In Wizards of the Coast's continuing global efforts to build strong Magic and D&D player communities in hobby stores, WPN levels and benefits will apply solely to stores as of the December Friday Night Magic solicitation round starting October 15th. This change will also appear in the Mirrodin Besieged Prerelease solicitation round starting October 18th. This change allows Wizards to better leverage the strengths of the WPN and our programs, maximizing their impact for stores and promoting the formation of vibrant player communities.
Stores will earn WPN levels based on all sanctioned OP activity that they sponsor. All WPN programs, including Prereleases, D&D Encounters and FNM, will be given exclusively to store locations.
Most stores and organizers will notice no change with this shift. The vast majority of Organized Play already happens in retail locations. However, we do have individual organizers who are not associated with specific stores. We encourage these organizers to team up with a local retailer so their players can enjoy the great programs at the store's WPN level!
For those organizers unable to associate with a store, we will offer an Event Support Kit starting with Mirrodin Besieged. This kit will be identical to the Gateway Support Kit for the most recent Core set (Magic 2011 in this case), and will refresh with each new Core set. Organizers not associated with a store will also have access to rated and casual sanctioned events.
For more information please refer to the detailed FAQ, or contact your dedicated Wizards of the Coast support team at 800.324.6496 or online at www.wizards.com/customerservice.
tl;dr version:
Any Tournament Organizers, like myself, who run events outside of stores will no longer be able to hold FNMs and Prereleases.
Well, there goes 2 years of work, building up a tournament base and gaining prereleases at my college. We went from having 5-10 players (if we were lucky) to having 30+ people in attendance over just this last year. Now I'm going to have to explain to them how we will no longer have FNM or Prereleases here.
I'm so angry right now, but more than that, I'm sad that this good thing I built up from the ground is going away over one email.
That sucks. A guy from my playgroup/collegegroup just got his TO certification (is that it? Basically he can host official tournies with prizes, IDK what exactly his certification level or whatever is called) and we were just getting started and having a blast.
Now we're back to square zero.
Very disappointed with this. The local store cannot hold to output of people that attend Prereleases in my area. So many people will be turned away. Seems like a bad market idea. Apparently selling less is a good idea?
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If I make enough blind tries one of these days I'll seem smart, if only just by accident.
I jsut started a post about this over there and this is basically a kick to the gut for us TOs who don't/can't have a store due to location. I think that maybe if we can reach out to enough to browncoats (yes i'm calling us independent TOs browncoats,get over it) and get them to email WotC about this move we can have at least the affect of letting them of how much work we put in towards the system and how upsetting this is..or we can or those that can send in the receipts from food,lodging,and gas to them asking for a reimbursement for having to drive to a location that may be hours if not days away in order to do something that you were able to do back home.
So, are they no longer allowed to O a T (....hehe) or will they just not be able to sanction them?
Basically those of us who worked hard over the months and years just had the rug pulled out from under us. we down here in the middle of nowhere new mexico will now have to drive 3 to 4 hours (depending on fast you drive etc..) to go an FNM,instead of just heading over to peter pipers pizza.
However we'll still be do a basic event,jsut not FNM, pre-release or gamedays.
And if you noticed they will also be only sending one promo kit a year instead of with each new set to those without stores.
So what stops you still running a tournament on a Friday night? I'm confused. Do you just not get FNM foil cards now?
Nothing stops us from having a normal event on Friday nights. We lsoe the promo cards,along with the chance of doing other high level events like pre releases and game days.
The main reason I have so many players right now is because of the FNM foils and the Prerelease foils (and the prerelease itself). If it weren't for the giveaways (I get gateways as well) and the freebies from the tournaments I don't think I would have successful events. Now that these are gone I stand to lose many (if not all) of my players.
And this is not because they are going to go somewhere else, but because they'll either have "something better" to do on Friday nights or don't want to participate because they can't win anything special.
Basically those of us who worked hard over the months and years just had the rug pulled out from under us. we down here in the middle of nowhere new mexico will now have to drive 3 to 4 hours (depending on fast you drive etc..) to go an FNM,instead of just heading over to peter pipers pizza.
However we'll still be do a basic event,jsut not FNM, pre-release or gamedays.
And if you noticed they will also be only sending one promo kit a year instead of with each new set to those without stores.
