So I thought I would start our normal thread for people to disucss some of the ways we can improve or change the game. This is a normal post Gencon discussion as we have basically closed out the year other than basically our normal Hall of Fame business (since we are guaranteed one new member this year yes that means you Daniel).

I think for next year, I hope to see some raised platforms for a "special event" (terrain, etc), allowing people to really see and keep people interested in SWM.

And improvements in Aaron's Excel tournament software (hopefully adding people in their assigned tables and the people "dropping" is a bit awkward). There are some random mess from the software where in the 100pt Dynamic Duo, when the tournament started, 1 person came by late to register and 1 person has a bye so I put the 2 together for the tournament by copying-pasting method on the new tournament sheet and tally the losses 1 by 1 to make sure everything is consistent. The Excel program created by Aaron is a breeze and I enjoyed running the software for your guys in Gencon.
I'm hoping that the software used for next year will be the ultimate program, flawless, used for every Gencon in the future.

Here are my thoughts based on things I saw over the weekend:

Time limit changes:

Maintain the 60 minute limit at 200

45 for 150

30 for 100

New constructed formats, similar to how we have the maps:

Standard Constructed: This is basically what we have now. Plus the varying map restrictions.

Restricted Constructed: This format limits the number of a specific figure you may have to 4. Ideally this would be the new format for Regionals and Champioships. I suppose other tournies may want to use this with the varying map restrictions, but I see Restricted/Restricted as the new level.

Obviously we are going to start looking at custom maps for inclusion, so no need to address that here.

The Jedi Challenge has become more of a time investment than the Championship. The above time limits will help reduce that, but it would still be a 9+ hour committment. I suggest incorporating Dynamic Duo and Tile wars at the 100 and 200 levels(respectively) and either a 150 constructed or something new to alleviate much of that concern.

We can then run other various constructed events in place of where the jedi challenge is now to offer essentially a better variety for our players without such a steep time crunch to them. Ray and I have been tossing a couple ideas around already about what could be added including, what I suppose could be considered a new constructed format in addition to the two above, Classic Constructed 150 which brings back the glory days as players are only allowed to use pieces from the first 3 sets in the Standard (??) map format.


On a completely unrelated note, let the trash talk commence: As my all military comprised Team America will be taking the Team Title from Team Canada next year.

Some thoughts from Bill.

1. Looking at the custom maps - I think that's the big work for the community for the fall. I think someone needs to volunteer to take that head on and get it going.

2. 3-2-1 victory system. Someone I think Engineer, brought up the idea, and I don't think it's totally necessary, but it has merit. Basically expand on the 3-2 and only award 1 point for a win where you fail to reach 1/2 of the VC. The reason I don't think it's necessary is that this weekend basically proved that the system already worked, with every player that was 4-2 in the top 8 finish with 4 3pt victories. The sheer amount of finished games was phenomenal compared to any year in the past (well over 50% of the games) and for most players it was something like 5/6, 6/6 or 4/6 that completed. There were a couple of people who failed to complete a lot of games, and as predicted, they did not get close to making the top 8. So in short, a 1pt victory wouldn't do a lot, but just further punish really slow play.

3. Expanded formats. I think as we move into Virtual realm, its time to reflect back and run some restricted tournaments (already suggested I see now - so edited).

4. Jedi Challenge - I like it, I really do, but I think it's time may have come as a Gencon event. It takes a lot of time, and a lot of the new players didn't realize they could play in just one leg of it. In the final leg, we had about 1/2 the field drop (100) because they didn't want to play the crapshoot without a chance to win. i think it works better as a solo event outside of Gencon (we did one in Michigan all in one marathon day - pretty much the way it was originally run) and it was great fun. But with so much else going on, and the schedule getting fuller each year, it might be time to look at doing other things in it's slots.

5. Rule Changes - we will have to address the custom/proxy rules this year, but that's about it. I was really happy overall with the way the rule changes of the last two years played out this year, and don't have any major issues that I saw.

