Today's topic is player run tournies. This article covers a brief history of past events, tips on how to find and join other players tournies, and some thoughts on starting your own tourney. I talk about the future of player run tournaments, and at the end I describe a tourney I'm planning to run in the near future.

A Memorable History

The Star Chamber universe is no stranger to tournaments run by the player base. I will describe three folks who deserve the Medal of Commendation for their stint at running player run tournaments.

Nameistoad: Nameistoad developed a tournament format entitled uncommon ground. You guessed it, only commons and uncommons are allowed. He is famous for running grand-scale tourneys and having generous tourney prizes. He had some of the largest player run tourney with as many as 20 people showing up for one of his tourneys. He is dearly missed in Star Chamber.

Labguy: Labguy ran the Laboritourney. This was back over one and a half years ago and the theme was something weird each week. Some memorable ones include mono only, self destruction (first to lose wins), and robocits unite (this would be hard to explain). He got scared away by a Tractor Beam and we haven't seen him since.

AlienProbe: The Probester has two tournament series that deserve mention: Beat the Probe and Badlands.

Beat the Probe is a free tournament. The only restriction is that you have to be an Ensign, with a political rank of Delegate or below. The tournament style is essentially what the name suggests: New players try to beat AlienProbe in a single random map game. Now Probe is apparently very confident in his newbie attacking skills so he tilts it in their favor. His deck contains only common cards, but challengers can play any deck they want. You can't find a more newbie friendly tournament than this.

The Badlands tournaments are a very unique style of tournament. They take place in chronological order and tell a story. The story is one of different races first meeting and then gearing up slowly towards war. The card restrictions reflect this, i.e. Cruisers are banned but Scout cards are encouraged. Unlike the other two playes, Probe is still an active participant in Star Chamber.

Current

If you've been a Star Chamber player for a while and haven't joined these tournaments, what's wrong with you? Perhaps you have trouble finding out about tournaments. The only answer to this is to check the Tournament section in the forums, and check often. I expect more player-run tourneys coming with the release of the Maelstrom Card Set.

Interested in starting your own player-run tournament? Do you have a great idea that you want to try it? It can be hard to find people to play in your tourney sometimes. You really have to advertise it and mention it to people in the Mezz. I wish running a tournament was easy, but the truth is, its not. Ask yourself these questions:

1. What is a good time for you and other people?
2. Do you want to play in your own tourney?
3. Does your tourney idea have mass appeal?
4. Do you want to use the automated queues?

Picking a time is something that you have to decide yourself (I suggest weekends or weeknights myself). You may not want to schedule it to coincide with WA scheduled tourneys. Perhaps the most important question is whether you want to play in your own tourney. If you do, the main consequence of this is that you no longer are an objective observer and this makes it harder to create game pairings. The old system was easy - you just had people type /roll (any number) and let the numbers do the pairings. Now, it is necessary to use an excel spreadsheet or something, or to have people pick numbers. One solution is to find a willing third party in the mezz to assist in being objective.

Assuming that you decide that your tournament has mass appeal, you will want to decide whether to use the automated queues or to run the tournament in the Mezz. The former makes prize collection and distribution a snap. The downside is that it is hard-coded to accept eight people. You will need to decide how to collect and redistribute prizes. I suggest something quick and painless.

For the benefits of the auto-queue system, consider Tsai's Even Steven tournament. This tournament is designed such that everyone comes out slightly ahead. The cost to enter automated queues is 5EPs. Considering that EPs are worth a half a pack, the ability to award out close to 3 packs per person makes it a profitable venture. Even Steven Tournaments are the second most newbie friendly tournament I know about. I don't have the space to describe all the details, but check the forums often to get a heads up on the next one, here is an example of a recent Even Steven Tourney Announcement.

Before leaving this section I wanted to offer a bit of advice for those considering running a tournament.

1. Don't be afraid to have card restrictions. Card restrictions work. These range from Toad's uncommon ground, to rules like no ship cards over 5 tech. A general rule is that the simpler the rules the better.
2. Complex rules are fun, but there is such a thing as too complex. Try to make rules that are not too hard to follow. Probe's Badland tournaments suffer from this to some extent.
3. Try something different! Normal tournaments are old hat, we are always looking for something new.
4. Borrow ideas from other people. If all else fails, just borrow Tsai's Even Steven tournament.

