Magic at Pax East

Tom Shea

Hello Everyone!

We are working on the Magic Events Schedule for PAX East and would like to know if there is anything that everyone is looking for. We have several new events that are being rolled out that are very new player friendly both in terms of time and competitiveness. We have a new learn to play process as well. We will have more fill and fires to help minimize your down time as well as a few new events that fire hourly. I look forward to hearing from you.

Tom

zeale

I played magic for a very long time but haven't played in several years, so I'll primarily be doing drafts/sealed if I play. One thing I've always thought would be cool was some kind of premade decks you could "check out" and play in a constructed tournament. Obviously this wouldn't replace any major tournaments but it'd be fun to experience some of the different formats and decks without having to own the cards myself. A "proxy deck" tourney would be a lot of fun, or even if somewhat-worthy tourney decks were available to purchase on-site. I'd pay decently for a reasonable rdw standard or modern deck, or other similar archetypes that don't have a strict learning curve to pick up and go with. I think these kinds of options would help other re-ignite their passion for the game as well.

ishtra

love some drafting and quick pack-wars, but looking forward to anything though

jdixon1972

Yeh, a learn to play will be great! I haven't played since the very early days and really need a refresher/crash course to get up to speed again. I'm tired of all my guys at working pressuring me to play again, hehe.

Kaladin

Commander events! It's the only format I play anymore, and I would love to be able to play a couple games while I'm there. Maybe some Pauper/Peasant games too.

mentok1982

I will tell my friend Bryan about this thread. He is a professional level magic player and he buys and sells Magic Cards on his own website.

WuShock

Modern. Also Modern, Modern, and Modern. And Commander.

(I don't get to play Modern much where I live.)

Tom Shea

We have all of that covered, with both scheduled events, 8 person pick ups and a new format that is ideal for players who want to sample Magic in a very friendly event.

TheAggroCraig

I know my friends would appreciate an EDH tournament, idk if that's something planned or not.

Tom Shea

EDH is now called commander. We have 4 person commander events listed under our fill and fire events. Those will start every day from opening until registration closes which is around 9:00 pm each night. We are going to show our schedule in 2 ways, one form will be daily and the other will be by time it takes to play in the event. We have a new even which will take under 90 minutes to do. While others may take as long as 5 hours depending on what it is. We won't have anything as long as last year. Most events will be capped at 4 rounds and prized based on record.

flatline

Tom Shea wrote: »

EDH is now called commander. We have 4 person commander events listed under our fill and fire events. Those will start every day from opening until registration closes which is around 9:00 pm each night. We are going to show our schedule in 2 ways, one form will be daily and the other will be by time it takes to play in the event. We have a new even which will take under 90 minutes to do. While others may take as long as 5 hours depending on what it is. We won't have anything as long as last year. Most events will be capped at 4 rounds and prized based on record.

THANK YOU. My group played in at least one Magic event each day last year, and some of them ran absurdly long. Foil Fest was about as long as I'd want to go (if i recall, it was about 4-5 hours for construction and four rounds, but got a late start due to other events and huge interest). I understand some of the events had crazy grand prizes, so you had to get down to a single winner, but it tied up a lot of your resources.

Anything you can do that isn't "normal" FNM fare would be ideal. Yes, have quick fire EDH and sealed/draft pods, but for the scheduled events things like Chaos drafts (everyone gets 3 random packs), or a Modern Masters draft if you have the product (I would pay $40 to draft MM again) would be great.

mentok1982

mentok1982 wrote: »

I will tell my friend Bryan about this thread. He is a professional level magic player and he buys and sells Magic Cards on his own website.

So Bryan tells me that his formats are Legacy, Sealed and Draft.

Tom Shea

We totally agree on the length of some of last year's events which is why we are doing the following things:

capping all sealed events to 4 rounds of swiss and prizing on record,

offering online pre registration for all events that DO NOT have caps on them, all sealed deck events, all mini masters WILL NOT have Pre Registration. Fill and fire 8 person events will not have pre registration either. IF you have to check in there is no gain doing pre registration,
We will have wacky drafts (pool of possibility will be listed so you will know the possibilities) wacky drafts will now be fill and fire as last year they were very popular and frankly were too large to really fire them at a reasonable rate during listed times, and 4 pack wacky standard ( standard only packs). We have much more space this year and will be very involved in the floor plan. There will be much more room so that we are not searching for places to place events. We also are rolling out restaurant pagers which will help us fire 8 person events more easily. We also have a new sound system which should enable us to be actually heard especially in the player's lounge. Bigger space, bigger staff equals bigger experience.