6. Top 16 - Having looked at data from the past 4 years, it's pretty clear that the difference between 4-16 is almost nothing but luck. Looking from the outside this year as the judge, this was even more apparent. I have no problem with the top 8, as its fun, exciting and cool. I just think we could go to a top 16 with little issue, or even a top 12 with byes for the top 4 and make it even more fun. Swiss play is great, but we all know some of it's failings. With the 3-2 scoring we eliminated some of it, but as long as all competing players finished their games, we had to go to the randomness of SoS to determine ties. As Dean said in his report, he missed out on a top 8 basically by 2 games (with two opponents who dropped out). It seems like that every year. And if you look at this year's top 6 when I get around to posting it all, I think you will see it's a more clear line to cut at then the 8 we use now.

That's it guys. The rules worked great, and I am very happy that despite all the arguments we got it done. 5 factions in the top 8 was awesome to see, and what's more is that everyone had a legit change to win it. It really did seem to come down to the player instead of the squad, and that's what I think makes the game great.

***I'd prefer to see the Jedi Challenge events use the Restricted Map List rather than the Standard. I just think there are a few too many of those Standard-only maps that make life way too easy for certain types of squads. The Restricted Maps, imho, are pretty much un-abuseable.

***I really liked all the events I played, and there certainly was not anything I would like to see dropped. I thought there was a good mix of stuff for very experienced players (JC, Champs) and stuff for more casual folks (Duo, Sealed). That mix really should be a goal, especially if we have any hope that Gencon will help to find new players for the game. (though I suppose Sealed will become tougher to do as there come to be fewer and fewer extant boosters over time)

***Obviously the continuation of Mystery Map depends on JediCartographer making another Mystery Map, but on the other hand, I'm pretty sure that it was the 2nd-most-popular tourney behind the Champs, right? Seems like a pretty good case for giving it another run. And I love Tile Wars--keep doing Tile Wars. Indeed, if there had been two Tile Wars events rather than two Duo events, I would have been all for that.

***I think Celestial Warrior is right that some sort of "SWMini Classics" format could be very popular, whether that means "WOTC-only" or "Rebel Storm Only" or "RS to Universe" or whatever. I'd be into it, anyway.

***I thought the time limits were fine.

I think I would really like to play a RS-Universe meta 100pts tournament once - and just once But seriously, I think we will need to look at doing some kind of restricted formats going forward, and while the most likely result would be people bringing out the old standards, I think it would still be a lot of fun, considering many of those old "standards" have not been in play for a long time.

Well, obviously since I was the 16th seed, I would have been totally in favor in this--my game with Philip (He was the one-seed, right?) would have been like the Duke vs. Northern Arizona of Star Wars Minis (to be clear: I'm not Duke in this analogy). That said, if you break 16 people into the playoffs this year, you're taking like a quarter of the field, right? That seems a bit high to me, but maybe I'm wrong. Honestly, breaking 12 sounds to me like a great idea--it lets you get a few more people in who are losing on tiebreakers now, but it also gives an extra benefit to people who stomped their way through Swiss effectively enough to be in the top 4. Not only do those people get a first-round bye, they also get an extra hour of sleep.

A couple Ideas from me.

1. Legalize custom maps. Find 4 or 5 more you can put on the restricted list, and a bunch you can get on the standard list.

2. Prize support. I'll be the first to say it. If your going to want good prize support, your going to need money. I propose that the future of the league depend son membership dues. Not alot of money, just an affordable yearly rate.

3, Mystery map, I'll keep doing it no problem. I really would like a more thourough review of the maps next year though. I think the maps played fine, but the war academy had a couple issues that I didn't really catch. But it was a huge event and that blew my mind, and I am juiced to do it again.

4. A CLEARLY DEFINED SET OF RULES FOR MASS COMBAT. This is a whole almost completley untapped area of the game that has been largely ignored in the past, that I feel now, more than ever needs to be fleshed out. A mass combat league would be some sort of "team play" event.