The Future of Player Run Tournaments

Expect more Beat the probe Events (and other tournaments by AlienProbe) and expect more Even Steven Tournaments with the new set and new client. In addition, let me tell you about a tournament event I want to run.

My story begins during Incursions when all races met and fought in one grand day of fighting. These races formed two large alliances. One group, led by Nameistoad, was victorious and was declared the ruling alliance by Supreme Leader Merakon.

This story refers to a tournament created and implemented by Merakon that was a lot of fun. The tournament I want to run is essentially the same format, with I hope some improvements.

The Great Confrontation

The idea is that there are two teams, each with 5 of the 10 races, battling out over 3 rounds. The winning team wins the most battles. I will first describe team selection, race selection, and finally, a description of how the rounds will proceed.

Team Selection

Team selection begins when there is confirmation on ten people that can make it at the allotted time. Two of these people are team captains. These two individuals meet in secret (or converse by PM) to pick teams among the players (the lower ranked captain decides who picks first).

Race selection

Each team selects five races to play with all five rounds. Each round, each race gets played once (meaning no race gets played twice). Therefore, it is important that teams get races they can play effectively. Race selection proceeds similar to the way teams were picked, except that the captain who picked last for teams picks first for races. Of course, the captain should first discuss with their team how they should prioritize the races. This is an important aspect of the game.

Preparation

The two teams get designated either Axis or Allies with the team that selected Thrass being designated Axis. Each race must choose a map to defend, example Clave will defend Rival Twins. The Allied players will play on their home map during round one, and for round two the Axis players will play on their home map. This information is shared between teams by a specified date (at least a day before the tournament so that people can prepare). Any map in the practice map list is a possible home galaxy with the exclusion of the following: Treasure at Kronos, and War Torn.

Round One

To start the tournament, the Axis team announces attacks on the Allies. Each of the five Axis teammates mention which race they are attacking with and which race they are attacking. This decides the matches for Round One (the map is the attacked player's home galaxy). The Ally team has no time to prepare-they select a deck and create the match. For each game a team wins that team gets a point.

Round Two

Round Two is the ally counter attack. Now it is the Allies turn to announce attacks on the Axis players. Proceed as in Round one with the roles reversed.

Round Three

In the third round the two teams meet on neutral territory to battle for supremacy. This battle is fought on 5 maps. These maps are Celestial Bodies, Tempest, Continuum, Arena, and Competing Pioneers. These maps were picked because in my opinion these maps are fair to most races.

First, 1 axis member picks one map and race.  
Then, 2 ally members pick one map and race.
2 axis members pick one map and race
2 ally members pick one map and race
2 axis members pick one map and race
1 ally member picks one map and race

And then the 3rd round starts.

Winners, Prizes, and Entry cost

This tournament costs 1 EP to enter. Each winning team member is awarded 3 EPs. Importantly, individual players don't win or lose, they merely help their team out if they win. Remember, this makes this a very newbie friendly tournament. The winning team is the team with most points. If the two teams are tied, the tiebreaker goes to the team that won two out of the three rounds.

Misc. Observation

Each player in the tournament is given a password. All games created in this tournament are to have that password enabled. This is to allow observation of games, but only by players in the tournament. Lets say you quickly win or lose your game. Now you can observe any of the other four games. Not only that, you can provide your teammate with advice. I'm not sure what timer we should use, but I think that 150 sec/turn is probably the right value.

Why this style

Simply, because it was so fun last time. This is a tournament that requires pro-style planning, has a psychological element to it, and involves playing as a team. It's a lot of fun watching that last game unfold that may decide the fate of the galaxy (its less fun being whispered at by four different highly excited people!).

Leto is playing.

I have made this tournament as automated as possible so that I can play in this tournament and still be objective. I really, really, want to play in this tournament so I am reserving one spot for myself. I think captains should be people with a lot of experience with the game. What I think is that I should be a captain and someone else with a gold head or close to it.

Time?

No time has been picked yet. It will be soonish. I am looking forward to feedback before an official time has been selected. Watch the tournament forums for an official announcement.