual friendly nature of the game. Commanded is supposed to be fun, not a hard core sweep the table with everyone style, and the prize support should try and reflect that.
More Learn to Play - I know I spent a bunch of time trying to teach people at the Intro tables. I certainly don't mind, but I felt like they could have used some more structured guidance than me just answering their questions. This goes back to clarifying the rules for Intro instead of handing out decks and telling them to just go play, and better instructed staffers.
In regards to timing - spread out over the day, and maybe start some even later. I know the concerts are at night, which means some day time events are a good idea, but late night events are key for those of us who spend the day at the Expo hall and with panels, and then game into the night.
And RE:Intro League. I kind of imagine Intro maybe requiring a play against a demo dude to get started in exchange for a booster pack or a draw of cards from the box. and help get the new players familiar before setting them at the tables.
I agree--their events are always poorly run and more focused on the profit margin than whether we (the players----by the way we are the people who spend the money at your store---how many cards did I purchase from your booth you ask? $0. How much did I spend at the booths where people were interesting in assisting me? $hundreds) are having any fun or giving the players what they want ( a well-run event for starters).
---How could it not be? It was basically the only continuous event you were offering that we didn't have to stand around and wait to start.
I heard the same thing. I would have played in any constructed event that was offered during the day, but there were none. I stopped playing after winning a mini-master event and discovering that I was entered into the 8-man vice the go infinite queue...I just couldn't bring myself to give TJ's any more money for failing at running a decent days events. How the events were set-up didn't just change from day-to-day, but changed as I was participating in an event. For a TO who has many years of experience, that's ridiculous. TJ should know what he is doing by now.
They didn't just look bored--they didn't even know how to run the events. You sent a guy who had never played minimasters in his life over to be in charge of running the event I was playing in. Total Fail!
What I'm interested in seeing:
1. Events run by people who know the format
2. Friendly/Helpful people running your booth
3. Formats that aren't about maximizing the bottom line---or even if you feel like you must, charge a higher price at PAX---Standard, More Commander (why wasn't there a 4 player Commander queue?), A more interesting draft (older packs, rochester, etc). Pauper, etc.
4. Events that start on time---Best thing I ever saw was you starting the Super Minimaster's on Sat without Brian-David Marshall, who was sitting right at your tables playing commander, waiting for you to get your act together and start the event over 30 minutes late (your people didn't even know who he was).
-I signed up and paid $5 for a Commander event, which started some 15-20 minutes late.
-I was placed in a 3-man pod. This isn't TJ's fault, but it's important later.
-The 3 of us agree on mulligan rules, shuffle up, and get started. We complete 2 entire turn cycles.
-Judge appears, pulls out his personal Commander deck, and declares himself the 4th player of the pod. I raise an objection, but ultimately decide to let it slide. Judge then proceeds to take his first two turns of the game in succession.
-Judge constantly leaves the table, to handle judge duties, presumably. It gets to a point that he is replaced by his wife piloting his deck.
-Several turns pass, and even his wife has to leave (she has a kid in tow). The game is quite developed at this point. Another person, presumably a friend of the Judge's, takes her place.
Anyone who is familiar with Magic organized play, or any sort of tournament organization, is probably wondering how any chain of events could possibly lead to first a judge joining into a game in progress, and then the judge being replaced by an outside, non-paying player not once, but twice. I'm rather incredulous myself, and I experienced it firsthand.
I've purposefully omitted the outcome of the match, because it is irrelevant to the point. That many consider Commander a "casual" format is also irrelevant here. When you charge people money to play in an event with a prize payout, it is implied that you are following some standards of protocol. I noticed the lax rules enforcement and dearth of actual, certified DCI Judges last year at PAX East 2010, and was honestly surprised TJ's was in charge again this year.
So, referring back to this thread's original post, I don't think there's anything you or your business needs to do to improve the PAX East Magic experience for 2012 -- I don't expect to see you there.
I would make the following suggestion for a change to the Mini-master format in 8-man pick-up: The biggest complaint that I see is that 50% of the folks are paying $10 for a single booster. I mostly play to have fun, not to get product (which is good, because I don't often win product...) and frankly would not be upset if the top level prizes were decreased to increase the lower levels. Yes, I know that "top half" tends to be the usual payout structure, but that does not mean that it should always be that way. In the 8-man pick-up, the prizes were 6-4-2-2. But if you are playing mini-master, you have to take into account the packs that are given as you move on, so under that prize structure, the top player, when all is said and done, walks away with 9 packs worth of product for his $10 (round 1 + round 2 + round 3 plus the 6 packs for winning), the second place gets 7, third place gets 4, fourth gets 4, fifth-eighth get 1.
Rank - total packs
1 - 9
2 - 7
3 - 4
4 - 4
5 - 1
6 - 1
7 - 1
8 - 1
Why not make the "payout" be 5-3-1-1, freeing up four packs to give to the bottom four when the go out? That keeps the total number of packs (and the bottom line) the same, but makes the distribution be:
1 - 8
2 - 6
3 - 3
4 - 3
5 - 2
6 - 2
7 - 2
8 - 2
So now, worst case, you have payed $10 for two packs plus one round of Magic. If you take the whole shebang, you still get three rounds of Magic and 8 packs total for your troubles. This sort of a payout structure might encourage more folks to play more events, without having to devote several hours to playing a major many round tourney.