5. I talked about it a bit at Gencon:please think about moving this to a smaller convention. There are plenty of cons out there that will literally role out the red carpet if we are runnin in there 50 or 60 deep. You'll spend less money then Gencon I bet, and you'll have a better time overall. I know theres issues with getting hotel rooms and things like that. But would anybody be willing to look at the numbers overall and see if its worth it? I think it's worth looking into. Gencon doesn't seem to care about 60 SW minis players when theres hundreds at the other side of the room playing Magic and putting thousands into the Convention economy.

In terms of meta, I'm really quite happy with the variety of squads we saw at Gencon: 5 factions made the Top 8, and each of them had a legitimate chance to win it all. In that regard, I am grateful for the Restricted Maplist, the 200pt Championship format, the 3-2 scoring system, and the other rules changes that have come over the past year. I think these changes--along with the variety of pieces and build options--have contributed to what is IMHO the best and most diversified championship meta that the game has ever had. I'd still like to see tempo control and high-activations have less dominance, but the V-set previews we saw at Gencon give me some hope that perhaps such a change is already in the works. The only other change I’d like to see with regard to meta is the addition of a few custom maps to the Restricted Maplist, as has been discussed for a while.

I would definitely like to see some events have shorter durations. Tile Wars made that change (a strict 45-minute time limit, with incentive to finish in 30), and it made a huge difference. The Team Tournament also introduced some time-limits, with very positive results.

I'm curious what the prize support will be like for SWM next year, since (as mentioned) the number of available booster cases is dwindling. [On that note, I know that I, personally, will never buy anything from Miniature Market again, since they reneged on their commitment to provide prize support for us at Gencon this year. If I'm misunderstanding something here, then please let me know, but otherwise, I'll never even consider MM for anything but JC's mappacks.]

I’d like to suggest that perhaps we should not do League Play and Sealed events again, either. Not only is the number of available booster packs dwindling, but perhaps more significantly, those events cut into prize support in a significant way…and if prize support is going to only become more difficult moving forward…. Maybe this is an un-welcome suggestion in the minds of some players, but if there are no new boosters on the way, then sealed/league events seem like natural choices for the first things to be cut. If we only receive 55 cases for prize support and 15-20 of them (is that accurate?) need to be set aside for league/sealed events, then I think we’ve got a problem.

I think there was an expectation early on that MM would host the league stuff, but for whatever reason they abandoned us at the 11th hour. I was VERY disappointed with them regarding the mystery map tourney.

I was to. Should've had some stuff in writing. The big breakdown was there was supposed to be an extra stack of mystery maps that never made it to Gencon. We basically had to canabilize 30 map packs to get the mystery maps out of them. Then I had to go into my personal stash to make sure that everyone at least had a free map out of it. So it came down to losing 30 map pack for the sake of the event.

That's not going to happen next year, because Miniature Market isn't going to be handling Star Wars maps for me for much longer.

I can tell you what happened with all the booster packs. Wizards sold all there stuff to mass market and didn't give much to all the smaller companies(websites,local shops). Basically they ended up in grocery stores, and target. Steve was expecting to get ALOT of what was left of Star Wars minis. It just never happened.

But there was a lot more I'm pissed about that I won't get into, because by and large miniature market has been very good to me.

Like I said, from here on out I'll be getting stuff in writing.

I think this is an awesome idea. The Mass Battles do a good job, I think, of drawing people in to watch, but I think some games on cool terrain would do it as well. I know that myself and other Atlanta guys would stop and check out pretty much any game that was being played on really cool terrain, if nothing else just to check out the terrain.

I also agree with Trevor about considering dropping the Sealed and League play, or maybe just cutting back on them. We already had less prize support this year than previous; it will only get less and less.

As for the meta, I loved it this year. Even though Rebels won again, it's not because tons of people were playing Rebels; in fact, there was 3 Republic squads in the top 8 to the 2 Rebel squads. Having a good squad is still a very big part of the game, but now you can do it in many factions, instead of just one or two.

