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Tabletop Tournaments 2013
Since the folks running the TT tourneys haven't gotten around to it yet, I'm creating this thread as a placeholder in which to ask TT tourney questions as opposed to having a bunch of different threads about it.
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-How many players per table...4, 6?
-Are they using the base set or are all the expansions gonna be in play?
-Will there be refs to make sure no cheating/accidental rule breaking goes on?
-Who sets up the tiles & pips?
-Are they any rewards?
-(Silly Question...) When & where do you sign up for tourneys?
Besides these questions (& other general Catan/Tourney questions) this post is open to general Catan discussion....so, post away my comrades!
P.S- This is my first thread ever so please refrain from booing & throwing rotten & vegetables onstage, thanks so much ;P
Sincerely, Trev J
So tourneys are really low key compared to the panels, developer releases & stuff right? I mean if there are tourneys I'd hope a decent amount of people show up & there's incentive to spend hours gaming when you could be doing other PAX-only activities...
XBL/PSN: MiFengXia Twitter: @MiFengXia 3DS: 2423-3603-7854 Steam: Kythos
In response to your questions about the Catan Tournament, they are run and staffed by Mayfair Games. The games are run 4 to a table, with the base set only. Each days tournament is a chance to gain entry to the finals on Sunday. In the past the prize for the Sunday tournament has included qualification for large catan events at both Gen Con and Origins. I'm not sure if this will be the case this year, but Mayfair is usually pretty good about giving out prize support.
That being said at the very least the winner of each days event will receive a PAX:TT Tournament Gold Medal.
Hope that helps answer your questions. I will admit that I am not very active on these forums due to my work schedule, but I will do my best to post a general thread about Table Top Tournaments in the next couple of days so that I can answer any questions people might have.
Feel free to PM me if you have any other questions.
"One bone broken for every twig snapped underfoot"
-Llanowar punishment for trespassing.
My name is Craig, and I'm the Enforcer in charge of Table Top Tournaments at PAX: East I don't frequent these forums very often, so I apologize for the lack of information that's been put out here. Let me first try and answer the questions about the Catan Tournament.
The Catan Tournament while sponsored by PAX:TT as one of our own is actually run by Mayfair Games. They bring in staffing of their own for setup and organization of the Tournament and we offer enforcer help wherever requested.
In the past the tournament has been run as follows:
4 players per table
Base Set Only
Boards are setup by Mayfair
Prizes include: a PAX:TT Tournament Medal, and for anyone who wins through the weekend (Finals are played on Sunday) a trip to Gencon or Origins for a massive Catan tournament there sponsored by Mayfair.
I hope this helps answer your questions, and I'll go ahead and start another thread for general Tournament questions as well.
"One bone broken for every twig snapped underfoot"
-Llanowar punishment for trespassing.
My name is Craig, and I'm the Enforcer in charge of Table Top Tournaments at PAX: East I don't frequent these forums very often, so I apologize for the lack of information that's been put out here. Let me first try and answer the questions about the Catan Tournament.
The Catan Tournament while sponsored by PAX:TT as one of our own is actually run by Mayfair Games. They bring in staffing of their own for setup and organization of the Tournament and we offer enforcer help wherever requested.
In the past the tournament has been run as follows:
4 players per table
Base Set Only
Boards are setup by Mayfair
Prizes include: a PAX:TT Tournament Medal, and for anyone who wins through the weekend (Finals are played on Sunday) a trip to Gencon or Origins for a massive Catan tournament there sponsored by Mayfair.
I hope this helps answer your questions, and I'll go ahead and start another thread for general Tournament questions as well.
"One bone broken for every twig snapped underfoot"
-Llanowar punishment for trespassing.
Sweet deal! Thanks for clearing things up
@Scmulki - Prizes for other events will vary. The only guaranteed prize is the PAX:TT medal. We sometimes receive outside prize support from vendors but that is entirely up to them. The time block is as your said accounting for the slowest of games and there are multiple games per block. Most of the qualifier blocks will consist of 3 single elimination rounds in which the top two players from each pod advance to the next round, until we have a victor for that qualifier.
"One bone broken for every twig snapped underfoot"
-Llanowar punishment for trespassing.
1. Are we responsible for bringing our own land cards or will they be giving them out?
2. How exactly does the Swiss rounds work?
3. The Foil Fest says they will give you 6 Gatecrash booster packs, do we have to make a 40 card deck or 60 card deck?
4. How will the Foil Fest points work?
5. How will the Magic Convention League work? I know you'll get a Intro pack and it's supposed to be held all weekend. Do you randomly play with other people with your Intro deck or do they assign you opponents? If I miss the first day of it, can I show up on Saturday and still participate?