I don't have it quite as bad, being about 40 minutes away from the nearest store with an FNM, however, I don't have a car on campus, and neither do most of my players. And I DID notice that we only get one kit a year, which is killer for me and for wizards because it's really hard to push magic onto new players if you can't give them incentive to keep playing (God I sound like a drug dealer).
Bad apples screwed it up for everyone else. The reports of people claiming host to events and just pocketing the supplies and promos for their own personal gain is most probably what spurred this decision.
Some people just can't have nice things.
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"Talkin outta turn....That's a paddlin'. Starin' at my sandals....That's a paddlin'. Paddlin' the school canoe....You better believe that's a paddlin'!" --Jasper
i live just outside of london and as far as i know, none of the clubs in and around london take place in retail locations. does that mean all the clubs in town are now boned?
where does that leave the games club? they arent a store but run massive pre-releases
Where does this leave a lot of us? What if you were trying to make a business out of being a tournament organizer, but don't have a store? Is this sounding similar to "Games club?" I imagine that this is VERY bad news for them.
Is magic now only for people who live in big cities or are fortunate enough to live near a card shop? I sure hope not.
I dont want to seem like i agree with this idea but WotC is doin this to protect themselves and the integrity of Premier Events and FNM. Many People obtain the rights to hold these events illegally by making up players and running events that dont happen to sell the items on ebay.
This does suck for a lot of people. But they arent doin this to screw the people that do this legit. They just want to cut out the people abusing the system. There are probably more TOs that just sell the items other than use this for promoting the game like they should.
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DCI Level 1 Magic Judge
UDE WoW Level 1 Judge
In Loving Memory of Rob Hudgens April 2, 2001.
In Loving Memory of Mom Harrison Feburary 14, 2005
In Loving Memory of Richie Proffitt June 8, 2008
I dont want to seem like i agree with this idea but WotC is doin this to protect themselves and the integrity of Premier Events and FNM. Many People obtain the rights to hold these events illegally by making up players and running events that dont happen to sell the items on ebay.
This does suck for a lot of people. But they arent doin this to screw the people that do this legit. They just want to cut out the people abusing the system. There are probably more TOs that just sell the items other than use this for promoting the game like they should.
But this is unbelievably easy to track down and stop. It seems like it would be easier for them to force TOs to sign a contract about this (rather than terms of service) to keep the baddies from abusing the system. What they are doing is playground logic.
I dont want to seem like i agree with this idea but WotC is doin this to protect themselves and the integrity of Premier Events and FNM. Many People obtain the rights to hold these events illegally by making up players and running events that dont happen to sell the items on ebay.
This does suck for a lot of people. But they arent doin this to screw the people that do this legit. They just want to cut out the people abusing the system. There are probably more TOs that just sell the items other than use this for promoting the game like they should.
Even if that's accurate i think it's something that WOTC will have to deal with. I thought they cared more about their player base but it seems like they don't.
Very disappointed with this. The local store cannot hold to output of people that attend Prereleases in my area. So many people will be turned away. Seems like a bad market idea. Apparently selling less is a good idea?
They can just do what one of the stores used to do here every major tournament and hire a hall of some description. They make enough cash off the events if they get a decent number of players to hire the hall for 2 days and still cover other costs. As long as the store is the sponsor of the event, it's all cool.
Edit: If you're a "club" with a physical location where all events take place, couldn't you start selling a few random products and call yourself a store? Or is this a somewhat smaller scale club than I'm imagining?
For starters, this is strictly stupid because I know TONS of cities/towns/whatevers that don't even have a local "store" to go to. This basically takes those guys out of the picture for attempting to offer a premium to their players for attending events and supporting the game.
It's a slap in the face for those people.
The other major affected group are people who split apart from a local store for any number of reasons: the owner is a dick, the store is too small, people who go that store you don't like, insane policies like "no trading/selling cards", or the only store is far away from where you live in your area, etc.
For those, people rose up and became TOs to organize events at a place that alleviated those problems from the local store and let them play magic they wanted to.
With that said, I'll offer my opinion: In these desperate times, stores who are Premiere status probably complained to that non-store-goers playing in events through other TOs are "stealing their sales" because those players would rather get their product from that TO they play through.
Also, most TOs that don't work through a store, they do not carry extra product for players to buy (like packs, boxes, and singles). If they do, it's normally no where near the level of any stores, so WotC loses sales of product because TOs will only buy the minimum product to run their events. Stores will get product for events AND buy more to sell to customers. It's that extra that is what drives more sales, and without it, WotC makes less money.