I also like the top 16 idea. The top 8 cut is just so close that the difference between 8th place and 9th place is almost all luck on pairings. A top 16 only adds one more round of play on Sunday, but could make all the difference on who wins the championship.
As has been said, custom maps being made legal would be awesome. Heck, I think it's necessary to keep the game interesting. The change in legal maps in the last year shook up the meta as much as any new figures did; if we keep playing on the same old maps the game will get stale, even with new figures.

Most of these sound like good suggestions to me.

1) I agree that league/ booster draft is probably a bad idea, unless the game gets picked up soon, as it will only become harder to get the neccessary prize support for the remaining events.

2) While I can appreciate and would definitely play in a 'classic' tourney where only older peiece are allowed, I think its probably a bad idea, as it alienates a large section of players who either dont have any of the old stuff, or not enough to be competitive at all. Not really fair to them. If that idea is gonna fly, I think there needs to be another tourney going at the same time, something that allows use of the newer pieces, so those who dont have older stuff still have something to do.

If that doesnt seem like a big deal, then my other suggestion is to change the Jedi Challenge games to instead of being point level formats, to set formats. RS- CotF, BH-KotoR(thats the last 60piece set, right?), CW-MotF, or something like that. The V-set could be used in all formats or only some, or something like that.

This has already been discussed. It really only alienates a very small portion of the current Gencon community, if any. Most of those who dont personally own the older pieces are privy to others who do. This community has always been very generous with their collections.

League ate maybe 1.5-2 cases. I dont think its that much for all the fun the kids that played had. I tried to give everyone that I knew that played league that I saw on Sunday at least a rare or VR. I dont we need to run league next year. But if we have the cases I think a mix sealed or two could sell pretty good. The more the game is gone the better a sealed is going to sell. I played a SWCCG sealed at gencon this year and we got around 30 players. I think thats pretty good for a 10 year old game.

interesting...i'll have to go back and pull up some of the suggestions that got dicussed by a few people back when the idea of restriced formats was brought up last year ago or so, and give them you,you may like them or not...

Okay, if that's all it took, then I'll retract my statement. I thought it was a lot more cases than that.

I think I mentioned to someone that I didn't think I was going to play in the 100 and 150 legs of the Jedi Challenge next year because I wanted time to hit the dealer hall. I think I'd still play if these events were moved to late afternoon /evening... or times were swapped with less popular events like the sealed. At this point I don't plan on playing it again as is.

The Mystery Map was a great success, and a lot of fun. I know Matt said he was on board for next year, and it's definately an event I will be playing if it stays.

I am also for adjusting the tournament map lists to bring in more custom maps. I think there have been discussions already to that effect, so 'nuff said.

I like the idea of reducing time to play 150 and 100. Brad proved this year that it can be done.

Matt's idea of moving to a different convention where we'd get more respect and help is something we should at least look into. I know I'd miss all of the other stuff GenCon has to offer, but if our space is going to be continually reduced, we may reach a point where GenCon itself chokes us out.

This is something that has been on my mind for a bit, we have a small group here 6-12 for most events (1-2 times per month) WE have not had less than 6 since last year, however we do not have any LGS that support or carry the game for the better part of 2 years. There was 1 that did but they catered mostly to magic players nearly everyday. We have been playing at more private locations due to the local interest in the area, so has there been any thought to how we will or if we will change any of the legal locations and how a new location could be set up for competitive play (public or private) that was not a previous DCI/Wizards affiliate.

Yes, but as you said, that is for the 'current' Gencon community. Personally, I thought the main goal at this point is to grow the game as much as possible. Introduce new players, etc, to keep insterest alive, and possibly attract someone into buying to continue the game (Yes, Ive read Boris' report. I'll be convinced its going to continue when we get an announcement.).

Its not about alienating a small amount of the Gencon community, its about alienating a large section of the SWM community.

Yea, alot of newer players dont come to Gencon to play, heck Ive havent made it to one yet *sadface*, but if you cater just to the needs and wants of current players and not to the ones who might just be coming in now, or will come in sometime in the future, you risk hurting the game overall.