Just my 2 cents.
I played in the intro league and quickly decided that was the last of my money that TJ's or whatever private store was running these things was going to get. They couldn't be bothered to know what the hell was going on, or to explain it to me when I asked. There was one guy who seemed like he was fairly friendly and whatnot, but even he didn't seem that excited about really explaining all the offerings available - he was just trying to push the Mini Masters. Which at 10$ a booster pack, I suppose I can see why.
All in all, the people I saw playing were pretty nice, and I had a few fun games (which I mostly lost), but for the rest of the con, I bought all my cards from other vendors. They were cheaper and nicer. Sadly it meant I did very little in organized play, but if it was that much hassle before the game even started, I hestitate to think what it was like in the tournies.
At an event like this, my Time is a very limited commodity. I wanted to spend that Time on Magic. But I won't waste my time on a poorly run event. I'll find something else to do with a better return on my investment.
$10 is exactly the price I'm willing to pay for 1-2 hours of M:TG entertainment at PAX, so please don't get rid of this.
Cheers!
Sounds like you'd be much better off with the Intro League if you haven't played in ages (or never played). $15 gets you just about $15 worth of product, and a bunch of newbies to play with.
The mini-master format's basically, "crack a pack, shuffle up with some lands, go!" Unless people are playing slow, that's maybe 30 minutes of entertainment for $10, and if you lost, it's $4 worth of product (one pack).
Believe me, PAX is a ripe environment for introducing tons of new people to Magic, and no TO (tournament organizer) is going to ignore newbies. The difference is that most other TOs would schedule events for people of all skill levels, and would treat PAX as an opportunity to build the community, rather than suck money out of them.
Mini-master is the $3 Pepsi of Magic.
I frankly wouldn't mind seeing all of the mini-master events go. I didn't play one because they were so overpriced, but from what I heard they weren't very much fun. I think you guys should keep the booster drafts and add more constructed queues in place of the mini-master events.
As for times, I think doing sealed on saturday night much like you did the Super FNM would be pretty fun (although that might just be because I missed the Super FNM). I also like the idea of just firing off 4-man commander queues throughout the day.
I think replacing half of the mini-master queues with standard events and half with other stuff (legacy/pauper/singleton/what have you) would give players a good chance to get exposed to all sorts of different formats and really play what they want.
I'm wondering what would happen if you had the intro deck and training area in a room somewhere separate. There seemed to be plenty of space in the building. That way you could have a few tables up front to learn to play, more organized structure to find opponents and I think it would a more inviting environment for a new player. It would also give you a space to run introductions to drafting or deck building a lot more easily.
Thank you for your support,
Tom Shea
TJ Collectibles
Tom, I don't know you/your shop, and I didn't participate in any Magic events at PAX - too busy playing D&D (but I did play back in the 4th Edition timeframe). In my opinion, you have a chance here to communicate with a lot of the more hardcore attendees. There are obviously some concerns held by multiple people about various things that were witnessed during PAX. It would go a long ways toward alleviating people's concerns if you took the time to respond to actual complaints instead of just issuing a blanket "we're looking into it" statement.
If the judge jumping into a Commander game in-progress and having 3 different people run his deck is unacceptable to you, assure people that this type of behavior will be prohibited in the future, and communicated to the staff of future events.
Frankly, a booster box as a prize for an 8-man with a $15 buy-in doesn't seem so ridiculous to me, but it sounds like there were concerns with how the games were organized and executed.
Own up to things that didn't go according to plan. Own up to things that went off according to a poor plan. If you can, explain what steps are being taken to prevent any of the Bad Things from repeating. Don't throw anyone under the bus, but explain as best you can what was out of your control so people aren't piling on you for those.
I kind of doubt that the weeping and gnashing of teeth on here will result in a TO change, but why let bad blood develop between yourself and the really vocal forumites when you are in a prime position to correct misunderstandings or address concerns professionally?
My 0.02.
Flatline last year at Pax we had a ton more issues than these. We took a similar approach and fixed a great deal of things. Some of our fixes didn't exactly work the way we wanted them to while a great deal of them did. Part of our process is to now discuss the feedback from the players with our staff and look for easy fixes first and then fix the larger problems. We do this internally.
Yes next year we will have someone overseeing the open play area to help newer players build their decks and get a better introduction into Magic. Yes we will work on putting a few more staffers on demoing. Yes we will designate a person each shift to be our greeter. Yes we will work on the schedule next year to offer more choices and event formats that meet the needs of our players. The hard thing to avoid to offer events that don't run successfully which ends up with players being unhappy as they waited for an event that didn't run.
Then we get into other issues that I alone don't have total control over. Those who know me and my store know how truly hard we work to make our events special. We don't settle. What we say doesn't matter as much as what we do. Next year you will see even more improvements.
Thanks again
Tom Shea
TJ Collectibles