Lastly, Foils, as cool as they are, should never be a reason to change policy. Everyone is not perfect nor do they want to be. We can't screw everyone just because a handful of people don't want to play by the rules. I would be severely disappointed if WotC's decision was based solely on losing FNM foils to TOs who "fake" events.
We can see many different things at work here. It's all up to you to decide what forced this decision.
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"In response to your Brainstorm, I use Vedalken Orrery to play Chains of Mephistopheles as an instant."
-- Duncan McGregor, DCI L3 Judge, while playing his "judgebreaker" deck in an IRL EDH game
I have no idea ho the system works as I'm not a TO, but can't you affiliate yourself with a store and just rent space for FNMs and/or Pre through the store? Like, you do all the work, they just sign here and here? Or does the rules stipulate the event has to be held in store (as in, on the premises) ?
In theory, yes. But what store is going to do this when they can do it themselves (you know, make money and gain customers)? To them, you are just competition and a leech of their players. Trust me, I've tried to do this before and the answer is always the same.
If the stores can't hold the tournaments due to space constraints or simply want to hold more flights, I'm sure these "clubs" could make deals with brick 'n mortar stores to toss up a bit of advertising for the store at the tournament location in return for the store sponsoring the event.
Could a store owner please answer a few of the questions? It seems like you guys are the only ones who can help.
Like, what does it take to be sponsored by a store? Could my playgroup talk with the local store that sells comics, D&D, and Magic but is too small to host tournies and work out a deal where we still do events at the local quiznos and they just sign paperwork for us? Or are we SOL?
How much product would we need to sell to be considered "a store?" Could our TO just buy a box of, say, Scars and thus fulfill wizards requirements? (I doubt this, but a man can dream MI RITE?)
In that case this really does seem like a move to promote b'n'm store TO over those who just run tourneys. WotC apparently feels it's core business needs some support and that support will be leeched from non-store TOs.
But this doesn't justify killing prereleases and FNMs in locations nowhere near a store. Take the London example earlier in this thread, how are they going to play consistent competitive magic now that they don't have a store to go play at?
But, hey. Apparently whining enough will convince Wizards to do anything. Maybe it'll work to change the policy in the RIGHT direction.
Could a store owner please answer a few of the questions? It seems like you guys are the only ones who can help.
Like, what does it take to be sponsored by a store? Could my playgroup talk with the local store that sells comics, D&D, and Magic but is too small to host tournies and work out a deal where we still do events at the local quiznos and they just sign paperwork for us? Or are we SOL?
How much product would we need to sell to be considered "a store?" Could our TO just buy a box of, say, Scars and thus fulfill wizards requirements? (I doubt this, but a man can dream MI RITE?)
I'm not a store owner, but I'm an "independent" TO that's affiliated with a store. You just need to talk to a store owner and get listed as a TO at that location. In order to be considered a store, you have to actually have a store location that sells product. Wizards won't sell to TOs because they don't have a store (a problem that I'm dealing with now).
I'm not a store owner, but I'm an "independent" TO that's affiliated with a store. You just need to talk to a store owner and get listed as a TO at that location. In order to be considered a store, you have to actually have a store location that sells product. Wizards won't sell to TOs because they don't have a store (a problem that I'm dealing with now).
Thanks, steve, much appreciated.
Question:
Since you are affiliated with the store, do you still get the ability to do FNMs? Wizards doesn't actually sell you product for that, right?
Honestly, we don't even want our own prereleases, just FNMs.
Now I need to find a local store that sells magic, DND, and comics (all the stores that focus on gaming have TOs, but we split from them due to various issues).
So another question.
Hypothetically, can a store have two TOs?
In that case, we could talk with the local store, we're already chummy with the owners since we buy FTV and all the Duel Decks from them (again, we like the store owners, its their TO that we hate) and ask could we get our guy signed up as a TO so our playgroup of twelve can still do FNM, and furthermore tell them we'll charge their standard entry fee and give them all the profits, as well as hand out fliers advertising their store and whatever else they want us to do?
Basically, kiss their butts and hope they're down for it.
Or does this wording in the recent letter mean the tournies MUST take place inside the store?