6. For the Two-Headed Giant tournament, do you choose your teammate or will they assign someone to you?
@OmegaFrantic All of the Magic events are run by WoTC themselves. For sealed and draft they always provide lands and such. Unfortunately I'm not familiar with the details on the other stuff. Sorry!
"One bone broken for every twig snapped underfoot"
-Llanowar punishment for trespassing.
Craig will have the final say - but we should be matching what we did at PAX Prime TT Tournaments as close as possible (which I coordinated).
At Prime, we did the following for RFTG:
Games are Multiplayer - up to 5 players per board. They will not be 1v1. (Almost without exception, PAX TTT tournaments will never be 1v1 contests. Remember - that would be asking PAX to come up with one copy of the game for every 2 players)
Qualifier Blocks (Friday and Saturday):
3 Rounds of Swiss-style play
RFTG Base + Gathering Storm
Top 6 from Friday and Top 6 from Saturday advance to Sunday Finals (Round 4)
You do not need to participate in both Qualifiers -- if you are a Finalist from one, you're good to go on Sunday. But if you wash out on Friday, you're welcome to try again in Saturday's Qualifier Block.
Sunday
Round 4: RFTG Base + Gathering Storm + Rebels vs. Imperium (probably 3 simultaneous 4-player games)
Winners Advance to Round 5
Round 5: The Finals -- Base + Gathering Storm + RvI + Brink of War (one 3-player game)
This is subject to change due to availability of Expansions on-hand at East. But this is what we ran at Prime.
Other games on the schedule that have Qualifier Blocks will be run in a similar manner - Base games or the base + an expansion for the Qualifier rounds, moving on to additional Expansions in the Finals.
"One bone broken for every twig snapped underfoot"
-Llanowar punishment for trespassing.
The more spectators in tabletop the better! Heck, bring a big foam finger and cheer for folks. It'll be great!
Now I'm really tempted to do this...
Passes: Acquired | Buttons: Acquired | April: Too far away...
Catan will be run by the Mayfair Games folks.
Everyone played 3 rounds of basic Catan (4th Edition) - expansions are not used.
At PAX Prime, Friday's Qualifier held 64 people, the top 16 advanced to Sunday
Saturday's Qualfier also held 64 people, and the top 16 advanced to Sunday.
So 32 people played in Sunday's finals.
I anticipate that the same format will be followed at East.
So excited!!
I noticed there are a few tournaments available for PAX East this year, and my buddy and I were very interested in playing in one or two of them. We are distantly removed Magic players that saw some sealed formats and thought, heck, why not, lets do it. Especially the 2 Headed Giant Mini-Master one, and potentially the Standard Sealed Deck ones on either Friday or Saturday (the two days we are there).
My questions are as such:
How/When/Where/What are the best ways of signing up for the individual tournaments?
Are we provided with land for these tourneys? I assume yes, but just wondering.
How does a 2 Headed Giant Mini-Master work? (Multipart question!)
- The description on the schedule looks like it got corrupted in the upload, I assume its 2 packs EACH of Gatecrash and some other expansion (Return to Ravnica?).
- For each round we move onto, we get another 2 packs? (1 each of each expansion?)
- Speaking of rounds, how does the tournament structure go?
- Speaking of structure, I have read about mini-master, but how does it work in 2 Headed Giant and with multiple packs? What is the deck size limit, and can we modify how many cards are in our deck(s)? Or is it purely blind and with the fixed amount of land? Can we build two decks across our partners boosters as well, or is it basically two blind decks? Can we look at our cards before we play, or is it supposed to be blind play (as is the intention of the mini-master format?)
- Speaking of blind... ok that has run its course I am all done.
How much do the 4 Booster Sealed Deck tournaments cost? I think we are more interested in the 6 Booster ones due to the variety and we are REALLY interested in the 2-Headed Giant Mini-Master, but was curious about this too.
Where is the best place to get a crash course on playing the most modern M:TG sets? I have played M:TGO on and off over the years, but I haven't really picked up playing that much in the era of Planeswalkers, nor do I know anything about the new Return to Ravnica block.
Thanks! Anyone else looking to join any tournaments? I must say I hate PAX for reigniting my desire to play M:TG!
EDIT: Sorry for making a new thread, thanks for merging me into this one!
TJ Collectibles is running the MtG events at PAX East, so you will go to their stand in the Tabletop area to sign up for events. Probably easiest to go sign up at the start of the day and then come back when it is time for your event. Land is provided for the events. The cost of each of the events can be found here: http://tjcollect.com/uploads/events/204_Pax East.pdf . To get a feel for some of the new mechanics of the game that have been released in the last few years, you can check out the Duels of the Planeswalkers games that are available on XBox Live Arcade, Steam, and the Apple App Store. They won't help you with Return to Ravnica block (for that you would probably have to dive in to MtGO or just open some packs), but it should help otherwise.