Alas we don't have enough modern masters to offer that as a draft format, we need the modern masters to flush out the wacky drafts.
Keep the feedback coming
Tom

Tom Shea

On doing a Legacy event, please tell Bryan to leave his Legacy deck home. Legacy is a great format but frankly the decks are very expensive. It is really difficult to run a legacy event at a convention where we don't have any control on who is walking through our area. Pax has something like 200,000 people in attendance if you count all 3 days. Last year we did some legacy and I was VERY worried the entire weekend. It would be really awful for both Bryan and I if his legacy deck went missing while he was at PAX. We will offer Standard, and Modern events each day at scheduled times and 8 person fill and fire events all weekend long.

Tom

mentok1982

That sounds very reasonable Tom. I will let him know that Legacy games will not be happening.

Brakdor

I'm not sure if this is the sort of input you'd be looking for, but I thought a cool / fun sealed event would involve "a grand tour of Ravnica." In this event, players would receive one (1) pack each of the following sets: Ravnica, Guildpact, Dissension, Return to Ravnica. Gatecrash, and Dragon's Maze. Make a 40 card sealed deck.

Tom Shea

Your right that would be really cool and really expensive. More than I really feel comfortable charging at PAX as boxes of the first ravinca set go for really big money not sure we could even get them. Seems too expensive to run.

chaosofslayer

I was really hoping for some legacy too...

flatline

Nothing is stopping you from playing Legacy with anyone (30k attendees a day, someone will have Legacy. I think someone even had a Vintage game going last year). I'm with Tom though, no need to officially support Legacy when you have hundreds/potentially thousands wanting to play other sanctioned events.

chaosofslayer

That's true but playing a tournament is a lot more fun than just pick up casuals.

Tom Shea

My real issue with Legacy at a convention is the safety of people's cards. There are thousands of people in attendance. The feedback that we keep receiving from players at PAX East is that they DON'T want long events.

chaosofslayer

That's fair enough. This'll be my first year at a pax event so I was think it'll be similar to gencon in a way with a big magic playerbase showing up wanting to play. But if there's some good modern tournaments I'll at least have that to look forward to.

revengeanceful

One thing I would like to see improved upon a little from last year is the quality of the packs offered in the "wacky drafts". I really didn't feel like I was getting my money's worth at $25 per draft when a good chunk of the table ended up with old core set packs. They were definitely fun events and I plan on doing them again this year regardless, but if there was one thing I'd like to see different about them that would be it. Other than that, it sounds like you guys are doing a great job of learning from last year and changing up the other things I would have wanted changed (shorter events, better communication, etc.).

Lbolt187

WuShock wrote: »

Modern. Also Modern, Modern, and Modern. And Commander.

(I don't get to play Modern much where I live.)

lol Neither do I. looking forward to that. also (hopefully) MM drafts

Clix

I'm looking forward to events targeting new players. I haven't played MTG in nearly a decade, and never played competitively (don't want to either). But I love the idea of being able to pick up a tournament deck or a few boosters and play a casual game.

BUBBApax

Imsorad wrote: »

I'm looking forward to events targeting new players. I haven't played MTG in nearly a decade, and never played competitively (don't want to either). But I love the idea of being able to pick up a tournament deck or a few boosters and play a casual game.

Same here, at last years PAX east I saw looooads of people playing Magic, I got a free deck in a goodie bag but didn't know how to play (never played before). I think it would be cool to see an event to teach beginners how to play and get newcomers to Magic playing against each other.

SaintJiub

thats a great idea to hold an event to teach beginners, i've been playing for a few years now but wouldn't mind doing an event like that and helping others. I'm looking forward to some sealed too!

revengeanceful

I know for sure that they had areas for both learning to play and new player events last year, so I'm sure they'll have them both again this year.

Lbolt187

revengeanceful wrote: »

I know for sure that they had areas for both learning to play and new player events last year, so I'm sure they'll have them both again this year.

yes they do have areas for beginners including a promo intro tourney where everyone who enters gets a promo just for playing and another if you win a match. You get an intro deck to play with as your deck. If I recall But I do know they have plenty of areas to help noobs learn the game

Tom Shea

The event schedule is in the final stages of approval. It is diverse. Many formats, event length from 90 minutes, events with single elimination, many 4 round events, to a few with 6 rounds of Swiss. The 6 round events should take 6.5 to 7.0 hours to complete. Many events are fill in fire or on demand which means that they run as soon as there are 8 players signed up. Some of the events have play mats as prizes. We are going to be using some of our past Grand Prix play mats. There are modern master booster drafts on the schedule. Many of the events are capped. There will be ONLINE pre registration for events that DON'T have a cap. Our registration policy is that registration opens each day for ALL of the events scheduled for that day. I will have the full schedule on both this site by day and the tjcollect.com web site.