Also, smokestack asked earlier about if you could rent space through the store... we get free space courtesy of the quiznos employees and manager who appreciate the business and all happen to play M:tG as well. (I was shocked to discover it XD) so would that be a problem?
Thanks for any answers
TL;DR, can stores have more than one TO?
I have no idea ho the system works as I'm not a TO, but can't you affiliate yourself with a store and just rent space for FNMs and/or Pre through the store? Like, you do all the work, they just sign here and here? Or does the rules stipulate the event has to be held in store (as in, on the premises) ?
Yes I believe you can.
I'm checking into it now to find out more.
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():
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"Jace, the Mind Sculptor will never be banned in Standard." -Every Random Dude Who Confuses Opinions with Facts
tl;dr version:
Any Tournament Organizers, like myself, who run events outside of stores will no longer be able to hold FNMs and Prereleases.
Well, there goes 2 years of work, building up a tournament base and gaining prereleases at my college. We went from having 5-10 players (if we were lucky) to having 30+ people in attendance over just this last year. Now I'm going to have to explain to them how we will no longer have FNM or Prereleases here.
I'm so angry right now, but more than that, I'm sad that this good thing I built up from the ground is going away over one email.
thanks DarkNightCavalier for the sig!
My Trade Thread
Now we're back to square zero.
UWBSharuum the HegemonBWU
UAzami, Lady of ScrollsU
UGMomir Vig, Simic VisionaryGU
GAzusa, Lost but SeekingG
GUEdric, Spymaster of TrestGU
If I make enough blind tries one of these days I'll seem smart, if only just by accident.
Basically those of us who worked hard over the months and years just had the rug pulled out from under us. we down here in the middle of nowhere new mexico will now have to drive 3 to 4 hours (depending on fast you drive etc..) to go an FNM,instead of just heading over to peter pipers pizza.
However we'll still be do a basic event,jsut not FNM, pre-release or gamedays.
And if you noticed they will also be only sending one promo kit a year instead of with each new set to those without stores.
Nothing stops us from having a normal event on Friday nights. We lsoe the promo cards,along with the chance of doing other high level events like pre releases and game days.
And this is not because they are going to go somewhere else, but because they'll either have "something better" to do on Friday nights or don't want to participate because they can't win anything special.
I don't have it quite as bad, being about 40 minutes away from the nearest store with an FNM, however, I don't have a car on campus, and neither do most of my players. And I DID notice that we only get one kit a year, which is killer for me and for wizards because it's really hard to push magic onto new players if you can't give them incentive to keep playing (God I sound like a drug dealer).
thanks DarkNightCavalier for the sig!
My Trade Thread
Some people just can't have nice things.
"Sometimes, I think you WANT to fail".
What the hell happened, anyway? Did Ha$bro suddenly turn back into Hasbro? Does anybody know what sparked this turn around?
Where does this leave a lot of us? What if you were trying to make a business out of being a tournament organizer, but don't have a store? Is this sounding similar to "Games club?" I imagine that this is VERY bad news for them.
Is magic now only for people who live in big cities or are fortunate enough to live near a card shop? I sure hope not.
thanks DarkNightCavalier for the sig!
My Trade Thread
This does suck for a lot of people. But they arent doin this to screw the people that do this legit. They just want to cut out the people abusing the system. There are probably more TOs that just sell the items other than use this for promoting the game like they should.
UDE WoW Level 1 Judge
In Loving Memory of Rob Hudgens April 2, 2001.
In Loving Memory of Mom Harrison Feburary 14, 2005
In Loving Memory of Richie Proffitt June 8, 2008
But this is unbelievably easy to track down and stop. It seems like it would be easier for them to force TOs to sign a contract about this (rather than terms of service) to keep the baddies from abusing the system. What they are doing is playground logic.
thanks DarkNightCavalier for the sig!
My Trade Thread
Even if that's accurate i think it's something that WOTC will have to deal with. I thought they cared more about their player base but it seems like they don't.
This is a sad day for magic, thanks ha$bro.
They can just do what one of the stores used to do here every major tournament and hire a hall of some description. They make enough cash off the events if they get a decent number of players to hire the hall for 2 days and still cover other costs. As long as the store is the sponsor of the event, it's all cool.
Edit: If you're a "club" with a physical location where all events take place, couldn't you start selling a few random products and call yourself a store? Or is this a somewhat smaller scale club than I'm imagining?