I'm definitely going to be joining the Sealed with Standard Boosters event on Friday, and might try out a Chaos Draft depending on how the weekend is going. Will probably jump in a Standard 8-man or two, as well as a Gatecrash draft or two.
I had a blast participating in the Dominion tournament last year, and met some cool people during it! I did have one complaint, though, which I hope will be addressed this time around. (I see the format has changed in general, so it seems likely it will be, anyway.)
Last year, each set of four people drew their own card mix for each of the games they played-- which meant that some people played Garden games, some people didn't, etc, and so the points available to be earned for each person varied widely. And, in the end, there was a huge tie for fourth, and they had to go based on points. It didn't really seem fair that the people who had managed to play games with higher point card combos (more available victory points, like Gardens) simply had an advantage over others who had games with only the usual Estates, Duchies, & Provs. It seems like it would be a much better idea to pre-set the combos and have each of the groups playing, essentially, the same game with the same available cards. Switch them each game for funsies, but keep them standard through the groups.
Just a thought! I'm super looking forward to it again, anyway, and hope to see some familiar faces from last year!
A list of things, should you be of the gifting persuasion
This was in response to RFTG but I assume this is true for all of the tournaments? I'm interested in the 7 Wonders tournament but wouldn't want to sit through the whole time set aside in Block A on Friday and Block B on Saturday - there's too much else to see at PAX! I also saw that Carcassonne's tournament seems to be a one-day thing, is there a similar prize for winning that, and how many people generally play?
How far in advance (and how) do we sign up for tournaments?
I don't know what this year's prize support is like, but traditionally every tournament winner receives the same type of medal.
Traditionally, signups have been posted morning-of, with maybe a very short list of signups available the night prior, so we are giving people with single day passes equal access as those who are there all weekend. Signing up is almost always done via paper at tournament HQ, and is first come, first serve.
A list of things, should you be of the gifting persuasion
Does anyone have any information on the Ticket to Ride tournament
Will only the American board be used or should i expect other regions at random. Just want to hone in on my practicing!
Thanks!
TTR:USA will probably be involved, but we try to mix things up and keep people on their toes. Expect the unexpected!
A true TTR master can win on every board, after all.
A list of things, should you be of the gifting persuasion
Wow there is a lot more going on than whats on the PAX East 2013 schedule! Thanks so much for the reply! I think my friend and I are most interested in the Two Headed Giant Mini-master format since we have both always been very interested in weirder or more random event styles. I stopped playing constructed a long time ago, preferring drafts, sealed decks, and the like. The concept of mini-master (playing your pack before you see whats in it) is pretty fascinating to me! Is there any way to contact TJ Collectibles to ask about how the Mini-Master format in 2HG will work?
Also, what is Saturday Night Showdown?
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Game Expansions:
At Prime 2012, we used the following:
Dominion: Qualifying rounds used: Base, Intrigue. Sunday rounds used: Prosperity, Hinterlands and Dark Ages. Furthermore, the Kingdom sets played each round were identical for all players, and the Kingdom Sets used in Rounds 1 and 2 were posted next to the signup sheet before the tournament started.
7 Wonders: Qualifying rounds used: Base game only. Sunday rounds used: Leaders, and then Leaders + Cities
Small World: (One day tournament) - Round 1 was Small World, Round 2 was Underground. Round 3 (finals) was Small World with Necromancer Island - Whoever had the best record after round 2 had first choice of playing the Necromancer or not. The leader passed, 2nd place player chose it - and then won the tournament
Carcassonne: (One day tournamnet) - Round 1 was Base (no River), Round 2 was Base + Princess and the Dragon. Round 3 was Base + Count of Carc.
As for PAX East:
I know for sure that Dominion will use expansions. Which ones, and when, remains a secret! The Qualifier rounds Kingdom sets will likely again be posted next to the signup sheet - so if you want to prep, head over to TT Tournament HQ as soon as the doors open (and sign up!). As for the other games you ask about, well, come play, and find out! Be prepared to test your skill!
Saturday Night Showdown:
Saturday Night Showdown is a fun, casual game event. It usually consists of 3 or 4 recognizable, easy to explain games (think games like Jenga). But you won't know exactly what you'll be playing until you show up! Players will rotate through the different games, until everyone has played them all.
(Prime 2012's games were Qwirkle, Sorry Sliders, Zombie Dice and... I forget the fourth at the moment)
Then, after finalists are determined, they'll go on to a super-special-double secret Final Round!
At East 2012, this was The Omega Virus
At Prime 2012, this was Fireball Island
Who can tell what it will be this time!
Yomi and Puzzle Strike tournament at the Game Salute booth.
http://www.fantasystrike.com/forums/index.php?threads/pax-east-2013-tournaments-and-more.7553