Lbolt187

Tom Shea wrote: »

The event schedule is in the final stages of approval. It is diverse. Many formats, event length from 90 minutes, events with single elimination, many 4 round events, to a few with 6 rounds of Swiss. The 6 round events should take 6.5 to 7.0 hours to complete. Many events are fill in fire or on demand which means that they run as soon as there are 8 players signed up. Some of the events have play mats as prizes. We are going to be using some of our past Grand Prix play mats. There are modern master booster drafts on the schedule. Many of the events are capped. There will be ONLINE pre registration for events that DON'T have a cap. Our registration policy is that registration opens each day for ALL of the events scheduled for that day. I will have the full schedule on both this site by day and the tjcollect.com web site.

Can you say how much the modern masters drafts are? definitely want to do that but have to budget accordingly.

HydrophobicFish

Ignore this if I'm off base, but I would really, really, really love to see the limited events obsessionally be formats other than just Born of the Gods and Theros... Like, a Ravnica block draft shouldn't be too hard to do, or tripple core 14... or even older stuff.
Is something like that possible if the pick up draft pod all agrees that they want to?

MSUHitman

Any events like at PAX East 2010 that will have something like a console as first prize?

BigDumbHippy

I'll have a couple decks but I probably wont just do card tricks all weekend. I might saw a lady in half. I have to check if doves are allowed in the convention center.


JK. I couldnt resist

Lbolt187

HydrophobicFish wrote: »

Ignore this if I'm off base, but I would really, really, really love to see the limited events obsessionally be formats other than just Born of the Gods and Theros... Like, a Ravnica block draft shouldn't be too hard to do, or tripple core 14... or even older stuff.
Is something like that possible if the pick up draft pod all agrees that they want to?

yes there will be something called a "wacky draft" where you draft with three packs from varying years.

BostonGameWriter

Hey everyone. I don't know if you know, but the full schedule for MTG and Kaijudo tournaments at PAX East are available. I wrote about them. So you can check them out either via the link in my signature or the TJ Collectibles website. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to link things here, otherwise I would.

revengeanceful

Can anyone explain in detail how the team Mini Masters event works? As in, do we get 6 packs as a team to build 3 decks from, or does each team member get 2 packs that is basically their deck? Also, do the rounds play like an actual team event where the three people on my team play the three people on another team and whichever team wins 2 matches wins the round?

BostonGameWriter

revengeanceful wrote: »

Can anyone explain in detail how the team Mini Masters event works? As in, do we get 6 packs as a team to build 3 decks from, or does each team member get 2 packs that is basically their deck? Also, do the rounds play like an actual team event where the three people on my team play the three people on another team and whichever team wins 2 matches wins the round?

Yeah. you get to build 3 decks out of the 6 packs they give you (You use the entire pool of cards). If you win, then you get three more packs. They do not necessarily have to go to a specific person. You pool all the resources together and add accordingly to your decks.

Yes they should play like normal team events.

They will have people onsite to explain in further detail if you need it.

Stu13x

Any word on Magic Artists that will be attending? I remember seeing Lars-Grant West the last two years. Just wanted to be ready with my cards to sign and get the skrilla together for some artwork!

revengeanceful

BostonGameWriter wrote: »

revengeanceful wrote: »

Can anyone explain in detail how the team Mini Masters event works? As in, do we get 6 packs as a team to build 3 decks from, or does each team member get 2 packs that is basically their deck? Also, do the rounds play like an actual team event where the three people on my team play the three people on another team and whichever team wins 2 matches wins the round?

Yeah. you get to build 3 decks out of the 6 packs they give you (You use the entire pool of cards). If you win, then you get three more packs. They do not necessarily have to go to a specific person. You pool all the resources together and add accordingly to your decks.

Yes they should play like normal team events.

They will have people onsite to explain in further detail if you need it.

This is exactly how I was hoping it would be run. Thanks!

cardkid123

I just took a look at the schedule and am frankly disappointed that there are only standard constructed events (unless I am mistaken). I would have loved for there to be modern tournaments in the event. I feel, since it allows the wider variety of cards to be played, it would appeal to the wider variety of casual mtg players. They probably are playing modern (or mostly modern) without even knowing it.