It's a slap in the face for those people.
The other major affected group are people who split apart from a local store for any number of reasons: the owner is a dick, the store is too small, people who go that store you don't like, insane policies like "no trading/selling cards", or the only store is far away from where you live in your area, etc.
For those, people rose up and became TOs to organize events at a place that alleviated those problems from the local store and let them play magic they wanted to.
With that said, I'll offer my opinion: In these desperate times, stores who are Premiere status probably complained to that non-store-goers playing in events through other TOs are "stealing their sales" because those players would rather get their product from that TO they play through.
Also, most TOs that don't work through a store, they do not carry extra product for players to buy (like packs, boxes, and singles). If they do, it's normally no where near the level of any stores, so WotC loses sales of product because TOs will only buy the minimum product to run their events. Stores will get product for events AND buy more to sell to customers. It's that extra that is what drives more sales, and without it, WotC makes less money.
Lastly, Foils, as cool as they are, should never be a reason to change policy. Everyone is not perfect nor do they want to be. We can't screw everyone just because a handful of people don't want to play by the rules. I would be severely disappointed if WotC's decision was based solely on losing FNM foils to TOs who "fake" events.
We can see many different things at work here. It's all up to you to decide what forced this decision.
-- Duncan McGregor, DCI L3 Judge, while playing his "judgebreaker" deck in an IRL EDH game
In theory, yes. But what store is going to do this when they can do it themselves (you know, make money and gain customers)? To them, you are just competition and a leech of their players. Trust me, I've tried to do this before and the answer is always the same.
thanks DarkNightCavalier for the sig!
My Trade Thread
Like, what does it take to be sponsored by a store? Could my playgroup talk with the local store that sells comics, D&D, and Magic but is too small to host tournies and work out a deal where we still do events at the local quiznos and they just sign paperwork for us? Or are we SOL?
How much product would we need to sell to be considered "a store?" Could our TO just buy a box of, say, Scars and thus fulfill wizards requirements? (I doubt this, but a man can dream MI RITE?)
UWBSharuum the HegemonBWU
UAzami, Lady of ScrollsU
UGMomir Vig, Simic VisionaryGU
GAzusa, Lost but SeekingG
GUEdric, Spymaster of TrestGU
But this doesn't justify killing prereleases and FNMs in locations nowhere near a store. Take the London example earlier in this thread, how are they going to play consistent competitive magic now that they don't have a store to go play at?
But, hey. Apparently whining enough will convince Wizards to do anything. Maybe it'll work to change the policy in the RIGHT direction.
thanks DarkNightCavalier for the sig!
My Trade Thread
I'm not a store owner, but I'm an "independent" TO that's affiliated with a store. You just need to talk to a store owner and get listed as a TO at that location. In order to be considered a store, you have to actually have a store location that sells product. Wizards won't sell to TOs because they don't have a store (a problem that I'm dealing with now).
Check out my ALTERS!
Thanks, steve, much appreciated.
Question:
Since you are affiliated with the store, do you still get the ability to do FNMs? Wizards doesn't actually sell you product for that, right?
Honestly, we don't even want our own prereleases, just FNMs.
Now I need to find a local store that sells magic, DND, and comics (all the stores that focus on gaming have TOs, but we split from them due to various issues).
So another question.
Hypothetically, can a store have two TOs?
In that case, we could talk with the local store, we're already chummy with the owners since we buy FTV and all the Duel Decks from them (again, we like the store owners, its their TO that we hate) and ask could we get our guy signed up as a TO so our playgroup of twelve can still do FNM, and furthermore tell them we'll charge their standard entry fee and give them all the profits, as well as hand out fliers advertising their store and whatever else they want us to do?
Basically, kiss their butts and hope they're down for it.
Or does this wording in the recent letter mean the tournies MUST take place inside the store?
Also, smokestack asked earlier about if you could rent space through the store... we get free space courtesy of the quiznos employees and manager who appreciate the business and all happen to play M:tG as well. (I was shocked to discover it XD) so would that be a problem?
Thanks for any answers
TL;DR, can stores have more than one TO?
UWBSharuum the HegemonBWU
UAzami, Lady of ScrollsU
UGMomir Vig, Simic VisionaryGU
GAzusa, Lost but SeekingG
GUEdric, Spymaster of TrestGU
Yes I believe you can.
I'm checking into it now to find out more.