The Games Club Invitational

[The Games Club]

Folllowing a chat with Dan Barrett on Saturday, it occured to me that we could use our WPN points (aquired by playing in tournaments on Mondays, Tuesday and Fridays only) to provide the basis on which to calculate invitations to a The Games Club Invitational.

 

http://www.thegamesclub.org/mtg/results/wpn/worldwake.htm

 

For previous Invitationals I maintained The Games Club's own ELO ratings database manually (which is a significant amount of work to maintain manually) using the same method of calcualtion used by Wizards. I was only able to include individual Swiss tournaments - no Team, 2HG or Single Elimination tournaments.

 

http://www.thegamesclub.org/mtg/rankings_and_ratings/rankings_and_r...

 

Invitations varied for each of the previous Invitationals and included a combination of at least two of the best 8 players, the worst 8 player and the 8 most frequent players. Whilst the actual format of each Invitational was different, whilst maintaining a common theme of enforced interaction between the invited players.

 

http://www.thegamesclub.org/mtg/results/invitational/invitational_(...
http://www.thegamesclub.org/mtg/results/invitational/invitational_(...
http://www.thegamesclub.org/mtg/results/invitational/invitational_(...

 

 

If we were to use similar selection criteria the following people would receive an invitation, based on our Worldwake WPN points. A player must have attended an average of at least one event every two weeks during the period covered by the WPN points.

 

TOP 8 PLAYERS

Wei Xu

Ben J W Twitchen

Thom Richardson

Richard Nunn

Zhe Qi Wang

Bejamin Lei

Simon P O'Keeffe

Nicholas A Lovett (alternate for Steve Bernstein)

 

BOTTOM 8 PLAYERS

Willem Buchling

John Heatherington

Roque Martire

Daniel Waine

Alexander Schramm

Tiffant Leek

Paul Naicker

Luis Henrique Batista

 

8 MOST FREQUENT (previously uninvited)

Jason B Howlett

Ben Titmarsh

Ross Miles

Perdo S Meireles

Ben Taylor

Paul Thomas Cridland

Martin Dingler

Larry Devis (alternate for Nicholas A Lovett)

 

Assuming that there is a sufficient amount of interest I'd be happy to starting The Games Club Invitationals again, potentially commencing with current Worldwake WPN points. We'd probably have to charge £27.50 for a Booster Draft (£20 for Constructed and £35 for Sealed Deck) to be able to offer the same level of prizes as previous the Invitationals - 36 Boosters for the winner, 18 Booster for the runner-up and 9 Booster each for the losing semi-finalists.

 

Any comments, ideas for formats and alternative prize suggestions would be appreciated. I'd really like to get these running again.

[Dan Barrett]

Sounds very expensive? I'd be more in favour of a "meaningful" prize (trophy/plaque, for example), than a box of boosters, especially if it would bring price down. Feel that would suit the tone of the event better also.


Also i'm only in favour of invitationals i get invited to. :P


But yea, looking forward to this and maybe some of the other things i suggested. :)

[Gary Lynch]

It's a nice idea but I don't see it working. Leaves out a lot of players and costs too much. £27.50 for a draft is ok if you know you can win but otherwise I think not many people would want to pay it.

Also you couldn't run this event on it's own due to venue costs so the people would need to decide if they wanted to play in this or the other event. This is also bad as some events struggle for players as it is (monthly constructed).

[Gary Lynch]

Also if your interested in running more fun tournamnets how about some sort of multiple format tournament?? You could restrict the number of players and work on a pre registered players only format to keep it managable.

How about something like EDH, reject rare draft then current format booster draft for top 8. That sounds interesting and keeps the cost down. Obviously there would need to be some prize support but I don't think a box to first would be necessary.

[Philip Dickinson]

welp 27.50 drafts sounds like a good idea...

[Gary Lynch]

Also what about some sort of event run over a month or 2? Say give points based on finish in each weekend event for a set period of time and then have a prize payout based on finish. This could perhaps inspire people to turn up to monthly constructed/sealed events. You could also give points for participation as a further incentive to turn up when perhaps people wouldnt bother.

Also this wouldnt cost as much as you could just add £1 to the entry into each tournament that would go into the end prize pool. If you had 20 people turn up twice a week for 2 months that would be £80 for the final prize pool giving you 32 boosters @ £2.50 each. This would give the final top 8 an example prize payout of 10-6-4-4-2-2-1-1. This is just a rough example, but you see where im going with this.

Also im sure that you get more than 80 players in 2 months.

Gary Lynch said:

Also if your interested in running more fun tournamnets how about some sort of multiple format tournament?? You could restrict the number of players and work on a pre registered players only format to keep it managable.

How about something like EDH, reject rare draft then current format booster draft for top 8. That sounds interesting and keeps the cost down. Obviously there would need to be some prize support but I don't think a box to first would be necessary.

[Ben Titmarsh]

I'd echo this too. Would rather pay just over normal price for a draft and get something more meaningful. I also think you should start the qualifying rounds now and specify a metric at the beginning so that people have a goal. Arbitrarily inviting people now seems a little unfair, but if you do... most frequent! most frequent!

Dan Barrett said:

Sounds very expensive? I'd be more in favour of a "meaningful" prize (trophy/plaque, for example), than a box of boosters, especially if it would bring price down. Feel that would suit the tone of the event better also.


Also i'm only in favour of invitationals i get invited to. :P


But yea, looking forward to this and maybe some of the other things i suggested. :)

[Kieran Symington]

Not sure how inviting the best and worst players is going to end in anything other than the worst players not turning up! I wouldn't if I was pretty sure I'd be facing the best eight players at the club! Unless you combine a bottom 8, a top 8 and a most frequent player and do some kind of team event. That would be interesting.

[Gary Lynch]

Come on Kieran, READ PROPERLY.

Kieran Symington said:

Not sure how inviting the best and worst players is going to end in anything other than the worst players not turning up! I wouldn't if I was pretty sure I'd be facing the best eight players at the club! Unless you combine a bottom 8, a top 8 and a most frequent player and do some kind of team event. That would be interesting.

[Battlefield Schmattlefield]

i'm in.

[ross miles]

i'm in too

[Thom Richardson]

I'm certaintly in.

I'm not too bothered about the prize support. If its expensive entry for lots of packs thats fine, if its closer to normal with more normal prizes thats fine too.

It would definatly be cool if there was a trophy on the line.

[Simon O'Keeffe]

Well as co-reigning champion with Jason and Larry, the chance of a repeat inspires me to push for this :-)

In the past the whole idea was a fun tournament that gave you some minor bragging rights of being Invitational champion for a while. I would echo Dan's comments regarding prizes. I'm not fussed in the slightest by large booster prizes. A trophy or something unique, combined with a fun event (potentially bizarre formats) would be the main draw.

Trying to mirror a little of what the old Wizards invitational did in being a spectator event might draw in some crowds, especially if they have an event of their own to play in (monthly sealed/constructed). I imagine embracing different and odd formats starts to introduce a lot of overhead for Jason, especially if this is to be a once every set thing as in the past.